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BBA - International Business

Quantitative Methods for Business

Programme Objectives

The programme has the following aims:

  1. To enable the study of organisations, their management and the changing external and international contexts in which they operate.

  2. Equip individuals for and/or development of a career in international business and associated specialized areas in business development, marketing, finance and tourism management at a professional or equivalent level to assume managerial positions in the arena of international business.

  3. Development of the ability to apply knowledge and understanding of international business and management to complex issues, both systematically and creatively, to improve business and management practice.

  4. Enhancement of lifelong learning and personal development so as to be able to work with self-direction and originality and to contribute to business and society at large.

Benefits

On successful completion of the programme, participants will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate understanding of management theories, current issues of management, the development of conceptual frameworks to guide their application within organizations operating in an increasingly global and competitive environment.
  2. Acquire a strong foundation in key functional areas of business management to enable them to succeed as effective managers in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment.
  3. Exhibit a coherent body of knowledge on economic, ethical, environmental, legal, political, sociological and technological factors together with their effects at local, national and international levels upon the strategy, behaviour and management of organisations.
  4. Demonstrate command of a range of competencies relevant to cross-border management, including inter-cultural awareness and understanding.
  5. Acquire and use a range of concepts, tools and techniques for problem solving and decision-making for analyzing complex and inter-related business scenarios.
  6. Demonstrate and apply critical skills enabling the investigation and evaluation of valid and relevant management issues and practices.

Programme Content

Overview

The ability to understand and use quantitative information as part of business analysis is a key skill.  Students will need this skill to develop their problem solving ability in other modules. This skill will also help students succeed in the work environment and will enhance their use of business software. Business and management activities take place within a world of uncertainty and quantitative skills help to overcome the problems of uncertainty. This module allows students to develop key quantitative skills in the context of problem solving.  Students will be gathering, analysing and using data analysis in order to resolve problems relevant for business and management using available spreadsheet such as MICROSOFT OFICE EXCEL for analysis and presentation.

A lecture format will be used to introduce students to the main concepts and analysis topics but also to show them how to use Excel to do the quantitative analysis by using a number of selected range of practice data. Tutorial sessions will allow students to explore the techniques in an applied setting using Excel and data to generate results and attempts at making sense of the results generated. The emphasis is to have clear focus on statements of interpretation rather than calculations.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate knowledge of relevant methods for data analysis in business and management.
  • Demonstrate an ability to present, discuss and use the results of data analysis for a business decision in a written and professional format.

Syllabus

  • Use of measures of central tendency, calculation, meaning and interpretation
  • Use of measures of dispersion, calculation, meaning and interpretation.
  • Simple index numbers and financial calculations including interest and discounting, their meaning and interpretation.
  • Basic rules of probability and using decision trees.
  • Sampling techniques and sampling distribution of means.
  • Standard Normal distribution, using Z scores, creating for confidence intervals for estimating means and proportions.
  • Types of hypotheses, errors, and simple hypothesis tests of means

Resources

  • Course Materials provided by IPE.
  • Mik Wisniewski, Quantitative Methods for Decision Makers, 6th Edition, 2009, Pearson Education
  • Donald Waters, Quantitative Methods for Business, 5th Edition, 2009, Pearson Education
  • Online resources on OCTAL Portal
  • Online data bases from IPE’s E Library