BA (Hons) International Hospitality Business Management (Top-Up degree)

Program Overview

This program focuses on the management and leadership skills necessary for success in the hospitality industry. Students will learn about leadership and management in context, management research, managing cultural issues in service delivery, and strategic hospitality operation management. The program also offers optional modules in consumer behavior, business psychology, and global business environment.

Program Outline

Outline:

Year 3

Module Content:

• Leadership and Management in Context (Core)
• Management Research Project (Core)
• Managing Cultural Issues in Service Delivery (Core)
• Strategic Hospitality Operation Management (Core)
• Consumer Behaviour (Optional)
• Business Psychology (Optional)
• Global Business Environment (Optional)

Module Descriptions:

Leadership and Management in Context

• Examines the concepts of leadership and management within modern organizations, with a focus on the current business environment, employment law, and a savvy employee base.
• Evaluates and develops newer leadership skills and techniques, such as mentoring and coaching, alongside more traditional skills like communication, persuasion, negotiation, and conflict resolution.
• Analyzes how these are applied in specific situations, particularly periods of change.
• Explores the inter-relation between leadership and management, as well as the place of both at differing levels within organizations.
• Evaluates the occurrence and application of leadership by individuals without positional power.
• Explores and develops skills required for good leadership.
• Critically evaluates key theories, research, practices, and skills of leadership and management, with emphasis on supporting personal development portfolios in the area of leadership skills.
• Provides opportunities to discover and develop leadership skills and reflect on means of development to support future employability.

Management Research Project

• Provides an opportunity to engage in a small-scale business research project.
• Content of the project is determined by the student in response to an issue in their current practice.
• Develops analytical and critical skills in an analysis of a service sector topic selected by the student.
• Guided by a module tutor who assists with framing the research question.
• Assessed through a piece of work that presents the process and outcome of the student's own research, which should produce actionable results with practical impact within the hospitality businesses, such as practical problem solutions, providing 'how-to' knowledge, or new product development.
• Develops transferable skills, including professional awareness, specific occupational skills, and technical skills.
• Good PDP opportunity for developing expertise.

Managing Cultural Issues in Service Delivery

• Examines how cultural differences impact organizational performance within service sectors.
• Seeks ways of delivering quality service that meets expectations of an increasingly diverse market.
• Examines the concepts of culture and its impact on communication and performance in the workplace.
• Focuses on organizational diversity strategies in service sector organizations and HRM practice, such as recruitment, promotion, training, and flexible working arrangements.
• Enables students to develop problem-solving skills relating to managing diversity at work through discussions based on organizational scenarios.
• Assessed through group discussion boards and a collaborative piece of work.
• Develops transferable skills such as negotiation, persuasion, and teamwork.
• Provides opportunities for networking with peers.

Strategic Hospitality Operation Management

• Examines the parameters of operations within a hospitality context that must be managed to achieve business goals.
• Examines challenging management issues, with a focus on the efficient and effective use of resources to provide quality customer service as the basis for creating stakeholder values.
• Assessed through the production of guidance materials to a front-line manager within an hospitality organization.
• Develops transferable skills such as professional awareness, professional development, specific occupational skills, and technical skills.

Consumer Behaviour

• Introduces key topics about psychology in the workplace, such as leadership, corporate crime, and workplace motivation.
• Focuses on the application of psychology to real business problems.
• Covers fundamental applications of psychology, as a science, for understanding important business, work, and workforce problems.
• Encourages students to apply contemporary psychological concepts and methods to understand the application of psychology to core work and organizational issues.
• Considers how ideas from psychology are used to increase people's effectiveness at work and how these ideas can assist in the development of personal and organizational change needed by people and organizations.

Business Psychology

• Concerns itself with theories underlying customer behaviour and provides a foundation for analyzing customer needs and wants.
• Provides an opportunity for students to apply these concepts through self-analysis and/or through applications in case studies or real-life situations.

Global Business Environment

• Analyzes financial statements to assess the health of a company and its ability to deal with future challenges.
• Concentrates on using financial information to assess the relative strengths of companies and the impact of outside forces on their viability.
• Uses analytical and forecasting skills to aid decision making.

Assessment:

• Assessments are designed according to the guidelines of each module specification.
• Assessments enable learners to demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes across the individual elements of the program.
• Range of assessments utilized includes essays, reports, presentations, other structured assignments, and examinations.
• Assessments are drafted in conjunction with the curriculum development department and tutor concerned.
• Final version is confirmed by the curriculum development department.
• Assessments are moderated by tutor concerned and further verified by the Internal Verifier.

Teaching:

• Range of innovative teaching materials provides a varied and enjoyable learning experience.
• Expert online tutors provide support throughout the program.
• Online study offers flexibility to study at the most convenient time and place.
• Course modules operate within a fixed trimester but allow for study during the day, in the evenings, or at the weekend.
• Technology enhanced learning tools and activities enhance autonomous and independent learning.
• Students have access to a range of tools and activities, providing support for research activities, personal diagnostics, additional content, online discussion, and self-directed study techniques.
• Different methods are used to take account of different learning preferences, including face-to-face or virtual lectures, case studies, role play, debates, student presentations, formative and summative enquiry-based learning, and problem-solving activities.
• Programs encourage students to apply learning to the workplace, which is a central feature of the teaching and learning strategy.
• This is achieved through a variety of means to encourage and develop critical evaluation and the ability to synthesize and apply solutions to complex real-life hospitality problems.

€5,900 Prices for Non EU applicants may differ