Structure
The AGSM MBA (Technology) is a part-time program and can be completed in anywhere between 2 to 6 years. There are 12 courses in the program, includes six core courses and six specialisation courses.
Compulsory core courses
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This course is a comprehensive introduction to the topic of leadership. It aims to help students to build the confidence, knowledge and skills to engage in effective leadership in a broad range of contexts. It also provides guidance on self-leadership and actively managing the process of growing as a leader.
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The Strategy course aims to equip students with the skills, knowledge and experience to formulate, evaluate and implement value-creating strategies for organisations. The course introduces students to the contemporary principles, tools and frameworks of strategic management that support the work of successful strategists in leading sustainable organisations. Whether students work in small or large organisations, whether in a startup, scale up or incumbent, domestically focused or a major international or global organisation, in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors, strategic management plays a central role in achieving the objectives of the organisation as we navigate an increasingly complex, disrupted, technology-infused, and dynamic business environment.
Core courses - choose four
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Marketing Management is a course designed to introduce fundamental marketing concepts, theories and analytical tools to managers working in today's highly competitive and complex business environment. The course places particular emphasis on the management of profitable exchange processes in the context of modern organisations and covers a diverse range of marketing topics including marketing strategy and planning, the marketing environment and how to monitor it, consumer and organisational behaviour, marketing research, market segmentation and development of target markets, new product development, pricing, distribution, promotion and international marketing. Participants are required to tackle real life marketing problems and demonstrate their ability to apply classroom knowledge to their own work situations.
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Accounting and Financial Management is designed for those who use accounting information, rather than those whose task it is to prepare it. The focus is on the understanding and use of accounting information as well as the composition and meaning of the financial statements. The course covers accounting reports prepared for external users as well as accounting reports used by managers to plan, control and make decisions.
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An understanding of economics is essential for the long-term viability of business. The economic environment in which business operates will have a vital bearing on day-to-day decisions. Economics in Management Practice lays the foundations for such knowledge. It provides a basic introduction to those economic principles that are important for business, as well as providing general economic literacy to enable participants to read and understand economic reports and to be able to communicate with and understand business people, economists and policy makers.
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This course stresses the fundamentals of corporate financial decision making with special reference to investment, financing and dividend distribution. The course develops distinct conceptual frameworks and specialised tools for solving real-world financial problems at both the personal and corporate level. Examples include funds management, mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings, portfolio selection of financial securities, public floats and the pricing of assets in the stock market. Illustrations from real-life corporate practices are used to highlight the importance and relevance of financial management to the realisation of personal and corporate financial objectives.
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Managing People & Organisations examines the different ways in which organisations approach the management of their employees. We explore the behaviour of people at work, and the impact this has on others and on the organisation itself. We consider the relationship between people management and the organisation's strategy and locate the management of 'people at work' within various theoretical, philosophical, historical and regulatory contexts.
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Evidence-based decision-making, supported by a data-driven culture, is critical to the success of organisations. It is essential that professionals can define problems clearly and systematically, know what techniques can be applied in order to solve these problems, and communicate the results concisely and effectively. This course helps students to frame business problems in a quantitative matter and learn how data collection and experimentation can help provide management insights. As the second step, students will learn how to solve problems through predictive models. This requires a basic understanding of statistics and therefore students will study the basics of regression provided by the Harvard Quantitative Methods online course during the first five weeks. This will help improve students’ data literacy in order to communicate more effectively with data scientists, as well as contribute to the democratisation of data within their business. Finally, students will learn the basics of using Tableau, one of the leading Data Analytics and Visualisation tools in the field. Through data storytelling, students will learn to communicate data more effectively and improve their ability to simplify problems and facilitate decision-making.
Technology specialisation courses – choose six
Must choose four Technology specialisation courses from below and two other electives. Or complete six Technology specialisation courses.
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Project management involves the overall planning, control and coordination of a project. It is the process by which the responsibility for all phases is combined within one multidisciplinary function. This course introduces you to the project management skills needed during the lifetime of a project. It explores some key concepts of project management, including project risk management.
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For many established businesses, the ability to identify and effectively respond to new opportunities is increasingly central to their success and, indeed, survival. Evidence suggests that innovation in a corporate context can often be difficult. In recent years, however, a growing number of organisations have drawn on approaches and practices more common to small entrepreneurial start-ups to help them identify new market opportunities and how they could respond to these opportunities. This is sometimes called ‘intrapreneurship’.
The aim of this course is to provide students with insights into the intrapreneurship process and to help them develop the skills and knowledge they need to enhance the ability of their organisations to identify new opportunities in the market and respond to them effectively. It does so by giving them hands-on experience of participating in an online corporate challenge.
One of the key aspects to successful intrapreneurship is the ability to work collaboratively across different aspects of the business, often in different locations and parts of the world. For this reason, the corporate challenge is based on group work, where students will work through an online platform to identify and develop a new business opportunity for a corporate partner.
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In this course, students will first learn the fundamentals of innovation and technology, including the impact of technology on organisational strategy, internal and external factors influence a firm’s technology strategy, diffusion of technology and technology disruption. Students are next introduced to the stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle, categories of entrepreneurial opportunities and processes for generating new business ideas. After translating opportunities into a well-crafted plan and pitch, students will learn various financial strategies to support new business and how to design experiments using minimum viable products to test market-driven hypotheses and refine multiple aspects of the business model. Next, students will explore essential factors influencing customers to adopt new products in the current business environment and approaches to scaling businesses built on new products and services. Finally, the course concludes by analysing how startups can embed globalisation into the foundations of their ventures and looking at strategies of established firms in creating breakthrough innovations.
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The course is divided into two key themes. Weeks 1-5 focus primarily on the strategic role and organisational value of digital technologies. Weeks 6-10 focus on the strategic management of digital technologies to realise this value potential. Every week there will be a mix of readings and/or case studies that form the foundation of discussions and activities. Some written preparation in the form of a blog post is required every week to ensure students have done the pre-work necessary to engage in these class discussions, which are facilitated face-to-face or via the course forum.
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This course provides students with applied, critical thinking and application skills for effective strategy implementation. With a focus on a spectrum of principles and features that influence strategy execution, it helps develop practical insights into organisational transformation. The course aligns with the content of other strategy courses, but focuses on the spectrum of issues to translate strategy implementation detailing how organisations can achieve sustained effectiveness with both its current challenges and future possibilities. In this context, the course deals with themes on the strategic process of managing for change, redesigning structure, human capital and talent management, and smart responses to technology. The course challenges students to think critically and develop useful insights about the concepts and principles on making better strategy.
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Managing Digital Technology increases technical literacy of managers and leaders. The main objective of this course is to give managers a high-level overview of the fundamental concepts, main topics and problems in computer science and information technology and how they relate to business settings, and thus equip them to make better decisions regarding applications of technology, even if they are not technologists themselves. This course takes a top-down approach and emphasises high level mastery of important concepts in computer science and information technology. Students who successfully complete this course will feel confident in any technology organisation and will have an appreciation for the problems in the field, how they affect or constrain business decisions and how it all works.
Electives:
Students can take up to two elective course from any courses with an AGSM prefix (e.g. core courses and courses from other specialisations) including the AGSM9155 Strategic Consulting Project or participate in an international exchange.
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This course provides you with the opportunity to develop and practise your problem-solving skills by integrating your knowledge, skills, experience and various tools you have acquired during your MBAX studies. By investigating a particular strategic issue in an organisation, working as a team on the client issue, identifying solutions for that issue, and presenting practical recommendations to the client, you will acquire the skills and practical experience to become effective leaders and innovators.
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AGSM @ UNSW Business School partners with over 30 elite business schools across Asia, Europe, UK and the USA to provide exchange opportunities for MBA students.
AGSM is a proud member of both the PIM and GNAM international networks through which students have access to short and international experience.
Partnership in International Management (PIM) is an international consortium of business schools from around the world which provides a framework for international cooperation primarily at the graduate level. Through this network of 65 leading business schools AGSM students can access exchange opportunities.
Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM) is a powerful network created by 32 of the world’s leading business schools. As the only Australian university in the network, AGSM students have a unique opportunity to apply for participation in Global Network Weeks and Global Network Courses during their MBA program.