MBA Creative Leadership

Location: Tremough Campus/online
Duration: Two years part-time

* New course for 2012 subject to validation

Why study MBA Creative Leadership at University College Falmouth?

The MBA Creative Leadership is designed for individuals whose businesses depend on continuous innovation, on new ideas, new services, new experiences. In which strategy, structure, staffing and all the business processes of an organisation have to be reconciled with the intangibility, unknowability of its 'goods' and the uncertainty and unpredictability of the 'experience economy'.

It is designed to develop business leaders that can reconcile often risky, instinctive, creative endeavour with investor-friendly management discipline. Drawing on visiting professors, distinguished speakers and case studies from around the world, it supports this leadership development in a global context with particular reference to important, emerging markets for the creative industries.

This is an exciting new course that focuses on leadership and management in the global creative industries. Taught part-time over two years, it combines residential units, online activity, business consultancy projects and an opportunity to study overseas.

Tell me more about the MBA Creative Leadership course

The creative industries are big business. Within the UK, they turn over some £60 billion a year, generate £16 billion of exports, employ around two million people, constitute a world-beating percentage of the national GVA and have consistently grown faster than the economy as a whole.

The creative industries provide work for 3-5% of the workforce in OECD economies. And their global value is now measured in trillions of US dollars with many countries implementing explicit creative industries strategies to accelerate their growth and development.

Yet, despite this economic significance and the continuing opportunities for extraordinary growth, relatively little attention is given to the distinct managerial and organisational challenges of the creative industries: the tension, for example, between the conditions and processes that facilitate creativity and the framing of that creativity within manageable and productive bounds.

We believe that creative practitioners need to apply the same level of intelligence and imagination to the business of their practice as they do to the practice itself; and that the management of this raw material ought to be as reflexive and self-critical a practice as the creative act itself.

The MBA Creative Leadership, partly funded through the European Social Fund, will be offered part-time by blended learning from October 2012, using a combination of intensive residential modules, a sophisticated Virtual Learning Environment and distance learning. Residential modules will be based in the AIR building on our Tremough Campus. The programme will contain compelling, complex challenges that require you to apply immediately the concepts, skills and modes of thinking that are stimulated through the lectures, seminars and workshops.

By the end of the course you will be able to demonstrate:

• In-depth knowledge and understanding of complex business situations and an understanding of global issues
• Understanding of responsible risk management and sustainable value creation on the basis of the environmental, social and governance impacts of business
• Understanding of production and marketing of goods and/or services and the financing of business enterprise or other forms of organisation
• Understanding of the concepts and applications of accounting, of quantitative methods, and management information systems including IT applications, organisation theory, behaviour, HRM issues and interpersonal communications
• Understanding of the processes and problems of general management at the operational and strategic level
• Knowledge of macro and micro economics
• Understanding of business research methods and consultancy skills
• Knowledge of the impact of environmental forces on organisations, including: legal systems; demographics; ethical, social, and technological change issues
• Professional ethical values 

The MBA Creative Leadership will bring together visiting professors, associate faculty, industry leaders, design thinkers, other practitioners from the highest levels of the UK creative industries alongside experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

The programme has been developed by a team of advisors, including Professor Geoff Smith, Professor Phil Stenton, Jerome Fletcher and Dr David Hawkins at University College Falmouth; Professor Julie Logan, CASS Business School; Malcolm Kirkup, Director of the One Planet MBA, University of Exeter; Lucy Kimbell, Clark Fellow in Design Leadership at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; Bonnie Dean, Senior Adviser at Quantum Property with extensive managerial and board-level experience in the manufacturing and engineering sectors; and Dr Andrea Siodmok, Programme Director of DOTT Cornwall and former Chief Design Office at the UK Design Council.

Course outline

• The Business of Creativity
• Applied Finance & Accounting
• Leadership Intelligence
• Innovation Lab
• Marketing Studio
• Global Entrepreneurship
• Capstone Project 

How is the course taught?

The applied nature of the MBA requires a wide range of teaching methods and modes including lectures and workshops, collaborative online networks, intensive residential blocks, guest speakers, facilitated discussions, directed reading, syndicate tasks, problem-based and case-study learning, prototyping and consultancy.

The aims of the MBA Creative Leadership are to:

• Prepare you for transformational leadership roles in the creative industries and in creative organisations worldwide
• Equip you with the knowledge, understanding, skills and attributes necessary to lead and manage change within creative organisations
• Develop strategic thinking, innovation and entrepreneurial skills
• Develop knowledge, at an advanced level, of creative organisations, their management and the changing environment in which they operate
• Develop an understanding, and provide experience of, some of the challenges (and potential responses) facing the global creative industries
• Develop the ability to apply knowledge and experience to complex business issues in a range of contexts
• Develop an understanding of responsible risk management and sustainable value creation on the basis of the environmental, social and governance impacts of creative businesses and organisations
• Develop interpersonal and group-working skills
• Create a stimulating learning environment and network that will develop your appetite for lifelong learning and continuing professional development

Upon successful completion of the MBA Creative Leadership, you should be able to:

• Understand and apply your creative leadership capability, through strategic management, to transform personal and organisational performance
• Demonstrate a critical awareness of current issues in the international business of creativity
• Know and understand creative organisations and their stakeholders, the global context in which they operate and how they are managed from a sustainable and long term perspective
• Be proactive in recognising the need for change and have the ability to lead and manage change
• Integrate new knowledge with previous learning and experiences and apply this effectively in complex and unpredictable situations
• Integrate learning from a comprehensive range of managerial subject areas to understand and address complex situations holistically
• Analyse, synthesise and solve multifaceted, unfamiliar business problems and communicate these solutions to a range of audiences
• Adapt, and show originality, insight, and critical and creative abilities, which can all be brought to bear upon problem situations
• Think critically and act creatively in order to manage creative processes effectively within and across an organisation
• Act autonomously in planning and implementing projects at professional levels

Assessment

The modes of assessment used in the MBA Creative Leadership include:

• Formative and summative exercises and assignments
• Written reports and contextual reviews
• Individual and group presentations
• Case studies
• Practical projects
• Consultancy engagements

Continuous self and peer evaluation will help you to develop a reflective and critical appreciation of your own progression.

Entry requirements

A first degree, in any discipline, equivalent to a 2:1 standard from a recognised university, as determined by the Admissions Office in consultation with the International Office. A minimum of three years appropriate and relevant post-graduation work experience (usually in a managerial or supervisory capacity). International students are expected to have English proficiency equivalent to IELTS 7.0.

Applicants without a first degree may be acceptable for entry to study at this level on assessment through a process called APEL (accreditation of prior experiential learning, which carries a fee of £25). Please contact Admissions for guidance notes on APEL and APL (accreditation of prior learning).

Employability

The MBA Creative Leadership is a career development programme that builds on your post-graduation experience in creative enterprise and management and prepares you for transformational leadership roles in the global creative industries.

By the end of the course you will be able to demonstrate:

• Leadership skills; strategic thinking, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial skills
• Strategic management and project management skills
• Integrative and critical thinking skills
• The ability to analyse global forces that affect organisational success
• The ability to identify and evaluate ethical dilemmas related to business decisions
• The ability to analyse, synthesise and solve complex unstructured business problems
• The ability to formulate effective business strategies and to utilise information technologies in the design and management of the organisation
• The ability to manage group and individual dynamics in organisations and to lead, motivate and develop others in an organisational context
• The ability to make sound judgements with incomplete data and communicate conclusions clearly to a range of audiences

Successful completion of the MBA would also provide a sound platform for research degree study, leading, for example, to an MPhil or PhD.

Answers and advice about the course

 Postgraduate study guide 2012 (2.70 MB)

For more information about the MBA Creative Leadership course at University College Falmouth please email: mba@falmouth.ac.uk

Postgraduate scholarships

We are pleased to announce our MBA and MA scholarships for students joining us for the 2012/13 academic year. Full details about the scholarships, eligibility, and application deadlines are available on our postgraduate funding page.