MA Master of Business Administration (MBA)

We select applicants according to potential and current ability in the following areas:

• Have the ability to think in abstract terms about planning, management and resources
• Have excellent communication skills
• Be numerate and display some experience and understanding of logistics and strategic thinking
• Be team players and builders, not competitive individualists
• Demonstrate a collaborative mindset and an ability to negotiate roles within multidisciplinary and cross-cultural teams
• Have a strong level of standard computer literacy.

What we are looking for

We actively seek applicant whose prior experience and track record will equip them to make a meaningful contribution to classroom activity and discussion.

The World Economic Forum consulted business leaders from major global organisations for its The Future of Jobs Report (2016). It concluded that the ten skills that an employee will need by 2020 are:

• Complex problem solving
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• People management
• Coordinating with others
• Emotional intelligence
• Judgement and decision making
• Service orientation
• Negotiation
• Cognitive flexibility.

The MBA embeds these in its curriculum.

The course aims to prepare graduates for the next step in their careers, whether it be a transformational senior management role within their current industry, or a new role in a completely new field of work. Entrepreneurial students are encouraged to set up their own businesses.

The emphasis on positive transformation, and a socially-motivated desire to change the world, coupled with a solid understanding of business and management will create graduates who are keen to bring about fundamental innovation and systemic change.

With this MBA, students will be able to transfer their skills within their current industry, or across industries. With developed managerial competences and innovation practice, graduates will be able to seek employment or further their career opportunities in positions that apply design thinking to complex problems, and take a holistic view of business issues. With developed leadership capacities, they will be able to combine ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ with robust knowledge and application in organisations.

For details of the wide range of careers support provided for students, please visit:

The course has six units. Across all units, business and management-related theories are integrated with creative strategies into a real-world, problem-solving approach to learning and teaching, delivering theory through practice.   

Unit 1: Orientation and Provocation (20 credits)  

Unit 1 begins by orienting you in the learning culture of the course, unpacking creative explorations from the art school and data-driven analytics of the business school. The unit explores the intersection of creative arts and business practices and the potential of this meeting space to celebrate diversity and establish discourse. You will engage in collaborative group-work to experience the value of effective teamwork and the changing roles of leadership. The unit also introduces one of the core themes of the course – personal transformation and positive change – and how to achieve this through creative strategies, experiential and peer learning, and the development of networks across the MBA community.  

Unit 2: Strategy and Systems (20 credits)  

The aim of this unit is to critically examine and provide insights into the practices and processes of strategic management within a variety of private and public sector organisations and small and medium sized enterprises, including creative and design industries. Case studies introduce core concepts of business management and systems approaches to business model innovation and development, while workshops introduce you to the application and value of creative methodologies as systematic and iterative processes in creative problem solving. You will begin to explore innovation practice, risk analysis and the relationship between strategies and systems against the economic, societal and ecological contexts in which they sit. The unit introduces the principles that guide decision-making by anticipating future impact and developing appropriate scales of action.  

Unit 3: The Collaborative Unit (20 credits)