MA Human Resource Management

This module examines how work is changing and what forces are reshaping organisations, economies, and labour markets. Students engage with futures-thinking methodologies, horizon scanning, and connecting with external networks to anticipate emerging priorities. The module positions integrated people practices within emerging contexts rather than inherited assumptions, treating digital HRM not as a bolt-on but as fundamental reshaping of how work is organised, experienced, and managed. Students develop the capability to anticipate and prepare for future people management challenges through systematic analysis of technological, environmental, demographic, and geopolitical forces. 

This module anchors people strategy in sustainability and ethics from the outset. Students learn how organisational strategy translates to people work and how people professionals can shape strategy, not just implement it. The module covers people planning that accounts for planetary boundaries, intergenerational responsibility, and stakeholder value beyond shareholders. Students develop skills in partnering with stakeholders to understand current and future needs, building robust business cases that include social and environmental return, and tailoring influencing style and communication to gain buy-in from different audiences. Ethical perspectives are positioned as the foundation for strategic thinking, with emphasis on challenging decisions that are not ethical and understanding organisational risks. 

This module addresses change and organisation development with genuine attention to power, voice, and whose interests transformation serves. Students explore how change methodologies impact culture in different ways and learn to apply and adapt models of facilitation, consulting, coaching and mentoring to support transformation. The module emphasises the psychology of change, how people experience it, and how to maximise listening during transitions. Systemic thinking is applied without flattening complexity, enabling students to identify which levers achieve and sustain change. A distinctive feature is the commitment to evaluating impact honestly, including unintended consequences and who bears the costs, with emphasis on learning from outcomes to inform future practice. 

This module establishes foundations for rigorous, ethical inquiry into people and organisations. Students engage with philosophy of social science, exploring epistemology, ontology, and why these matter for research design. The module covers both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, examining their assumptions, strengths and limitations. Methods for data collection and analysis are explored including surveys, interviews, focus groups, documentary analysis, and statistical techniques. Research ethics is positioned as central, addressing consent, confidentiality, and power dynamics. Students develop skills in critical appraisal of existing research, assessing quality and identifying bias, alongside literature searching and systematic review. The module culminates in developing a viable research proposal with clear questions, justified methodology, and planned feasibility. Throughout, emphasis is placed on reflection on own development as a researcher, seeking feedback, and applying learning. 

This module positions legal framework as one dimension of how the employment relationship is structured, negotiated, and contested. Students examine current and future regulation, including platform work, AI in hiring, post-pandemic rights, and evolving worker protections. The module teaches how to apply law and mitigate risk but frames this around relationship and protection rather than mere compliance. Emphasis is placed on emerging legal terrain that students will navigate throughout their careers, developing strategic understanding of how evolving regulation shapes employment relationships and ethical people practices. 

This module integrates performance management with talent and development, questioning traditional frameworks including annual reviews, forced rankings, and nine-box grids while exploring alternative approaches. Students examine how "talent" and "potential" get constructed in organisations, learning to assess quality and relevance of evidence and identify sources of bias. The module develops skills in designing measures that matter, developing genuine insight, and assessing impact on people. A disciplined, open-minded approach to understanding root causes is emphasised, enabling critical inquiry into how organisations define and measure "good" performance. Students learn to integrate performance management with talent development using evidence-based approaches that enable continuous professional development. 

This module examines who gets included, who gets heard, and how workers organise and gain representation. Students learn to role-model inclusion and embrace difference, build collaborative relationships across organisational boundaries, cultures, and disciplines, and enable meaningful voice by involving people in decisions that affect them. The module develops skills in constructive challenge in the face of opposition and bringing a people perspective to organisational decision-making. A distinctive feature is the connection between individual inclusion and collective representation, examining unions, works councils, employee forums, and new forms of worker organising. The module addresses power, participation, and the contested politics of voice in organisations. 

This module positions wellbeing not as wellness programmes but as a fundamental orientation. Students explore what it means for work to enable human flourishing, learning to demonstrate compassion, humanity, and fairness in their approach. The module examines how people practices create value and the associated risks when they do not prioritise wellbeing. Connection is made to the ILO decent work agenda, psychosocial safety, sustainable workload, and dignity at work. The module gives ethical and practical weight to "valuing people" as more than rhetoric, developing skills in challenging decisions and practices that undermine wellbeing and decent work. 

This module represents a substantial, independent inquiry into a people management issue of significance to theory, practice, or both. Students investigate a question that matters to them, to organisations, or to the field. They identify a research question arising from professional experience, programme learning, or genuine curiosity, addressing emerging challenges, persistent problems, or underexplored dimensions of people practice. Students design and execute an appropriate research strategy, justified by the question and grounded in methodological foundations. Ethical approval is required for projects involving human participants. The project demonstrates the ability to engage critically with literature, collect and analyse data rigorously, and situate findings within existing knowledge. Students reflect throughout, seek feedback from supervisors and peers, and enable others' learning through knowledge sharing and presentation of findings. Each student works with an academic supervisor providing guidance, challenge, and support. The primary output is a 15,000-20,000-word dissertation that demonstrates a clear research question, critical engagement with the literature, a rigorous methodology, systematic analysis, and reflection on limitations.