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Honour School of Economics and Management

1. The examination in this school shall be under the supervision of the Social Sciences Board, which shall appoint a standing committee to make regulations concerning it, subject always to the subsequent clauses of this sub-section.

2. No candidate shall be admitted to examination in this school unless they have either passed or been exempted from the First Public Examination. 

3. All candidates will be required to take eight subjects in all.

4. Candidates shall be required to offer at least two subjects from Schedule A and at least two subjects from Schedule B.

5. Any candidate may offer a thesis instead of one of the subjects from Schedule A or B.

6. On entering their name for the examination by the date prescribed, each candidate must give notice to the Registrar of the papers being offered.

7. Candidates are permitted the use of one hand-held pocket calculator from a list of permitted calculators published by the Department of Economics on its Undergraduate website, which will be updated annually in the week prior to the first full week of Michaelmas Term.

8. Depending on the availability of teaching resources, not all Management Options will be available in any particular year. There may also be restrictions on numbers permitted to offer some Management subjects in any particular year. Candidates and Management tutors will be circulated in Trinity Term with details of all Options which will be available for the following year. The list, from which papers in Schedule A may be selected, and the syllabus for each, shall be approved by the Faculty of Management Studies and published on the Saïd Business School Undergraduate website by the Chair of the Standing Committee not later than the end of the Trinity Full Term of the academic year preceding the year of the examination.

9. Economics subjects 300, 301, 302, and 311 must be studied in the first year of the candidate’s enrolment for the Honour School. The rest of the subjects may only be studied in the second year of the candidate’s enrolment for the Honour School.

Details of the choices available for the second year of the Honour School will be announced at the Economics Department’s ‘Options Fair’ at the beginning of the fourth week of the first Hilary Full Term of candidates’ work for the Honour School, and will be posted on the Department’s undergraduate website at the same time.

Not all Economics subjects may be available in any particular year. There may also be restrictions on numbers permitted to offer some Economics subjects in any particular year.

Schedule A

  • (1) Accounting

    Nature and regulation of financial reporting, analysis of company accounts. Nature of management accounting, including: cost behaviour, budgetary planning and control, capital budgeting, divisional performance.

  • (2) Organisational Behaviour and Analysis

    The individual in the organisation; motivation and job satisfaction; groups at work; decision making; gender; organisational strategy and structure; the organisational environment; managerial work and behaviour; leadership; culture; power, conflict and change; contemporary and comparative approaches.

  • (3) Employment Relations

    The structure and management of the employment relationship, including its environment, and economic and social consequences; human resource strategy and style; systems of collective representation; trade union objectives and organisation; pay systems and performance appraisal; explicit and psychological contracts; the management of co-operation and conflict; employee involvement, participation and team working; technology, work design and work organisation; job regulation; the utilisation of human resources; training and performance; contemporary and comparative approaches to the management of employees.

  • (4) Finance

    Investment appraisal under conditions of certainty/uncertainty. Portfolio theory and capital asset pricing model. Sources of finance, debt capacity, dividends, and cost of capital. Financial market efficiency. Emerging issues in finance. Takeovers and mergers.

  • (5) Strategic Management

    Theoretical foundations of strategic management. Structural analysis of industries and industry dynamics. The resource and capability based view of the firm. Strategy and Organization. Nature and sources of competitive advantage and patterns of competition. Competitive and co-operative strategies. Corporate strategy and competitive advantage. International strategy. Strategic management in the public sector and not-for-profit organisations. Current issues in strategic management.

  • (6) Marketing

    Exchange in a modern economy. The marketing concept; the marketing mix, its formulation and common components; the product life-cycle and new product development; segmentation and positioning. Buyer behaviour. Marketing information and the analysis of markets and competitors. Marketing planning and marketing strategies. Models for evaluating strategic marketing opportunities.

  • (7) Technology and Operations Management

    Recent developments in operations and technology theory and practice; operations strategy; manufacturing systems; quality; supply chains; services; mass customisation; project management.

  • (8) International Business

    Theoretical foundations of international business strategy. Definition and historical underpinnings of globalisation. Global value chains. Market entry strategies. Institutional analysis and economic theory. Institutional voids. Theories of competitive and comparative advantage. Global culture and marketing. Ethical supply chains. Contemporary theories and controversies in international business.

  • (9) Entrepreneurship and Innovation

  • Identifying and evaluating business opportunities. Ascertaining customer value propositions. Developing business models. Formulating technology development and commercialization strategies. Examining alternative model of protecting intellectual property. Structuring investments in entrepreneurial ventures. Contemporary theories of entrepreneurship and innovation.

  • (10) Global Business History

    Theoretical foundations of global business history; patterns of economic development within and among nations; varieties of capitalism, changing nature of the corporation; emergence of professions; evolution of trading relationships; relationship between the state and corporation; role of family firms, non-profits, and cooperatives; development of management theory; organisational cultures; consumerism and the demand for goods; composition of the workforce; theories of technological change and innovation; financialisation of the global economy; evolving forms of capitalism.

    Students taking the Global Business History option are expected to attend the lecture course during their first year of the Final Honours School.

    (a) Assessment

    Global Business History will be examined by an assessed extended essay. Candidates will write a business history case study accompanied by a teaching note that sets out the pedagogical purpose of the case and its theoretical importance.

     (b) Authorship and origin

    No essay shall exceed 10,000 words including the main body of text, tables, figures, and diagrams, appendices, footnotes, and references.  There will be two parts to the essay – a historical case study (7,500 words maximum) and a teaching note (2,500 words maximum).

    (c) Submission of assessed work

    Candidates must upload their essay to the University approved online assessment platform by no later than noon on Thursday of Week 0 of Trinity Full Term in the year the final examination is taken. Technical information on the requirements for online submissions is provided in the Course Handbook.

Schedule B

Subjects (1) to (9) are as specified in the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Most Special Subjects may only be offered in combination with one or more of 300, 301, and 302. More than one Special Subject (under 9) may be offered.

  • (1) Quantitative Economics

  • (2) Macroeconomics

  • (3) Microeconomics

  • (4) Money and Banking

  • (5) Economics of Developing Countries

  • (6) History of the World Economy

  • (7) Econometrics

  • (8) Game Theory

  • (9) Special Subjects in Economics

Thesis

Any candidate may offer a thesis instead of a subject from Schedule A or Schedule B under (v) above, subject to the following provisions:

  • (a) Subject

    The subject of every thesis should fall within the scope of the honour school. The subject may, but need not, overlap any subject on which the candidate offers papers. Candidates are warned that they should avoid repetition in papers of materials used in their theses and that substantial repetition may be penalised.

    Every candidate shall submit through their college for approval to the Director of Undergraduate Studies for either Economics or Management depending on the branch of the school in which the subject falls the title they propose together with

    • (i) an explanation of the subject in about 100 words;

    • (ii) a letter of approval from their tutor,

    not earlier than the first day of the Trinity Full Term of the year before that in which they are to be examined and not later than the date prescribed for entry to the examination. The DUS in the relevant branch of the school shall decide as soon as possible whether or not to approve the title and shall advise the candidate immediately. No decision shall be deferred beyond the end of the fifth week of Michaelmas Full Term.

  • (b) Authorship and origin

    Every thesis shall be the candidate's own work. Their tutor may, however, discuss with them the field of study, the sources available, and the method of presentation; the tutor may also read and comment on a first draft. Theses previously submitted for the Honour School of Economics and Management may be resubmitted. No thesis will be accepted if it has already been submitted, wholly or substantially, for another Honour School or degree of this University, or for a degree of any other institution. Every candidate shall sign a certificate to the effect that the thesis is their own work and that it has not already been submitted for a degree of this or any other university. This certificate shall be submitted using the University approved online assessment platform together with the thesis. No thesis shall, however, be ineligible because it has been or is being submitted for any prize of this University.

  • (c) Length and format

    No thesis shall exceed 15,000 words, the limit to include all notes, appendices, but not bibliographies; no person or body shall have authority to permit any excess. There shall be a select bibliography or a list of sources. All theses must be typed in double spacing on one side of quarto or A4 paper. Any notes and references may be placed either at the bottom of the relevant pages or all together at the end of the thesis. The thesis must be submitted using the University approved online assessment platform.

  • (d) Submission of thesis

    Every candidate who wishes to submit a thesis shall give notice of their intention to do so on their examination entry form (in addition to seeking approval of the subject from the DUS in either Economics or Management under (a) above); and shall submit their thesis not later than noon on Thursday of the week before Trinity Full Term of the final year of the candidate’s enrolment for the Honour School to the University approved online assessment platform.