Module BUSI3401: Facing the Future

Department: Management and Marketing

BUSI3401: Facing the Future

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To develop a deep and critical appreciation for futures-thinking and foresight methods, using academic frames, narratives, and insights.
• To develop an awareness of global systemic issues arising from major existential threats and the corresponding negative effects on businesses, markets, societies, and institutions.
• To develop students' anticipatory competencies, imagining and envisioning potential and predictable future scenarios, evaluating opportunities and threats on which the survival of people and the planet depend.

Content

• Introduction of Futures Thinking and related frameworks/toolkits
• Sustainability and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• Systems Thinking: Connectedness, Complexity, Change.
• Future of Work, Society, and Organisations
• Converging Mega-crises
• Disruptive Innovation
• Transformational change
• Dystopian Futures
• The role of power and information in contemporary and future management landscapes.
• Stakeholder perspectives and the challenges of reaching a consensus about the technical feasibility, economic rationality, and moral responsibility of effecting transformational change.
• The nature of complex interconnected outcomes that different courses of action might have.
• How futures thinking can create a more equitable, inclusive, innovative, and sustainable future.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate a deep and critical understanding of the future challenges and opportunities for business and society.
• Apply and understand a wide range of future-orientated mindset theories and frameworks.
• Comprehend the underlying causes of system failure, including the multi-faceted perspectives of actors and stakeholders that influence the future responsibilities of businesses, society, and the environment.
• Understand the role of imagination and foresight in Futures Thinking.
• Critically appreciate the importance of collaboration and multilateral institutions' empowerment to facilitate the emergence of a cooperative and socially-just society.

• Apply relevant analytical tools and frameworks to assess situations and strategic decision-making in hypothetical but realistic future scenarios.
• Apply Futures Thinking insights to develop knowledge and understanding of business and society.
• Engage in reflective practice and apply integrative values and cognitions.
• Appreciate and accommodate alternative perspectives and pathways.

• Critical thinking, analysis, and evaluation.
• Futures Thinking, Systems Thinking
• Collaborative learning, including cooperation with others and participation in group activities.
• Reflection, imagination, and foresight (anticipatory competencies).
• Consideration of emergent issues from a range of perspectives.
• Reflective practice and writing.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Learning outcomes will be met using workshop-based delivery, involving a combination of lectures, collaborative exercises, case studies and discussions to provide opportunities for experiential learning, supported by guided reading and Scenario-Exploration-System gamification exercise.
• Workshops will be used to carry out the Scenario-Exploration-System, a student-led activity facilitated by student Games Masters, overseen by the Module Leader, using serious gamification and role-playing activities.
• For the formative assessment, students will present a 3 minute "pitch" of their proposed game / activity (relative to the summative) in which they will receive peer review. They will then submit this as a 250 word report including reflections on their experiences and the feedback received.
• The summative assessment consists of an individual assignment, which will require the investigation of relevant literature and the application of relevant concepts and will test knowledge, understanding, and the application of Futures Thinking insights and frameworks.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

For the formative assessment, students will present a 3 minute "pitch" of their proposed game / activity (relative to the summative) in which they will receive peer review. They will then submit this as a 250 word report including reflections on their experiences and the feedback received.

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.