Curriculum Information

Exploring the fundamental constituents of purchasing, procurement, and supply chain management (and other metaphors) and relating these to established theoretical antecedents and the impact these perceptions (and misperceptions) have on an organisations ability to compete effectively

• Identifying and analysing the key organisational factors that contribute to supply chain management on both a micro (intra-company) and macro (inter-company) landscape, comparing the academic chain against the “real-world” network environment.

• Identifying and evaluating the key linkages between supply chain philosophy and organisational strategy. Assess the critical linkage between the two and determine what happens when they aren’t consistent.

• To emphasise that sustainability is ‘essentially contested’ by highlighting and analysing the alternative discourses that exist around ‘sustainability’ (what it is, and how it should be achieved).

• To introduce critical discourses on organisational/ SC sustainability that challenge the dominant narrative that unilateral ‘growth’ and ‘profit’ are universal and unproblematic objectives.

• To explore the concept of TBL in theory and the reality of ‘balance’ in practice.

• Introduce key theory to support ethical decision making through supply chains, and the complexity of addressing the balance between social, environmental and economic concerns on a day-to-day, as well as strategic level.

• A critical appreciation of how sustainability is researched within supply chain management, specifically, an exploration of the different research approaches and how these differ when adopting a deductive or inductive approach.