Master in Business Management

OBJECTIVES

This cycle of studies leading to the degree of Master has as main purpose the acquisition by students of a high level of professional specialization in management areas critical for business success, compatible with the complexity of the challenges arising from the intensification of competition, globalization and the adverse context in which companies will have to operate.

In due articulation with the 1st cycle studies of the degree in Business Management taught at ISAG, this master's degree aims to deepen the knowledge obtained and to provide students with a strategic, systemic and integrative view of the activity of companies and awareness of the inter-relationship between the parts and the whole with the environment.

It is essentially aimed at training senior staff and managers for the exercise of functions in the field of business management, whether these be Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) or large companies, and has the following specific objectives:

a) To train students for a rigorous understanding of the company's internal strengths and weaknesses and distinctive capacities, while developing their skills to analyse the environment and rigorously identify the threats and opportunities that it presents to the company.

b) To foster the mastery of tools, methods and techniques that enable an optimization of business efficiency and effectiveness, while developing students' creativity to search for innovative and differentiating answers.

c) To develop skills, attitudes and values that are in line with the exercise of functions and positions of high responsibility in companies, in a coherent, innovative and highly problem-solving learning and study environment.

d) To develop decision-making and communication skills for the diagnosis, understanding and assessment of complex business situations.

e) Contribute to the development in students of a behaviour of integrity, responsibility and commitment to the company and society in which they are inserted.

MASTER'S ORGANIZATION AND CURRICULAR PLAN

This master's programme is structured in three semesters.

With a normal length of one year and a half and a maximum deadline for conclusion of six semesters after admission, it includes a master's course consisting of 11 curricular units (curricular part of the master's programme), which will be followed by a period of essentially individual but supervised work that may consist of a scientific dissertation or a project work, original and especially created for this purpose, or even a professional traineeship with a final report, under the terms established by the present regulations.

To obtain the master degree the student must complete 90 ECTS credits, which are distributed in the following way

a) Curricular part: Approval in the 11 curricular units of the master course: 60 ECTS credits;

b) Approval, in the public act of defence, of the dissertation, project work or professional traineeship: 30 ECTS credits.

COMPETENCES TO BE DEVELOPED

In accordance with the requirements demanded by employers, at the end of this master's degree, it is intended that students acquire the following main skills (to be developed throughout their professional life in a mainly self-oriented or autonomous way):

• Know how to interpret the evolution of the business environment and assess its impact on the company;
• Have a global, interfunctional and integrating vision of the company, which allows them to identify and enhance the distinctive capabilities on which the company's competitive strategies should be based in the market
• Master the process of identification and development of business strategies;
• Develop a correct understanding in terms of obtaining and preparing information for effective decision making in the areas of marketing, investment, disinvestment and financing;
• Carry out operations in national and international financial markets;
• Envisage the position of the company in the complex web of operations and economic and commercial activity, involving suppliers, competitors and direct and indirect customers, up to the final customer;
• Know how to create and manage a rigorous decision-making system, and to decide and act responsibly towards society and the company's various stakeholders;
• Promote the forecasting, monitoring and systematic management of business risk;
• Be committed to value creation and be able to efficiently and effectively manage the implementation of actions and evaluate their progress.

PROFESSIONAL OUTPUTS

Based on the defined professional profile, based on solid training geared towards the development of the competences described above, the following are the possible professional outlets for future Masters in Business Management graduates, among others:

• General Management: business administrator, management advisor, management advisor of a functional area or division and strategic management consultant;
• Marketing: marketing director, account manager, product manager, marketing assistant, service manager, marketing consultant
• Finance and Control: financial director, assistant financial director, controller or assistant controller, project analyst, budget control technician
• Management Control: director, management control auditor, management control consultant;
• Human Resources: human resources director, assistant human resources director, human resources department technician, human resources and organization consultant;
• Teaching and research in the area of Business Management.

LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION: Portuguese