Queen's University Belfast

MSc International Business

January Intake Courses

The programme provides a wide range of opportunities for graduates to work across various kinds of organisations, industries, roles, and careers. Most of the opportunities will carry a degree of international exposure in the work that graduates engage in.

Previous graduates have gone on to work for start-ups, SMEs, multinational enterprises, trade or business solutions, manufacturing companies, international institutions, NGOs, and government agencies responsible for trade and investment.

Graduates have secured successful careers in a diverse range of roles related to consultancy, strategy, HRM, technology, finance, sales, and analytics. Typical roles include Strategy Consultants, Global Portfolio Traders, Global Mobility Analysts, Group Head of Innovation, Global Marketing Managers, Business Analysts, Project Managers, Account Executives, Senior Consultants, Sales Directors, HR Managers, Market Analysts for FDI, M&A Executives, and Financial Managers.

Employment after the Course

Our recent graduates have progressed to work in global firms such as Meta, Dropbox, Google, Kellogg, Zapier (Dublin); Moet Hennessy, Natilik (New York); Deloitte, Citi, PwC, Danske Bank and EY (Belfast); Oracle, PWC, Kingspan, BMW (Germany); Roche (Switzerland); CAPCO (Edinburgh); Nestle (Panama and China); JP Morgan, CapGemini, HSBC, Wells Fargo (London); Cisco (Sao Paulo); SAP (Toronto); Acosta Group (Florida); Expeditors (Seattle); Upaya (Nepal); and InfoCentric (Melbourne).

Others have successfully pursued PhDs before becoming academics.

The MSc International Business is a one-year programme structured across 3 semesters.

Students who successfully complete eight taught modules (120 CATS) and an International Business Capstone module in semester 3 are awarded an MSc in International Business.

Exit qualifications are also available: students may exit with a Postgraduate Diploma by successfully completing 120 CATS from taught modules or a Postgraduate Certificate by successfully completing 60 CATS from taught modules.

Introduction

This programme enables students to gain in-depth knowledge and develop critical skills for successful careers in business. The programme tackles a range of contemporary issues relevant for today’s complex global business environment such as digitalisation, sustainability, AI, ethics, analytics, resilience, leadership, and strategy.

A central focus of the programme involves enhancing students’ employability, skills, and career development. Through a module on Developing Career and Employability Skills and a dedicated Careers team, students will develop and enhance key skills and learn what employers want in International Business graduates.

Students will study a combination of cutting-edge modules that explore the increasingly integrated yet fragile nature of global business.

The International Business Capstone is a unique feature of the programme in semester 3 that takes an applied, practical, and dynamic learning approach. This involves a strategy simulation where students guide the strategic growth of an organisation. Students also choose between different capstone pathways in completing their final project on the programme.

Semester 1

The Global Business Environment

This module looks at how organisations understand and navigate a range of grand challenges in the global business environment such as geopolitical instability, economic turmoil, cultural intelligence, AI and technological disruption and the United Nation’s sustainable development goals.

Global Innovation Management

The main aim of this module is to explore how different forms of innovation contribute to tackling global problems. It focuses on understanding how firms leverage advanced technologies to improve societal and ethical challenges.

Marketing in the Digital Age

This module considers how firms leverage a variety of digital tools and AI-enabled solutions to enhance marketing channels by engaging customers, shaping brand conversations, building brand awareness, experiences, and community.

Global Human Resource Management (HRM)

This module explores the rapidly evolving nature of the future of global work and how managers and firms make sense of global jobs, work, and careers in the face of significant technological, societal and ethical changes.

Semester 2

Doing Business in Emerging Markets

This module explores the unique ways that business is conducted in developing and emerging markets. It explores innovative approaches to issues like digital commerce and social innovation in the context of complex challenges like a lack of infrastructure, limited affordability, volatile economies, political risk, and poverty alleviation

Analytics with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This module focuses on the way in which data and analytics are inherently interlinked with rapidly evolving artificial intelligence solutions. Students will enhance their research skills by using cutting-edge analytics software to synthesise, analyse and present different data types in visual formats

Making Ethical Business Decisions

This module evaluates the ethical responsibilities of managers and organisations. It considers a range of topics such as ethical issues regarding employees (whistleblowing, codes of ethics, corporate governance), ethics and consumers, social responsibility, and ethical dilemmas from artificial intelligence.

Developing Career and Employability Skills

This module engages students in their own employability journey to help develop the skills to compete confidently. It will develop students’ understanding of their personal skills, strengths, identity, and motivations to improve their employability skills and career prospects.

Study Abroad Semester - you can elect to spend your second semester studying in a partner university of QBS. This option is open to all students, and a list of partner universities is shared in semester 1. Students return to complete their capstone module for Semester 3.

Semester 3

The International Business Capstone

This final semester module involves a dynamic online simulation where students work in teams to develop the global strategy of a firm in a game-based scenario.

Capstone Projects

Applied practical projects where students work with real-world organisations to generate solutions to complex challenges.

There are 4 pathways to choose from:

1. International Consultancy – working alongside a real-world global organisation and mentor to address a specific problem.
2. International Internship – working in a global organisation for 9-12 weeks while carrying out an internship project on a problem the organisation faces. Students may work in a variety of roles and functions for firms locally or globally. A dedicated placement office helps with sourcing and securing internships. Students have interned for Amazon in Paris, EY in Tunisia, IDB in Washington, DC, and Red Bull in London.
3. Global Applied Project – proposing strategic solutions to a current grand challenge for an organisation of your choosing.
4. Immersive International Trip – spend a week abroad on a global trip at a partner university, engaging in workshops, company tours, lectures, and cultural tours. The location changes each year, and students write a trip report for their capstone project based on the experience. In previous years, students have
   travelled to Milan and Paris.

This module integrates learnings from across the programmes through practical and applied learning. It involves an online simulation where students work in teams to develop the strategy of a global firm in an interactive game-based scenario.