COURSE OBJECTIVES
This master's degree aims to acquire students with a high level of professional specialization training in critical management areas to 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 act.
In conjunction with the Bachelor Degree in Business Management taught at ISAG, this master's degree aims to increase the knowledge obtained and provide students with a strategic, systemic and integrative view of the companies' activity and awareness of the interrelationship between the parties and the whole with the surroundig environment.
It is aimed at training senior staff and managers to exercise functions within the scope of Business Management, whether these are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) or large companies, and has as specific objectives:
a) To enable students to understand the internal strengths and weaknesses and the distinctive capabilities of the company, while developing their skills to analyze the environment and accurately identify the threats and opportunities it presents to the company;
b) Foster the mastery of tools, methods and techniques that enable an optimization of business efficiency and effectiveness, while developing the creativity of students in the search for innovative and differentiating responses;
c) To develop capacities, attitudes and values in line with the exercise of highly responsible functions and positions in companies, in a coherent, innovative and highly problem-solving learning environment.
d) Develop decision-making and communication skills for diagnosing, understanding and evaluating complex business situations.
e) Contribute to the development of honest, responsible and committed behavior with the company and society in which they operate.
MASTER AND CURRICULAR PLAN STRUCTURE
This master's degree is divided in three academic semesters.
With a normal duration of one and a half years and a maximum term for completion of 6 academic semesters after admission, it consists of 11 curricular units (curricular part of the master degree) which will be followed by an individual but oriented work period, which may consist of a master's thesis, in a project work, original and specially made for this purpose, or in a professional internship subject to a final report, under the terms established by this regulation.
To obtain the master's degree, the student will need to complete 90 ECTS credits, which are distributed as follows:
a) Curricular part: approval in all 11 course units of the master's course: 60 ECTS credits;
b) Approval, in the public act of defense, of the dissertation, or project work or professional internship: 30 ECTS credits.
COMPETENCES TO BE ACQUIRED
In accordance with the requirements demanded by employers, at the end of this master¿s degree, it is intended that students have obtained the following main competences (to be developed throughout their professional lives in a fundamentally self-oriented or autonomous way):
- Know how to interpret the changes of the business environment and assess its impact on the company;
- Have a global, cross-functional and integrative vision of the company, which allows to identify and enhance the distinctive capabilities on which the company's competitive strategies should be based;
- Master the process of identifying and developing business strategies;
- Develop a correct understanding in terms of obtaining and preparing information for effective decision-making in the fields of marketing, investments, divestments and financing;
- Carry out operations in national and international financial markets;
- Perspect the company's position in the complex web of operations and economic and commercial activity, involving suppliers, competitors and direct and indirect customers, up to the end 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 the creation of value and be able to efficiently and effectively manage the implementation of actions and evaluate their progress.
PROFESSIONAL OUTPUTS
Based on the defined professional profile, founded on a solid trainning aimed at the development of the competences described above, the professional outputs for future graduates in Master Degree in Business Management, among others, are the following:
- General Management: business administrator, management advisor, functional or division management advisor and strategic management consultant;
- Marketing: marketing director, account manager, product manager, marketing Assistant, services manager, marketing consultant;
- Finance & Control: chief financial officer, assistant chief financial officer, 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 consultant and organization;
- Teaching and Research in the area of Business Management.
TEACHING METHODOLOGY
The innovative teaching and learning concept of ISAG¿s Masters allows students to develop a real contact/connection with the most prestigious companies and professionals, thus making a truly enriching learning experience. The In School Business model is based on the idea that the business must be within the school and the school within the business. The model is based on 3 essential pillars:
Fundamentals - thought before action, reflects the strategic dimension and the basis of training. It intends to instill the foundations and the structure that gives form and consistency to the action.
Booster - thinking in action, translates the tactical dimension and provides the methods and tools that allow you to develop efficient actions.
Pitch - action and implementation, translates the operational dimension and the mobilization of the skills applied to solving real problems.
Methods of discovery, presentation of problems, debate, autonomous and group work, mixed expository methods and case studies, among others, will be used to develop skills that allow students to learn independently throughout their lives.
The teaching and support methodologies for students include:
- The organization of several seminars on specific topics, with the participation of invited experts from companies and other organizations with great experience (entrepreneurs, marketing, financial and human resources directors, responsible for the brand and management and control systems, specialists in studies market, etc.);
- Conducting transdisciplinary work, applied project work and case studies of real success and failure in the business context that allow: the development of critical thinking, analysis and decision making, consolidating the learning results; integrate the knowledge and experiences acquired; and allow analyzing problems and identifying solutions;
- Carrying out group work, to be developed within each curricular unit;
- Tutorial sessions in all curricular units since, by their nature, they require a closer monitoring of teachers, aiming to promote the ability to analyze, research information and apply the knowledge acquired.
ACCESS REQUIREMENTS
a) Holders of a bachelor's degree or legal equivalent;
b) Holders of a foreign higher academic degree conferred following a 1st cycle of studies organized according to the principles of the Bologna;
c) Holders of a foreign higher academic degree that is recognized as meeting the goals of the degree by the ISAG¿s Technical-Scientific Council;
d) Holders of an academic, scientific or professional curriculum recognized as attesting to the ability to carry out the master's degree by the ISAG Technical-Scientific Council (namely, entrepreneurs, senior management and other responsible persons with experience in the commercial and / or marketing area, consultants and other professionals who provide advice to companies).
The recognition referred to in paragraphs b) to d) of the previous number has the effect only of access to the training of this master's degree, and does not confer on the holder the equivalence to the degree of graduate or the recognition of that degree.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
On request.
PLACE
The course will take place at ISAG's facilities, located at Rua de Salazares, 842, in Oporto.
OPERATION MODE
Classes take place, preferably, three days a week, from 19H00 to 24H00.