This is the transcript for the video Bachelor of Management
Hi everybody, Daryl Adair here. I’m the director of the Bachelor of Management, and I’ve been involved in the teaching of sport, business, and management for about 25 years. It’s my passion, and it’s an area of the Bachelor of Management as well. Now, before that, I had a 10-year career in banking, and you’ll find that several of the staff that teaches across the Bachelor of Management have a similar background to mine. That is, they have industry experience, and have since taken up the opportunity of teaching in higher education. So, your lecturers often have a combination of both practical and academic expertise. You might have noticed that in addition to the Bachelor of Management, there’s also the Bachelor of Business. So why might students take up the Bachelor of Management? Well, this degree allows students to develop deep knowledge in one or more of the experience industries, as we call them. Now, the experience industry comprises a range of goods and services that are central to the consumption of entertainment and leisure activities, whether that be live or in digital form. Now, in the case of the Bachelor of Management, our focus is on events, sport business, and the digital creative industries, and I’ll go through each of them in detail in a moment. If we look momentarily at the Bachelor of Business, the management major within that degree does provide exposure to that kind of knowledge, along with opportunities for in-depth skill development in more generic areas, like accounting and economics. But students who seek to be experts in one or more of the industry sectors in the experience economy are best advised to take the Bachelor of Management because it provides deep knowledge of those industries. So, you might then ask, who is the Bachelor of Management degree for? Well, it’s for people who are interested in and passionate about the various creative enterprises across three areas: sport business, events, and digital spaces. And typically, these are people who like to work in a really vibrant occupational culture. They’re interested in shaping products and services that are part of the entertainment and experience sectors. Now, each of these industries is today very high tech, and they rely on what we call design thinking, digital creativity, and innovation. People who are involved in these industries are not pigeonholed, for their skill sets can be applied across the experience and entertainment industries. So, for example, a student might start off in events, then they might take those event management skills into a role in the sport industry, and so on. In other words, these programs are for people who are adaptable and novel in terms of their thinking, and of course, very astute in terms of digital and creative ways of doing business. Now, everybody realises, of course, the impact on the Australian experience and entertainment sector as a consequence of COVID. Many of the major events and sport competitions that we’ve grown to love in Australia have been impacted. But, as you will have seen, we’re now witnessing a substantial rebound in the experience economy, as people seek to reclaim live entertainment and leisure activities in the public domain. And were observing as part of this resurgence, new forms of leisure consumption, such as demand for virtual events, with patrons paying on-demand for online versions of what were previously exclusively live experiences. So, within the Bachelor of Management, we look at adaptations across the experience economy, in large part as a consequence of the challenge of COVID. In sport, for instance, students learn about the growing phenomenon of spectators around the world, watching American basketball, using virtual reality headsets. This technology gives consumers the impression that they’re inside the NBA court and experiencing the sights and sounds of being a patron of the game. The other thing is, there’s the potential for augmented reality, and in sport, the area I’m most familiar with, broadcasts, are now overlaid with data on the broadcast screen, which can provide things like player statistics and messages from sponsors, and so on. Thus, there’s a lot of value added to the digital production of entertainment. So, in summary, although COVID has impacted on live experiences, there’s been both a revival and adaptations, where students are able to explore and learn about this in the Bachelor of Management. So, how is the course structured? How does it work? Well, it’s important in the first instance, to note that the Bachelor of Management underwent review in 2020. This is a routine exercise, and it is always productive. We invited industry stakeholders and students to provide feedback about the structure and the topics we had to offer, and we were pleased to learn that there were substantial endorsements of what it is we offer. But as I will soon explain, we’ve instituted some changes with the goal of making the degree more flexible for students. Now to start with, everyone in the Bachelor of Management has 8 core subjects, which you can see on the slide. In essence, they take you through foundational areas of business, like marketing, accounting, economics, human resources, law, and ethics. And additionally, there’s an emphasis on managerial skills. So, once you’re involved in a business, you need to scope the competitive environment. And of course, also make strategic decisions about your strengths, your weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So, the Bachelor of Management core is a very important, multidisciplinary foundation, from which students then generate sufficient skills that can be deployed in one or more of these sport events, and digital creative sectors. Now, if we look at the major, it’s comprised of eight subjects for each of your chosen areas, and with each of these majors, the relevant subjects are available for students to look at, via the UTS website. Now, I’d go through all of them here with you, but there’s 32 in all, so too many to discuss in this brief presentation. But what you’ll see when you get to the web, is the students have an opportunity to pursue their chosen major right from the very beginning of their degree, and then in every year of their degree. That’s very different to the Bachelor of Business, where students do a generic core in their first year, but they don’t get to focus on their major until second and third years. By contrast, as I’ve already mentioned, in the Bachelor of Management students can follow their passion as soon as they begin the course. Now, in terms of changes to the programme, the biggest adjustment we’ve made to the Bachelor of Management is to ensure that students now have more choices in terms of what they want to learn, and as the slide indicates, there’s space for eight unspecified subjects, which can be configured according to student preferences. For example, someone might start with a major in events, but then develop a strong interest in sport business. There’s now scope for them to do a double major. Equally, a student might start with a major in events, but, you know, find they have an emerging interest in sport business. Students can also do a major of their choosing, along with four randomly selected electives, so they don’t even have to do sub-majors if they don’t want to. Indeed, students may choose unspecified subjects as electives of their choice for all eight of these options. But the question is, why might a student do that? Well, they might decide that they need more, for example, accounting and finance skills, so that when they get into an industry environment, they’ve got strong fiscal literacy. Or, a student might say, look, I really want to go deeper in terms of marketing, so I’ll go and do more marketing subjects. Others might simply say, look, I really want to just learn something new, something else. I want to do a language, or I want to understand more about international relations, whatever it is, so these electives are available for students to choose as they please. But they’re intended to really add value to what students are interested in. Now, one of the real fabulous parts of this degree, is innovation and entrepreneurship, and they are embedded in the Bachelor of Management. But what do they mean? Well, innovation basically means conceiving something new, it can be an idea. It can be a product prototype, a process, or indeed a service. Innovations need creativity and deep thinking. Innovation may mean invention, though, it may also just add value to an existing product or service. Now, entrepreneurship is related to innovation, but it’s different. Basically, it means turning ideas into a business opportunity by exercising judgement about a risk, and the risk is intended to turn obviously, into a profit rather than a loss. So, in essence, entrepreneurship sets out to create value, or add value in terms of innovation. In that sense, entrepreneurs need skills like planning, decision making, leadership, and of course, what it means to be a risk taker. Now, in the Bachelor of Management, there are two core subjects devoted to innovation and entrepreneurship, you can see them on the slide here. One of them interrogates the conceptual frameworks that underpin product service and design, while the other is more hands on and practical, with students building on models or prototypes in a lab setting, and this combination of theory and practice is popular with students, who are then equipped to navigate new opportunities across the experience in entertainment industries. Indeed, owing to the challenges of COVID, these sectors are innovating in really dynamic, novel ways with a goal of reaching digital and remote audiences that weren’t even thought of previously. An example is live streaming of music concerts, so big events with a pay per view model, and there’s also great potential with Virtual Reality entertainment. Imagine being courtside at Wimbledon, or virtually climbing Mount Everest on the back of a sherpa, all experienced virtually through my Oculus headsets at home. Indeed, this type of innovation has great potential for people who are of mature age and thus not very mobile, people with disabilities, all of whom are unable to travel easily, and so these kinds of digital entertainment experiences are more relevant than ever. All that said, of course, all that creativity is absolutely vital, as is the technological know-how. But it is also vital to have management skills. You know, it’s important to be creative, to understand the way in which entrepreneurship functions, but you must have skills as a manager to bring products and services to market, so managing innovation and entrepreneurship are also vital. Now, one of the great features of the Bachelor of Management that has been round for about 25 years is the opportunity to do an internship, and that’s really important for students who want to experience what it’s like to work in a particular industry sector. The way in which it functions is that students, they target an organisation they’d like to have an internship with, and they seek permission from that company to take them on as an intern. Now, the university can help, we can provide a list of companies with whom we’ve had internship relations with, in the past. So as an example, if you’re interested in working at sports clubs, many of our students have had very successful internships at say, the Sydney Swans and the Sydney Roosters, and what happens is that students work from around 120 hours or so depending on the organisation and the nature of their assignment. This is, in essence, volunteer, unpaid work, but it’s recognised as a contribution to the internship subject, that is part of the degree. So, there’s a clear benefit in doing it. Now, the purpose of being an intern isn’t simply for students to go to one organisation, and make people cups of coffee, and you know, operate a photocopier. Instead, they work on a project that is agreed upon by the student, by the organisation, and by the university, so it’s co-managed. The student is then evaluated in terms of the way they conduct themselves professionally in a workplace setting, and of course, a big focus is on the project that they ultimately deliver, which, of course, is assessed by the internship provider, and the university. Now, one of the real benefits of this, I think, is having that tangible, industry engagement, that workplace experience, which allows students to have a taste of what it is like to work in that sector, but also start to develop a network of individuals that they can turn to in respect of employment opportunities. So, one of the things that we encourage UTS is for our interns and our students more generally, to set up a profile on LinkedIn, and as part of that, they upload a CV. They can also include their internship experience. Another benefit of the internship is that students can ask the employer for a reference for when they seek job opportunities, and the idea of course, is for them to secure a job with the company they worked with, and there are some examples of that. But generally speaking, the internship is an experiential pathway into work. Now, one of the things that is new about the degree this year is we are offering an alternative subject to the internship and that is called diversity management. So why have we brought this subject in and what are the benefits in studying it? Now there are two reasons why we decided to introduce diversity management. The first is quite practical. It’s that the internship I just spoke about, it used to be a compulsory subject. However, we’ve since realised that it was preferable to make it as an optional subject, recognising that some students were coming into our degrees with workplace experience already, and thus the internship wasn’t going to be relevant or necessary for their experience. So, we thought, okay, let’s make this an option for the students and my students still, you know, opt for the internship, because they don’t have that work experience. But there’s another more fundamental reason for us offering diversity management as an alternative, but also as an elective for anybody taking the Bachelor of Management. That is, if we look at the contemporary workplace in Australia, it features employees from very different backgrounds, and one of the benefits really of studying and appreciating diversity management is the opportunity for workplaces to encourage people from different backgrounds to reach their potential and maximise their contributions to an organisation’s strategic goals and objectives. And this is a core part of what progressive businesses seek to achieve in today’s cosmopolitan world. There is a recognition that people from different cultures, different parts of the world, different language skills, different religions, and so on, come together in a work environment, so how to bring about an awareness of their commonalities, their similarities, and also the differences and to generate respect for each other in a really collegial way. So, there’s a raft of research internationally, that shows that organisations which embrace diversity management, exemplify environments in which people are happier at work, they feel more valued, and they tend to be more productive. So, diversity management is good business. And it’s also a great option even for students who take the internship, they can still do diversity management as an elective. So, there’s opportunities to do both. Now, if we’re looking at the major options in the Bachelor of Management, what is there available? What exactly do they involve? Well, there are three, so there’s certainly choice. Let’s start by considering Events as the key example. Now, it’s an exciting place to work because of the really dynamic and varied nature of this industry. There are events that are part of the calendar every year, as well as events that are established for what you might call special purposes. And let’s face it, Sydney has long been Australia’s premier event city. So, you know, events are part of this city’s DNA. But what does Event Management involve? Well, it focuses on the logistics of establishing events, promoting them, marketing, ticketing, things like traffic and security management. And this means meeting the requirements of law, policy, and governments when putting on an event. Indeed, the whole events ecosystem now requires tremendous sophistication, because while we all want things to go well, there are important mechanisms and protocols for when things actually go wrong, and there are problems. So, if you’re taking event management, you will be exposed to a whole range of concepts and also their practical application. And Australia, let’s face it, is a world leader here. The academic contribution to the way events has grown here in Australia and their sophistication means that this country is renowned for staging mega events. And, you know, we’ll soon be hosting the Olympics again in 2032, and next year, we will host the FIFA World Cup. These are just two examples of the reputation that Australia has for hosting huge events like this of international significance. Now the second major I want to speak about is Sport Business. Sports in this country and internationally have been a fast-growing industry for decades. If we look at Australia, it’s the only country for example, with four professional football coats. And no other country has as many national sport competitions at the professional level, as does Australia. And another important trend in this country, particularly, is the growth of women’s professional sport competitions. So, we’re talking about a very dynamic environment. But to actually manage the sport industry requires very important skill sets. You need to have individuals with a strong understanding of accounting, finance and revenue, and, of course, innovative ideas about creating alternate revenue streams, and even alternative products. I mean, one of the most interesting growth areas we cover in the Bachelor of Management is something called e-sport. So that’s, you know, electronic gaming that’s competitive, you know, like an elite sport. And what we saw during COVID, was this grew exponentially, it was already growing, but the trajectory just went through the roof. An interesting development is that many traditional sports now have a relationship or even a partnership with an esports team. So, the point I’m making is, it’s not just about traditional sport, there’s also a growing digitization around which sport is consumed. The third major I want to speak about is the Digital Creative Enterprise option, which is really the new one in our repertoire. The other majors have been at UTS for about 25 years, and this one for about five years. But, this major reflects the way in which the digital world is evolving. It reflects the way in which businesses themselves intimately and almost inherently engage with a business today. And I don’t mean just from a sort of a, you know, a marketing and website perspective, but how they address strategic issues. Indeed, how they assess problems in the marketplace now requires a digital scoping exercise. And in doing so, they’re applying design thinking principles that students need to learn about, which are more adaptable and complex than traditional modes of business thinking. Now, this kind of approach can be used in any business that has a digital shopfront today, and it’s hard to think of one that doesn’t. But also, one of the reasons that we position this major here, amongst the other two, is we think there’s a good synergy between the way in which those other majors are evolving, along with the digital creative enterprises. And we’re very excited about this new offering. So, beyond that, students might choose to do a combined degree because they’re interested in you know, two complementary fields of study. And so there’s three here on the slide. You can combine your degree with Creative Intelligence and Innovation, if you’re interested in sustainability and the environment, there’s an option there. And also international studies if you’re interested in languages, and understanding the way in which the world works. So, there are also degree addons. If students are interested in, for example, learning a language, there’s a Diploma of Languages. And also, for students who are really captivated by learning about innovation in the Bachelor of Management, there’s also a Diploma of Innovation as well. For students these days, UTS offers an early entry program, so you can actually utilise your Year 11 results to make an application to join us. As you’ll see from the slide, there’s some information from this website here about your eligibility, how you go about applying, and when you might receive an offer. So, what is my top tip for students taking the Bachelor of Management? Well, I think follow your passion. It’s easy to say that you should get a job that you enjoy, rather than a job that is merely expected of you by others. But everybody needs to get out of bed in the morning and go to work and feel engaged by it. And if you feel a particular connection to one of the industry sectors I’ve talked about, go for it. Because what you want to do is have lifelong fulfilment and enjoyment, and a feeling of being connected to your workplace. So, if you want more info on the slide here, you can download our undergraduate course guide for 2023, in which you will find information about the Bachelor of Management. And of course, you can stay connected with us. We’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, and you can reach us via email at any time. And look, I do hope that I get to see many of you at UTS in the coming years, and that you enjoy your experience with us. Thank you very much.