Business and management

In our courses, you’ll study business with a real-world focus and experience a research-led education from world-renowned academics, meaning you’ll benefit from the latest thinking in an ever-changing industry.

You’ll explore the current issues affecting our global economy and gain a rich understanding of how organisations function and thrive, enabling you to graduate with the knowledge and skills needed for the future you desire.

Whether your aiming to launch your own business or to climb the career ladder – the opportunities for an Essex business and management graduate are endless. 

At Essex, you explore more than just how organisations work and the best ways to manage them. Our Masters programmes promote critical reflection on the roles organisations have within different countries and cultures, as well as the impact they can have upon individuals. 

You’ll be working alongside our world-renowned academics and practitioners, who are producing work with a global impact. We’ll nurture your ambition, encourage you to challenge the boundaries of knowledge and empower you to address the current issues organisations face independently. You’ll graduate with a degree that equips you with the understanding and skill to become a leader who can help both business and society to innovate and thrive.

At Essex, you can join the next generation of social science researchers shaping theory, policy and practice in the fields of management studies and business analytics. By studying for your PhD with us, you benefit from working in an academically rigorous and professionally supportive environment at a business school where 100% of our business and management research environment is world-leading or internationally excellent (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

You can choose to undertake research in a number of areas, including human resource management, international management, marketing and brand management and work and organisation studies.

Throughout, our supervisors will support the development of your research expertise and professional skills. With more than 100 doctoral students, totalling around 40 nationalities, Essex Business School is the place to launch your international research career.

Our Research Groups

• Management and Marketing Group
  Management encompasses so much of what a business is about, it looks at people, processes, change and impact, as well as the bottom line. Marketing isn’t just glitter and gimmicks, it’s at the heart of every organisation.
• Strategy, Operations and Entrepreneurship Group
  We enhance the frontiers of knowledge in management and business studies for the sustainable growth of business, society and the economy.
• Organisation Studies and Human Resource Management Group
  We dig deep into the heart of the people issues facing all types of organisations and explore ways that businesses can manage their workforce effectively.  

Our Research Centres

• Centre for Work, Organisation and Society 
  The Centre for Work, Organisation and Society is a hub of interdisciplinary research, with a focus on the relationship between work, organisations and society.
• Centre for Commons Organising, Values Equalities and Resilience (COVER)
  Studying the theoretical and practical possibilities of how commons values based on principles of cooperation, collaboration, and open knowledge sharing can foster more egalitarian, inclusive, and participative 21st-century economies, communities, and organisations.

Our research

As research in management at Essex Business School spans three of our academic groups and several of our research centres, we take an interdisciplinary approach to management themes.

Below, our academic staff discuss aspects of their research and how this impacts the world beyond the classroom.