LEADERSHIP AND TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module equips students with the strategic vision, leadership skills, and change management frameworks needed to drive impactful; and sustainable change in a dynamic business environment. The module focuses on the transformational aspect of change with emphasis on how leaders can inspire innovation, reshape organisational culture and navigate complex disruptions to create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Strategic change management is fundamental to the success and survival of an organisation. Understanding the opportunities and challenges presented is a crucial skill for all leaders in an increasingly complex and unpredictable world. This module is designed to help students learn about strategic change management and how to implement it more effectively within organisations. We will explore the nature of change, internal and external influencing factors, and different kinds of resistance.

The class will also dive deeper into the complexity surrounding change, including evaluating a range of approaches and change theories, the role of power and politics, and the importance of leadership in initiating and guiding change. Students will be expected to reflect on their experiences (both positive and negative) to aid in the learning process, create meaningful outcomes and support individual development.

Module provider

Surrey Business School

Module Leader

CAIRNS Robert (SBS)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

¿ Change Management Fundamentals
¿ Change Frameworks
¿ Leading Change
¿ Internal and external influencing factors
¿ Power and Politics
¿ Resistance
¿ Ethical and responsible change management
¿ Self-management in the change process
¿ Leadership
¿ Emotion
¿ Decision Making frameworks
¿ Crisis Management

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

An individual presentation will be undertaken in place of the group presentation.

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to put theories of strategic change management into practice.

There are two pieces of summative assessment.

Assessment 1: Group Presentation

Students will be required to work collaboratively to design and deliver a high-quality presentation, followed by a short question and answer session to meet learning outcomes 2, 3 and 5.

Assessment 2: Individual Assignment

Students will undertake a case study approach to evaluate complex change situations to meet learning outcomes 1 to 5.

Formative feedback

Students will receive formative feedback during applied learning activities in seminars from the tutor, however, the value of peer feedback is also recognised and will be encouraged at key points during the module.

Summative feedback

Students will be provided with a grade, marking rubric, constructive individual feedback and a summary report of the overall cohort performance. Students are encouraged to actively engage with feedback and take an inquiry-based approach to self-reflection and continuous improvement..

Feedback:
Feedback will be provided in the following forms: Written feedback on the summative assessment. This will be provided by the first marker and the moderator in the context of the marking rubric uploaded on SurreyLearn.

Module aims

• Explore concepts, frameworks, and tools related to strategic change management.
• Discover how organisational culture impacts strategy and the role it plays in strategic change management.
• Review the complexities of change from multiple perspectives including those initiating / managing change and people who are affected by a change

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to give students the opportunity to gain knowledge and understanding of the relevant theory and business practices and problems which are pertinent to the field of managing change. Through exploring case studies and the experiences of themselves and others, students will reflect on the links from theory to practice. Learning methods include:

¿ Lectures: Introduction to theories, approaches, and concepts.
¿ Seminars: Deep dive and apply key theories, approaches, and concepts with practical application.
¿ Guided Learning: Guided material such as videos and reading to further enhance learning from the live sessions.

During independent learning hours students are expected to engage with academic and industry related content to widen their knowledge, to work with others to prepare for the group presentation, and make progress in their individual assessment.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: MANM602

Other information

Surrey Business School, Master of Business Administration programme is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas: Global and cultural capabilities: The Surrey MBA cohorts are regularly very international with various cultural backgrounds. During in-class discussions and learning activities, students develop their global and cultural capabilities by exploring and discussing different perspectives. This helps the cultivation of critical thinking skills as they pertain to leading and developing people and organisations across cultures. [Mention the use of a cultural awareness profiling tool or questionnaire, ¿Culture mapping¿, that may help raise students¿ awareness, familiarity or expertise in this subject area] Digital capabilities: The theoretical content, the examples and cases discussed throughout the module partly focus on digital transformation and hence increase awareness of the digital skills required by students. [Mention the use of technology/platform/simulations or tool pertinent to demonstrating judgment and leadership e.g. in a crisis or radical change that may help raise students¿ awareness, familiarity or expertise] Employability: During the module the students will gain a broad overview of different elements of change management and the skills needed to start a role as an internal or external change agent. Since being able to deal with change and to initiate change is increasingly becoming one of the core functions of high-level managers, the newly learned skills increase their employability. Resourcefulness and resilience: During the regular group work students develop their resourcefulness and resilience by working in heterogenous teams. Students will reflect on individual traits, skills and attributes in complex change projects.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.