Strategic Financial Management – (M.Sc.)

Our MSc in Strategic Financial Management is designed to equip students with the necessary knowledge and skills to embark on various business-related career alternatives. It offers advanced financial and management training for those students who already have some accounting and/or finance background, and is suited to those students wishing to pursue careers as management accountants or management consultants within business organisations.

Tomorrow's management accountants and management consultants will be at the hub of both day-to-day and strategic organisational life - as dynamic partners to other business managers, and as leaders of change management projects, systems design, strategy formulation and much more.

In addition, the programme also caters for non-specialists who wish to pursue a more general business/managerial career, but with increased financial and commercial astuteness.

As leading-edge research suggests, a broad knowledge of strategic financial management issues will, in the future, be essential in all medium and large organisations. Financial management is no longer only for accountants, but is an important requirement amongst managers across all business functions. This programme offers students with an excellent platform, post-graduation, to enter the fast-changing worlds of management accountants, management consultants and global business managers.

Our course:

- is informed by the latest, and leading-edge, research in the relevant discipline areas,

- provides leading-edge insight into the roles and skills requirements for tomorrow's management accountants, consultants and global business managers,

- is taught by academics who are internationally-renowned in these areas, including their strong connections to the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA),

- contains an infusion of organisational case studies relating to (changing) financial management and management accounting practice, incorporating group discussions and presentations,

- includes guest lectures by external business managers and international academics,

- features graduate professionalism and employability.

Aims of the Programme:

This programme aims to develop students' understanding of the environment in which financial management operates and changes. It tackles subject areas that go beyond just financial analysis per se and encapsulates many other important aspects of the remit of today's management accountants, management consultants and business managers – which could include (but is by no means restricted to): strategy, change management, international financial reporting, corporate governance, corporate responsibility, accounting in developing countries or Islamic accounting.

The modules you study encourage you to think analytically and critically about the ways in which modern businesses organisations create and use financial (and non-financial) information, in both operational and strategic contexts.

An additional aim, specifically for overseas students, is to provide educational and cultural experiences which are unique to the UK; indeed a great deal of this uniqueness can also be attributed to Scotland and even Dundee.

Career Prospects:

Students will be equipped with the necessary skills to embark on various business-related careers. Those with an accounting and/or finance background will be able to pursue such exciting and fast-changing careers as management accountancy or management consultancy within business organisations. Others will be able to pursue a more general managerial career with increased financial and commercial astuteness, as well as nurture a global business perspective.

The School of Accounting and Finance has excellent employment records for its students (and an impressive Alumni), and this new Masters-level programme is intended to continue this pattern of success and enable students to embark on fulfilling and rewarding careers. In this regard, the structure of the degree, with an emphasis on developing both technical and generic (soft) skills, in the context of a fast-changing business environment, will stand students in good stead.