ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT (Michaelmas Term 2014)
Management Reading List: Introduction to Management
The management element of the course will begin with two separate courses one of which “General
Management” covers most main areas of management except for finance and accounting. The other course on
Financial Management is relatively new (this will be its 6th year) and it comprises two elements one (expected
to run in Michaelmas term (Oct-Dec)) entitled “Financial Reporting” which is an introduction to Accounting
and another on Finance (which is expected to run in Hilary Term (Jan-Mar)).
I will be teaching you in tutorials for the first year General Management Course and you will be allocated to
other tutors / classes or the Financial Management course. You will of course also be taking an introductory
economics course as well this coming Michaelmas term so you shouldn’t be short of things to do!
General Management
The General Management Course covers the following material and is aimed to give you an overall introduction
to the subject of management and to some of the management options available in the rest of the course:
Historical Context, Organisational Behaviour, Strategic Management, Technology and Operations
Management, Marketing
When you arrive you will be given further details about the content of the first year tutorials and lectures. It is
not essential to have done any reading for the general management course before arriving in Oxford though if
you wanted to you could read some of books listed at the end of this note. For the most part these are readings
which you will cover during the 1st year anyway. Reading any of these though would act as an introduction to
the course.
Financial Management
Given students’ past experience I think you will find it very useful to have read ahead for the Financial
Reporting course. The start of the latter explicitly requires pre-reading before attending the first lectures anyway
and the course usually results in more requests for help when the first year exams approach. I have therefore
attached to this note a copy of the reading list for the course and a copy of the pre-course “preliminary exercise”
which you will need to have gone through before the first lectures in First week (14h October onwards).
These documents should be self-explanatory but if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask me by email. In
any event, whilst you should have time to do this pre-reading at some stage during 0th week (1st October
onwards) when you first arrive, you will be very busy then settling in and some advance reading should make
life a lot easier in that first week. Note the instructions regarding the preliminary exercise at the beginning of
the course reading list which is also attached. (NB these lists are last years but you should check for any
changes in 0th week – it is most likely that the attached lists will be used again this year (as last year).
The reading list recommends use of the following text book (amongst others – see the list itself for details) for
the course :
Financial Reporting and Analysis (1st edition, 2010) John Dunn
ISBN 978-0-470-69503-6
January 2010, ©2009
Paperback, 392 pages
This is available via online bookstores but a bit of shopping around can often result in savings relative to
Amazon and the like eg for online 2nd hand books http://www.abebooks.co.uk/ can be quite useful.
Dr. Robert Pitkethly
Fellow and Tutor in Management
E-Mail: robert.pitkethly@spc.ox.ac.uk
Introduction to Management
On organisational Issues :
Organizational Behaviour: (1997) Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. Prentice Hall.
Ch. 18 on Corporate Culture, Ch. 12 on Scientific Management, Ch. 18 on Leadership (in 3rd Edition nb
Chapter No.s may differ in other editions).
Organisation Theory: Selected Readings (4th Edn)(1997) Edited by Derek Pugh. Penguin
and/or
Understanding Organizations, Charles Handy. (4th Edn) (1993 or 1999) Penguin
(Earlier editions of either book should do just as well though they will differ marginally, especially in the case
of the authors included in the former).
Those who like the idea of business history might be interested to read :
The development of modern business (2002) Gordon Boyce and Simon Ville. Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2002.
ISBN 0333598776 (cloth), 0333598784 (pbk.)
Creating Modern Capitalism, McCraw, T.K. (2000) Harvard University Press
The following book deals more with strategic issues :
Foundations of Corporate Success. Kay, J. (1996). Oxford University Press.
If you find the area of strategy interesting and want to read more ask for some recommendations but a good
concise introduction is R.Grant : Contemporary Strategy Analysis, Blackwell (4th Edn ISBN: 1405119993 any edition is OK though they do differ slightly).
If you have difficulty reading any one of these books in libraries outside Oxford then reading any of the others
will still be helpful. You will need to be selective in buying books for use on the course though since the course
is largely built around research articles and not just a limited number of textbooks. However, if you do buy any
of the above books they should be useful later on.
I would also recommend that you start (or continue) reading a journal or newspaper such as the Economist or
Financial Times or the Business Pages of any of the more business aware broadsheet newspapers. Awareness of
current business issues will stand you in good stead when it comes to providing examples for essays and will
also help you link the theories you will study to the business world they relate to.