Course overview

The MSc Strategic Quality Management will help in making a significant contribution to implementing policies for achieving excellence. It is open to every business leader, manager and consultant whose goal is to improve performance at a professional and organisational level.

You will gain knowledge and understanding of a broad range of modern theory and techniques covering the operational, functional and strategic management. Critical thinking and self-directed study are important aspects of working at postgraduate level, and the programme includes practical ways to sharpen up existing skills and apply them in both academic and business settings.

The programme will also enable you to make an effective contribution to the implementation of policies in order to achieve customer focus and continuous improvement. Such contributions will be developed in respect of the operational, functional and strategic management of quality.

The course is very flexible. You can either study full time over one year or part time over three years. It can also be completed via distance learning over two years.

The course will be of interest to:

• recent graduates who satisfy the work experience criteria and who plan to make a career in quality management or want to improve their skills portfolio before entering general management
• experienced managers/senior personnel who want to add quality to their existing skills
• quality practitioners who want to obtain academic qualifications

The course aims to provide you with quality, organisational and people management skills, and techniques to enable you to make a significant contribution to an organisation's strategic visions for success.

The Business School is a member of the European Foundation for Quality Management and the course team are part of the group within the University that has membership of the British Quality Foundation.

Find out more

For further information, please contact our Admissions Team (details above). We also hold regular postgraduate and part-time open evenings at which you can see our facilities, enjoy a guest lecture and meet the academics and current students over drinks and canapés. Applicants will be interested to know that each year Portsmouth Business School offers a number of scholarships for self-funding students.

Course content

This is a well-established course that will give you a firm footing in strategic quality management and achieving excellence through customer focus and continuous improvement.

Following the taught aspects of the course you will complete a 15,000-word dissertation, which requires at least six months of study. You will study the following units:

• Business Transformation through Quality Management: this unit deals with the fundamentals concepts of quality management and organisational behaviour, and focuses on the application of those concepts in the organisation. It complements the Strategic Organisational Excellence unit.

• Quantitative and Research Methods: this unit considers concepts of quantitative methods and their use in aiding decision making within an organisation, and covers the theory and application of research methodologies, to support you with your dissertation writing.

• Business Systems: Concepts, Management and Evaluation: this unit addresses the principles of business management, their encapsulation in management standards and application in the workplace by way of business systems.

• Strategic Organisational Excellence: this unit will look at  the links between concepts of excellence and their use in the strategic management of an organisation. It explores issues raised by variations in culture and sector, both within the organisation and in its relationships with its stakeholders.

• Dissertation: this unit will enable you to demonstrate your ability to identify, design, plan and undertake research on a specific quality management issue, and effectively communicate your findings in an individual research project.

Teaching and assessment

The course involves a range of teaching methods, including formal lectures and tutorials, visiting speakers and in class exercises. You are also required to spend time on additional reading and undertaking self-directed learning. Comprehensive learning materials are provided.

The units on the course are assessed using a variety of methods that reflect the needs of the individual unit. Assessment comprises a mixture of individual and group work (case study analyses and reports, essays and presentations) except for the Quantitative and Research Methods unit, which is assessed by a combination of individual coursework and examination, with the examination taking place in the May of the first academic year (for example: those who register for a September 2012 start will sit the examination in May 2013). 

Career prospects

Our graduates have gone on to undertake a variety of roles including:

• quality manager/director
• quality engineer
• quality adviser
• quality analyst
• quality consultant
• quality environmental and health and safety manager
• quality assurance/quality control
• procurement
• operations management
• training and development
• auditing and business process improvement

All students registered on this course are eligible to apply for Associate and Practitioner membership of the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI). 

You also may qualify for ‘Chartered Quality Professional’ status through the qualification route, subject to satisfying the work experience criteria – at least five years' quality management or systems experience, two of which should be in a managerial or supervisory capacity (including the management of people, processes or systems).

Facilities and features

Full time and part-time students will attend lectures in Portsmouth Business School, which is located in the modern Richmond Building on the main campus. You will have easy access to the University Library’s comprehensive online resources including ebooks and electronic academic and business journals.

Course materials for distance learners will be available online and include video, audio and written resources. There will also be staff-led online tutorials with other distance learning students.

Entry requirements

The entry requirements for MSc Strategic Quality Management are shown above, for more detailed information please contact:

Department: Portsmouth Business School
Tel: +44 (0)23 9284 8200
Email: pbs.postgradadmissions@port.ac.uk