About this course

Combine business management and German to develop vital skills and help companies enhance their global presence. Learn about German culture and spend a year in a German-speaking country. You'll gain skills that are vital to help companies enhance their global presence and develop the cultural intelligence to succeed in any organisation.

Your A level results will determine which core or compulsory modules you'll need to take.

On our BSc Business Management and German course, you’ll develop a deep understanding of German language and culture. We'll also challenge you to think differently about business and how to inspire change within organisations and society.

As well as learning German language, you'll study its politics, history and culture.

You'll develop your business skills through the study of managerial decision-making processes, contemporary global issues and business management techniques.

In year 3 you'll spend a year abroad undertaking a Period Abroad Portfolio (PAP) in either a work placement, a British Council placement or at one of Southampton’s partner universities

This degree will prepare you for a career in a wide range of organisations, including:

start-ups
large corporations
social enterprises
the not-for-profit sector

This business management and German degree is accredited by:

CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants)
AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business)

Course lead

Your course lead is Dr Michael Kranert.

His research interests range from comparative discourse analysis to language ideologies, with a particular focus on English and German speaking countries.

Find out more on his staff profile.

Course locations

This course is based at Avenue and Highfield.

Awarding body

This qualification is awarded by the University of Southampton.

Entry requirements

A-levels

ABB including German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics

A-levels additional information

Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. We can accept a grade 5 in GCSE mathematics if you achieve grade B in A level Maths, Physics, Economics, Geography, Psychology or Business.

More information about A-levels

A-levels with Extended Project Qualification

If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer: BBB including German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics and grade A in the EPQ

A-levels contextual offer

We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme, as follows: BBB including German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics.

International Baccalaureate Diploma

Pass, with 32 points overall with 16 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics

International Baccalaureate Diploma additional information

4 in Higher or Standard Level Mathematics within the IB diploma can be accepted in lieu of Grade 6 GCSE. We can accept a grade 5 in GCSE mathematics if you achieve grade B in A level Maths, Physics, Economics, Geography, Psychology or Business.

More information about International Baccalaureate Diploma

International Baccalaureate contextual offer

We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.

International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement

Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements. Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.

BTEC

Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Diploma plus B in A level German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Diploma plus B in A level German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Certificate plus AB in A level German and one further A level, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics

RQF BTEC

Additional information

We can accept a grade 5 in GCSE mathematics if you achieve grade B in A level Maths, Physics, Economics, Geography, Psychology or Business

More information about BTEC

QCF BTEC

Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus B in A level German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus B in A level German, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus AB in A level German and one further A level, and Grade 6 (Grade B) in GCSE Mathematics

Entry requirements filter options

Other requirements

UK students

International students

Other ways to qualify

GCSE requirements

Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 6/B). We can accept a grade 5 in GCSE mathematics if you achieve grade B in A level Maths, Physics, Economics, Geography, Psychology or Business

Got a question?

Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.

Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000

Course structure

Each year you'll take compulsory modules and choose from optional modules that reflect your personal interests or future career options.

You'll gain a solid grounding in the theory of business management, and insight into how it applies to real-world settings.

We'll assess your German ability using our system of 7 language levels. We can then put you in the most appropriate group to develop your skills.

You can boost your employability by studying an interdisciplinary module from a different subject area.

You do not need to select your modules when you apply. Your academic tutor will help you customise your course.

Year 1 overview

Compulsory modules will explore current management ideas from a variety of perspectives. You’ll study how commerce, industry and technology have developed, within a broader social and historical context.

You'll also learn about core management and financial accounting, and develop practical management skills.

You'll study German language and learn about its global status.

Optional modules will include topics on:

the applications of linguistics
understanding culture
history and society

Year 2 overview

Compulsory modules will develop your understanding of management and organisational theory, and business research.

You'll choose from optional modules in both subjects, covering topics such as:

entrepreneurial management
digital marketing
human resource management
management ethics
European business
language and society in the German-speaking World
media perspectives on post-1968 Germany

You’ll also take a module to prepare you for your year abroad.

Year 3 overview

In year 3 you'll undertake your period abroad, in which you'll complete an assessed portfolio of work which counts as a double module and is used to determine progression to year 4.

This will be your opportunity to:

work independently on focused tasks as you acquire more knowledge of the target language, culture and society
get to know a foreign culture first hand, either as a student or in a work placement
practice using the foreign language; you'll be ideally placed to get to know the people, with many lifelong friendships made during this period

We aim to support you, mainly by frequent email contact/video chat sessions.

Reasonable adjustments will be made for individual students who are unable to spend a period abroad. Year 3 contributes to the final degree classification.

Year 4 overview

You can write a dissertation in Modern Languages or Business Management to explore a topic of particular interest in greater depth.

Optional modules will let you focus on areas you find most interesting. Module options include:

technological innovation
strategic management
project management
corporate social responsibility and sustainable business
multicultural Germany

Want more detail? See all the modules in the course.

Modules

Changes due to COVID-19

Although the COVID-19 situation is improving, any future restrictions could mean we might have to change the way parts of our teaching and learning take place in 2022 to 2023. This means that some of the information on this course page may be subject to change.

Find out more on our COVID advice page.

For entry in Academic Year 2022-23

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

You must study the following modules in year 1:

Academic Skills for Modern languages and Linguistics students

This module is designed to ease the transition from A-level to the first year of a single or combined honours degree programme by setting out clearly what we expect of you at undergraduate level and equipping you with the resources to be able to operate a...

Business in Society

This module exposes students to the idea that firms are organisations embedded in societies, thus helping students contextualise the nature, goals, actions, and impact of the organisations of the business world. As such, it helps students build an interdi...

Digital Technologies in Business

Digital technologies ranging from the Internet to cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc. are often not just a key part of organisational operations; they also create opportunities for developing new digital businesses and their applications can ha...

Introduction to Accounting and Finance

The course seeks to provide an introductory, but comprehensive overview of financial accounting, management accounting, and financial management to non-specialist students. The course is delivered with particular emphasis on helping students of management...

Introduction to German Studies

This module is designed to provide you with a broad introduction to the culture, history and language of Germany and other German-speaking countries. By studying various types of primary and secondary sources, you will become familiar with a wide range o...

Introduction to Management

This module provides you with a broad view on key management related topics. It also provides a chance for you to gain hands-on experience on teamwork through preparation and delivery of a group presentation as part of the module assessment. The lectures ...

You must also choose from the following modules in year 1:

Applications of Linguistics

This unit will introduce you to the main areas relevant to applied language studies.

Language Acquisition

You may have asked yourself how children learn their first language or whether some animals can speak just like humans do. People often wonder whether there are any lifelong benefits of bilingualism as well. This module introduces you to the field of lang...

Understanding Culture

This introductory course will give you an overview of some approaches to, and topics within, cultural and literary studies. You will spend time on close textual reading, as well as on broader cultural analysis. It aims to encourage you to experiment in c...

Understanding History and Society

This module will introduce you to studying questions of history, society and culture through the prism of Southampton in order that you can apply those approaches to the study of cities in the French, Spanish and German-speaking world.

You must study the following modules in year 2:

Human Resource Management

This module concerns issues in human resource management and organisational design. These are what ultimately implement the firm’s strategy. Although many organisations recognise the importance of managing the work force effectively and even "know" what a...

Managing Research and Learning

The module will clarify the links between the Year Abroad Portfolio and modules in years two and four.

You must also choose from the following modules in year 2:

Business Research

Organisations exist in dynamic environments, which mean that frequent changes need to be made to remain competitive. This requires managers to make important decisions which can ‘make or break’ an organisation. These decisions need to be based on sound ev...

Discourse Analysis

This module highlights and analyses the link between language structure and its situation of occurrence.

Globalisation: Culture, Language and The Nation State

This module will problematize the concept of globalisation and explore and develop an understanding of its meaning in economic, political and cultural terms. Furthermore, we will examine the ideological struggle between competing forces over the nature an...

Language and Society in German-Speaking World

The main aim of this course is to explore and assess the contemporary importance of the German language, both within the so-called German-speaking countries and in the wider world. We shall identify key sociolinguistic issues as they relate to German-spea...

Learning about Culture: Introduction to Ethnography

Management Ethics

This module discusses issues related to business ethics. It covers philosophical foundations of ethical theories, and applications of ethical theory to real-life case studies and hypothetical dilemmas. It also discusses causes and consequences of unethica...

Multilingualism

This module will introduce you to the notion of ‘Multilingualism’, how this is understood and represented in different ways, and why it matters to you. You will explore how people become multilingual, and whether it makes a difference if multilinguals are...

Operations Management

Operations management is concerned with the management of resources for producing and delivering products or services. Case study material will be used in the module to illustrate many of the important issues faced by operations managers as well as coveri...

Philosophy of Management and Organisations

This module introduces students to philosophical approaches in understanding organisations and their management. The module will consist of three interrelated themes. The first will comprise the attempt to familiarise students with the essential problems ...

Psycholinguistics

This module examines three areas of psycholinguistics which help to understand what the relationship between language and the human mind might be.

Sound and Voice

This module builds on the basic concepts of articulatory phonetics introduced in the first year, and introduces theory and methodology of acoustic science for the study of the production and perception of speech sounds.

Syntax: Studying Language Structure

This module will provide introduce you to the study of syntax within current linguistic theory.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language

This module will introduce you to key issues, concepts and methods in teaching English as a second/foreign language.

The EU and European Identity

The course seeks to provide an overview of the evolution of the European Union (EU) from its early stages to the present. In so doing, it examines the ideas and history of the EU, the institutions of the EU, examples of specific issue areas and the presen...

Vienna and Berlin: Society, Politics and Culture from 1890 to the Present

This module will introduce you to the social, political and cultural history of Vienna and Berlin in the 20th century, German using a wide range of sources which will include literature, film and architecture. Topics covered may include the following:...

You must study the following module in year 4:

Seeing and Being Seen. Period Abroad re-entry

This module is designed to accompany you as you resume your programme of studies in Southampton and grapple with the challenges of re-entry. We will support you as you reflect upon your experience of study abroad, enable you to articulate those experience...

You must also choose from the following modules in year 4:

English as a Global Language

This module explores the rise of English as a global language focusing on the factors that have led to, and the issues that have arisen from, its dominant status. You will learn about the interrelation between globalisation, standardisation and variabilit...

Analytics Implementation III: Knowledge Management, Methods and Ethics

As organisations have become more knowledge intensive, the ability to manage and create knowledge has become a matter of competitive survival. This module is intended to develop students a holistic view of business analytical intention and to understand t...

Audiovisual Translation

This module will introduce you to the different types of audiovisual translation and the various kinds of subtitles produced nowadays. You will learn about the interaction between text and image and the technical issues and constraints involved in creatin...

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Business

This module covers the development of the concept and the meaning of the term corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable business (SB); how CSR and SB models are being implemented in today’s corporations, its impact and likely future directions...

Dissertation

To provide an opportunity to undertake a sustained piece of individually researched academic study. Inter alia this provides a context within which research skills may be developed and demonstrated.

German-Jewish Writing Across the Twentieth Century

The turbulent history of Austrian and German Jews during the twentieth century was accompanied by the production of a diverse and influential body of German-language literature by Jewish authors. Prior to World War Two, Jews played a crucial role in the c...

Language Teaching Theory and Practice

This module examines the theory and practice of language teaching and explores 'reflective practice' as a set of skills that can be applied to your future working life.

Language Testing and Assessment in Society

This module develops awareness of how language testing and assessment have developed in educational and wider social contexts. It focusses on both purposes and processes of language testing and assessment, and critically examines applications in policy ar...

Language and the City

One of the socially and culturally most significant consequences of transnational mobility is that urban populations in particular are increasingly multilingual: in global cities such as London, New York and Berlin there are speakers of hundreds of differ...

Minorities and Migrants: Exploring Multicultural Germany

Germany has had a long tradition of immigration and is one of the most multi-cultural countries in Europe today. We will examine the impact of diverse immigration movements on recent German history and notions of German identity. This includes examining b...

Modern Languages Dissertation

This unit will allow students to undertake independent research to produce an in-depth study of a specific topic located in one of the fields within Modern Languages. You will also have the option of producing a professional project. In that case, your d...

Project Management

Project management is an integrated approach to achieve non-routine business objectives. This module aims to introduce the ideas, techniques and tools of project management as used in practice. Students will be equipped with both knowledge and underst...

Public Service Interpreting

This module will provide students with both a practical and theoretical insight into the role of a Public Service Interpreter. Beginning with a general introduction to interpreting, it will go on to focus more in depth on the wide range of issues and chal...

Risk Management

This is a holistic module because it emphasises that its constituent topics dealing with diverse aspects of risk management are highly interconnected. Mastery of the subject is conceived as requiring a strong understanding of these interconnections. For e...

Second Language Acquisition

This module provides an insight into the cognitive processes involved in the acquisition of language. Different theories of first and second language acquisition will be examined and critically assessed in the light of empirical evidence. Various factors ...

Sociophonetic Project Module

This final year module builds on the theoretical grounding students gain in LING 2011 Variation and Change in English and the instrumental analysis techniques from LING 2008 Sound and Voice. Through a series of computer, lab-based sessions, students test ...

Strategic Management

Strategic management is central to the operation of a variety of businesses in different sectors and environments. The creation of a strategy and the management of its implementation are important in developing businesses that can create and sustain a com...

Technological Innovation

Technological innovation is increasingly recognised as one of the most important sources of sustainable competitive advantage for businesses around the world. However, building an organization which can successfully and repeatedly create technological inn...

Writing in a Second Language

The module will take you through the process, the product and the place of writing. Process will deal primarily with modelling cognitive operations, analysis of composing strategies, and individual differences and changes in processes over time. Product w...

Fees, costs and funding

Tuition fees

Fees for a year's study:

UK students pay £9,250.
EU and international students pay £20,340.

What your fees pay for

Your tuition fees pay for the full cost of tuition and all examinations.

Find out how to:

Accommodation and living costs, such as travel and food, are not included in your tuition fees. Explore:

Bursaries, scholarships and other funding

If you're a UK or EU student and your household income is under £25,000 a year, you may be able to get a University of Southampton bursary to help with your living costs. Find out about bursaries and other funding we offer at Southampton.

If you're a care leaver or estranged from your parents, you may be able to get a specific bursary.

Get in touch for advice about student money matters.

Scholarships and grants

You may be able to get a scholarship or grant to help fund your studies.

We award scholarships and grants for travel, academic excellence, or to students from under-represented backgrounds.

Support during your course

The Student Services Centre offers support and advice on money to students. You may be able to access our Student Support fund and other sources of financial support during your course.