Undergraduate Business Management Reading List

Interested in studying Business Management? Like the look of Marketing or Tourism related disciplines?

We have put together the below suggested reading and resources list to provide a flavour of some of the material you may cover throughout your undergraduate degree and help give you a head start on your first semester at the School of Management.

Get prepared for university

Why should I read these?

By engaging with the resources, you will:

Get familiar with the terminology used in your chosen degree before starting with us.
Enhance your understanding of various management and marketing related theoretical practices.
Start to discover where your interests lie, which will be useful when thinking about where you want your future career to take you.

If you have yet to apply for your degree with us, our reading material can be combined with your own reading to help you write a strong personal statement, with greater understanding of the course and references.

Reading List and Online Resources

This is not an exhaustive list of all that you will be studying but an opportunity to start developing and understanding where your management interests lie.

You'll find books related to some key first year semester modules, research highlights from the department to help you get a feel for how our cutting-edge research is weaved into our teaching, and online resources which provide a wider grounding in your subject area to allow you to see how it relates to real world current issues.

Books for Business Management and Marketing

We suggest you start by choosing one or two books listed below to delve into – perhaps from a module you are particularly interested in, or a module you feel might be particularly challenging.

You can also check out the modules expander on each of our course pages for more information on the modules/topics covered in your course and other useful reading materials to help you prepare for your studies.

Module: MN-1003 Accounting for Business

McLaney, E.J. (2015) Accounting and Finance : An Introduction 8th edition. Pearson Education Limited.
Dyson, J.R. (2010) Accounting for non-accounting students / John R. Dyson. 8th ed. Harlow, UK, Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Atrill, P. (2013) Accounting and finance for non-specialists / Peter Atrill and Eddie McLaney. 8th ed. E. J. McLaney (ed.). Harlow: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Atrill, P. (2006) Accounting and finance for non-specialists / Peter Atrill and Eddie McLaney. 5th edition. E. J. McLaney (ed.). Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.

Module: MN-1006 Managing People

Burawoy, M. & Wright, E.O. (1990) Coercion and Consent in Contested Exchange. Politics & Society. [Online] 18 (2), 251–266. Available from: doi:10.1177/003232929001800206.
Briken, K. & Taylor, P. (2018) Fulfilling the “British way”: beyond constrained choice-Amazon workers’ lived experiences of workfare. Industrial Relations Journal. [Online] 49 (5-6), 438–458. Available from: doi:10.1111/irj.12232.
Tony J. Watson (2006) Organising and managing work: organisational, managerial and strategic behaviour in theory and practice / Tony J. Watson. 2nd edition. Harlow, Pearson Longman.
Behling, F. & Harvey, M. (2015) The evolution of false self-employment in the British construction industry: a neo-Polanyian account of labour market formation. Work, Employment & Society. [Online] 29 (6), 969–988. Available from: doi:10.1177/0950017014559960.

Module: MN-1016 Marketing

David Jobber 1947- author. (2020) Principles and practice of marketing / David Jobber and Fiona Ellis-Chadwick. Ninth edition. Fiona Ellis-Chadwick author. (ed.). London:McGraw-Hill.

Books for International Tourism Management

We suggest you start by choosing one or two books listed below to delve into – perhaps from a module you are particularly interested in, or a module you feel might be particularly challenging.

Module: MN-1006 Managing People

Burawoy, M. & Wright, E.O. (1990) Coercion and Consent in Contested Exchange. Politics & Society. [Online] 18 (2), 251–266. Available from: doi:10.1177/003232929001800206.
Briken, K. & Taylor, P. (2018) Fulfilling the “British way”: beyond constrained choice-Amazon workers’ lived experiences of workfare. Industrial Relations Journal. [Online] 49 (5-6), 438–458. Available from: doi:10.1111/irj.12232.
Tony J. Watson (2006) Organising and managing work: organisational, managerial and strategic behaviour in theory and practice / Tony J. Watson. 2nd edition. Harlow, Pearson Longman.
Behling, F. & Harvey, M. (2015) The evolution of false self-employment in the British construction industry: a neo-Polanyian account of labour market formation. Work, Employment & Society. [Online] 29 (6), 969–988. Available from: doi:10.1177/0950017014559960.

Module: MN-1016 Marketing

David Jobber 1947- author. (2020) Principles and practice of marketing / David Jobber and Fiona Ellis-Chadwick. Ninth edition. Fiona Ellis-Chadwick author. (ed.). London:McGraw-Hill.

Module: MN-1020 - The Business of Tourism

Cooper & Fletcher – Tourism: Principles and Practice
Holloway & Humphreys – The Business of Tourism
Fletcher, Fyall, Gilbert & Wanhill – Tourism: Principles and Practice
Page & Connell – Tourism: A Modern Synthesis
Walker – Introduction to Hospitality
Mason – Tourism Impacts, Planning and Management
Smith & Brent – Hosts & Guests Revisited: Tourism Issues of the 21st Century.
Gursoy & Sotiriadis – The Handbook of Managing and Marketing Tourism Experiences
Scott, Gao & Ma – Visitor Experience Design
Williams & Lew – Tourism Geography: Critical Understandings of Place, Space, and Experience
Yeoman – 2050: Tomorrow’s Tourism. Bristol, United Kingdom: Channel View

Research from the department

Recent research from Professor Geraint Harvey, Director of the Centre for People and Organisation, looks at the impact of changing employment contracts, from traditional to commercial contracts. With the rise in the ‘gig economy’, otherwise known as the increase in freelance or short-term work contracts, how are people on these less traditional contracts impacted? What are the benefits to them of these new contracts?

You can also listen to his podcast on new forms of work and how they impact workers in Think you know the benefits to the gig economy? Think again, produced as part of Swansea University’s Exploring Global Problems series.