Single-unit study
You can study individual units for personal or professional development without having to apply for a full QUT course.
If you successfully complete a unit, you may be eligible for credit if you decide to apply for a degree course in the future.
Units anyone can study
These units don’t have any requirements for previous study or background knowledge.
But if your previous studies were not in English, or were completed in a country where English is not the first language, you will need to demonstrate that you meet our English proficiency requirements when you apply.
Business
Business and law
BSB105 The Future Enterprise
This introductory unit is designed to equip business students with the essential knowledge and skills to navigate rapidly evolving business landscapes in the ‘Economy of Algorithms’ and thrive in the future of work. Drawing on real-world cases, you will explore the dynamics of digital transformation and disruption, preparing you to lead organisations through technological shifts, fostering innovation and resilience. You will evaluate and build digital capabilities, preparing you as a future business leader equipped to make responsible decisions in the digital realm that are integral to long-term business success and societal well-being. You will emerge as strategic thinker capable of leveraging your own digital capabilities and digital tools to drive business success. This unit is relevant to students of all business disciplines, preparing you for the future of work and introducing you to business capabilities to ignite your career.
BSB106 Dynamic Markets
In this introductory business core unit, you will explore how value is created for organisations and customers through the process of exchange in dynamic market environments. You will learn about how businesses interact with consumers and other stakeholders, gain an understanding of the forces that drive behaviour in different market settings, and explore strategies organisations use to enter and operate within dynamic markets to co-create value with customers and stakeholders. This unit is relevant to students of all business disciplines, introducing you to evidence-based skills needed to analyse and critically appraise the trade-offs required to create value and succeed in complex business settings. Along with the rest of the introductory business core, this unit forms the foundation for further study across the breadth of business disciplines, introducing you to business capabilities to prepare you for the future world of work and ignite your career.
BSB107 Financial Performance and Responsibility
In this introductory core unit, you will learn financial literacy and decision making at both personal and business levels, integrating technical skills with their social and ethical impacts throughout. You will acquire a foundational understanding of financial concepts and principles and their application across these contexts. From a personal perspective you will learn strategies for effectively managing your personal finances to achieve future focused financial goals and how to recognize common financial risks. From a business perspective, you will learn how to analyse and assess company performance using financial statements and sustainability reports. This unit, along with the rest of the introductory business core, forms the foundation for further study across the breadth of business disciplines and introduces you to business capabilities to prepare you for the future world of work and ignite your career.
BSB108 Business Environment
This introductory unit introduces you to the complex and dynamic national, international and global environments in which businesses operate and must navigate. You will explore the roles of key national and international institutions. At the same time, you will use data-driven analysis to critically evaluate how interconnected trends both influence—and are influenced by—the policy and regulatory approaches of these institutions, particularly in response to economic, social, sustainability, geopolitical, and ethical challenges that are a priority for businesses. This unit, along with the rest of the introductory business core, forms the foundation for further study across the breadth of business disciplines and introduces you to business capabilities to prepare you for the future world of work and ignite your career.
BSB130 Social Enterprises
Real world social and environmental issues are increasingly addressed through business means in an emerging form of hybrid organisation – the social enterprise. Traditionally, the government and charity sectors sought to meet community needs, however resource constraints and increasing demand make this increasingly difficult. Social enterprises provide innovative and sustainable solutions to resourcing and fulfilling charitable purposes via business means. This business core option unit introduces you to social enterprises in a global perspective, and helps you to develop Human-Centred Design skills as you build a social enterprise business plan.
BSB131 Applied Business Analytics
Organisations use business analytics to understand and solve business problems, increase efficiency, leverage productivity, and ultimately enhance the business performance of organisations. This business core option unit introduces you to a practical framework for data collection, aggregation, processing, and modelling to transform data into business insights. You will gain knowledge of key business analytics methods and approaches, and build skills in using Excel to manage and analyse data sets — valuable competencies that will help you to improve decision-making in contemporary business environments across all business disciplines.
BSB250 Business Citizenship
This unit acts as a bridge to the introductory aspects of business education to the more complex issues involved in operating a business ethically and effectively. It explores how corporate citizenship requires a company to respond to a set of inter-related expectations arising at the individual, national and global levels. You will extend your understanding of ethics developed in foundational units by reflecting on your personal approaches to ethical dilemmas. At the national level, the unit explores core principles of the legal framework within which corporations operate, including key rights and responsibilities. From a global view, you will explore different perspectives on corporate social responsibility and grapple with the difficulty of balancing conflicting expectations of stakeholders through application of the UN sustainability development goals. As a result, you will develop a greater appreciation for the tradeoffs inherent in complex decision-making.
BSN450 Business Intelligence
In this multidisciplinary business core unit, you will engage with approaches and technologies used by enterprises to research business problems and generate evidence to inform strategic decision-making. Through the application of key theories and business research tools, you will gain the capability to collect, evaluate and interpret diverse data sources spanning consumers, competitors and internal processes to produce insights that drive innovation, product and service development, and improvement. You will develop skills in conducting business research, working in team contexts and using powerful visualisation tools to present complex business insights to professional audiences. This unit establishes an essential foundation for further study across the breadth of business disciplines, developing critical business capabilities that prepare you to navigate and contribute to the rapidly evolving, technology-enabled future of work.
BSN451 Data-Driven Decision Making
This multidisciplinary core unit will prepare you for today’s digital economy, where data is the new currency. Data can be collected, exchanged, used to create value, and drive economic activity. As such, the ability to collect, clean, analyse, interpret and report financial and non-financial data using digital tools and GenAI has fast become an essential skill of the modern business professional. Organisations across all sectors are actively seeking graduates with the ability to identify business opportunities and risks through both numerical and narrative analysis. These skills are increasingly relied upon to inform better decision making, drive business strategy, identify market trends, decipher consumer behaviour, optimise operations, and ultimately improve the social, environmental, and financial performance of businesses.
BSN452 Productivity and Leadership in Technology-Augemented Work
In contemporary and emerging business environments, success depends on the ability to design and lead work that is productive, adaptive, and ethically grounded. This unit equips students from all disciplines with the principles, practices, and tools to thrive in dynamic, technology-augmented contexts. You will examine how artificial intelligence, automation, and augmented decision-making are reshaping roles, teams, and organisational agility; how to manage collaboration between human and AI agents; and how to build inclusive, sustainable approaches to productivity and leadership. Through practical application and critical reflection, you will develop the capabilities to navigate the opportunities and risks of the future of work, delivering value across diverse industries and functions.
BSN455 Economic Analysis in Business
This unit provides an applied foundation in economic thinking tailored for business professionals operating in complex, dynamic environments. It equips you with the conceptual frameworks and analytical tools needed to understand the impact of economic forces. Applying both microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives, you will explore how individuals, businesses and policymakers interact within broader economic systems. You will see how market structures and regulatory environments shape these interactions and outcomes at both firm and societal levels. Through real-world analysis and problem-solving, you will develop the ability to interpret economic signals, evaluate policy implications, and understand how strategic decision-making aligns with economic realities. This unit supports your capacity to apply economic reasoning to contemporary business challenges and lays the groundwork for more advanced inquiry across business.
BSN456 Financial Analysis and Decision Making
This unit provides you with a critical foundation in applied finance, enabling you to understand and navigate the financial dimensions of managerial decision-making. You will explore how financial principles and tools are used to evaluate investments, manage risk, and make strategic decisions in dynamic national and global financial environments. Emphasis is placed on developing technical proficiency, analytical thinking, and practical skills using financial models and software tools. You will also critically assess financial information to support evidence-based decision-making, and apply advanced financial techniques to solve complex problems in technology-enhanced business contexts.
BSN550 Responsible Enterprise
Excellent enterprises generate a profit, but also seek to achieve these economic benefits ethically and sustainably - thus minimising impact on people and planet. In this multidisciplinary business core unit, you will develop an applied understanding of ethical frameworks in business, and practise critical systems thinking and problem solving skills required for effective leadership in the future world of work. You will explore your own values in relation to Indigenous Australian, philosophical and psychological ethical perspectives. You will apply a values-based approach to conceptualising and addressing complex systems and business problems aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), spanning for-profit, not-for-profit, government and hybrid contexts. This unit informs further study across the breadth of business disciplines, developing business capabilities to prepare you for the future of business and ignite your career.
MGN436 HRM Strategy in a Changing World
This unit explores the strategic role of Human Resource Management in driving performance in complex and rapidly evolving environments. You will examine how HR strategy aligns with organisational goals, digital transformation, and workforce diversity. The unit develops your ability to design and implement evidence based HR strategies that create value for both organisations and employees.
Management
MGB232 Managing Performance and Rewards
Performance and reward management is a key functional area of HRM and is of critical importance in supporting organisations to maintain a competitive advantage. Therefore, it is imperative that you understand the strategic framework and the underlying psychological principles that maximise employee performance. This unit contributes significantly to your understanding of people management, your HR diagnostic skills and your ability to develop HR policies and procedures to support employee, managerial and organisational effectiveness.
MGB234 Managing Knowledge, Innovation, and Creativity
Managing knowledge and innovation are key drivers of success for many of today's firms and ventures and are integral to an organisation's ability to survive and thrive in a dynamic and competitive marketplace. The purpose of Managing Knowledge & Innovation is to extend your understanding of the human and technical systems of organisations by focusing on how information and knowledge can be harnessed for innovation and competitive advantage. With a focus on the theories and frameworks to inform decisions for organising human and technical systems, this unit develops your understanding of the meso-level responsibilities of management, and parallels.
MGB235 Monitoring and Managing Operational Performance
The production of goods or services is the core activity of all organisations, irrespective of whether the organisation is part of the private sector, the public sector, or the not-for-profit sector. The operational performance of organisations is only made possible by the integrated support of other functional and administrative areas of the organisation. It is essential that you gain an understanding of the central issues of how operations produce organisational outputs, and how other functional and administrative areas contribute to the performance of this core activity. Monitoring and Managing Operational Performance focuses on providing you with a "manager's toolkit" for identifying, monitoring and enhancing the operational performance of organisations' socio-technical systems. By focusing on management tools, you will develop a critical awareness of the interdependence of human, technical, competitive, and financial domains of control.
MGB236 Identifying and Managing Risk
Developing an understanding of risk management, in theory and practice, is essential for ensuring resilient and sustainable organisations. Effective risk management outcomes result from the analysis of uncertainties embedded in human knowledge, systems of management and processes in commerce, and from implementing mitigation strategies generated to address these factors. This unit seeks to develop students managerial toolkit with current Risk Management models and current national and international risk standards. All forms of organisations face and manage risk in different ways, and this unit shares insights for managing risk in an array of private, public, and entrepreneurial contexts.
Units you need background knowledge to study
These units have requirements for previous study or background knowledge. Check the unit’s previous study requirements for details. If you have any questions, contact the unit coordinator for the semester you want to study.
If your previous studies were not in English, or were completed in a country where English is not the first language, you will also need to demonstrate that you meet our English proficiency requirements when you apply.
Business
Accountancy
AYN414 Cost and Management Accounting
The objective of management accounting is to deliver effective business insights to help managers of organisations achieve the strategic goals of their firm. In this unit, you will learn to evaluate data and perform analytical techniques that support decisions, such as costing a firm's products or services, budgeting, and performance management, with consideration for long-term value creation and sustainable organisational practices.
AYN456 Business and Corporations Law
As many business decisions involve consideration of business and corporate law, as a postgraduate accounting graduate, you will be expected to possess a functional understanding of Australia's legal system. Knowledge of business and company law will equip you with skills for professional practice and enhance your ability to navigate increasingly complex business landscapes. This unit introduces you to Australia's legal environment, developing your knowledge and understanding of core principles of law, while also introducing basic research and analysis skills essential to effective and ethically responsible decision-making in business.
Business and law
BSB399 Real World Ready - Business Capstone
What does the business world of the future look like? The Business Capstone will make you future ready. The future business professional navigates the unforeseen complexities of future business. This unit will develop students' skills in advanced analyses of the macro, meso, and micro business environments to determine critical business priorities in the now and in the future. The future business professional leads multidisciplinary teams to collaborate and innovate effectively when tackling complex business scenarios. This unit will impart students with techniques for advanced ideation, value creation, and leadership of high-performance teams. Lastly, the future business professional materialises ideas compellingly to influence desirable, feasible, and viable change. This unit will advance students' dynamic communication skills to create real-world impact on real-world business.
BSN405 Project 2
BSN405 is an applied project unit. The student selects a topic which they have identified as significant to their professional development and is expected to spend ten hours per week over the teaching period on completing the project on this topic. The primary purpose of the unit is to augment or extend your professional knowledge beyond classroom instruction, to develop applied research skills, to integrate learning with work, and provide an opportunity for self directed learning. In order to achieve these purposes, you will develop an individually tailored learning contract. The specific program of study will be developed in conjunction with and approved by the academic supervisor.
Economics and finance
EFN405 Applied Economics
The economic framework in this introductory unit provides students with a broad understanding of the economic forces that impact business and government, equipping them with knowledge, technical and problem solving skills that they will continue to develop and apply in later units where more complex situations and issues are explored. The unit provides an introduction to both microeconomic and macroeconomic key concepts.
EFN406 Managerial Finance
This is an introductory unit complementary to EFN425 and EFN420. This unit gives students an essential grounding in applied finance, addressing fundamental issues of how we can use finance in a commercial sense and how this impacts critical organisational and managerial decisions in an increasingly complex and demanding financial environment. Subsequent units in this course will build on the knowledge introduced in this unit.
EFN420 Data Analysis for Financial Managers
The field of finance is broad and dynamic. It directly affects the lives of every person and every organisation, financial or non-financial, private or public, large or small, profit-maximising or not-for-profit. In order to make optimal financial decisions, some basic financial skills are necessary. This unit introduces students to key knowledge and skills necessary for financial managers functioning in an increasingly complex and demanding environment. Subsequent units will build on and extend the knowledge and skills gained in this unit.
Management
MGN444 Business in Asia
Business professionals must be able to operate effectively in different regions of the global economy. The substantial size and international impact of Asian economies demand that anyone pursuing a career in international business develop a thorough understanding of Asian business environments. This unit informs future business professionals about doing business in Asia.
MGN448 Negotiating Across Borders
In the contemporary global business environment, negotiators who understand how culture affects negotiating processes and outcomes have a decided advantage at the bargaining table. The purpose of this unit is to help you understand and apply the theory and processes of negotiation.