90840 - Business Communication

Learning outcomes

The course provides a general introduction to the business world, with a focus on corporate communication.

It creates a clear understanding of traditional advertising and promotional tools, and shows how other key elements within the marketing communications mix ( e.g., advertising, direct marketing, promotion and the Internet) can be integrated.

Course contents

The course contents will be addressed in such a way as to make them easily understandable even by non-specialists. The discussion of the topics in the program will be functional to the professional profile of those enrolled in the School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Interpreting and Translation.

Prerequisites: none.

Course Outline:

- The basic tool of business communication: the company budget. The income statement and the balance sheet.

- The reclassification of the income statement and the balance sheet.

- An important tool for business communication derived from the company balance sheet: the ratios.

- Written communication: the basic tools, the company monograph, the website and the other tools that act on the visibility of the company.

- Written communication: the skills of the business writer, the consistency of written communication with corporate identity and style.

- Business communication and public relations and information technologies: the role of social media, the mobile web.

- Business storytelling.

- Know your community of reference: listening, measurement and metrics for digital marketing and social media.

- The company's relations with the media.

- Event planning elements. Corporate events and social media.

- Patents and brands as tools for business communication.

Readings/Bibliography

Emanuele Invernizzi, Stefania Romenti, Relazioni pubbliche e corporate communication, McGraw-Hill, 2013.

Guido di Fraia (editor), Social media marketing, 2015.

Alessandra Mazzei (editor), Comunicazione d'impresa, Pearson, 2020.

Lecture notes by the teacher.

Teaching methods

Classroom lectures.

Assessment methods

Written 90 minute exam. It will include 2/3 open-ended questions with the aim of assessing the student's ability to understand business communication policies, including those related to the company balance sheet, and to allow the student to expose the salient features of a concrete case-study of his/her choice.

To take the exam, it is essential to enrol on Almaesami. Since this is an optional course, class attendance is not strictly required. However, it is strongly recommended to improve the productivity of the time spent studying this subject.

The grade will go from 30 to 18, depending on the level of understanding of the relevant material, the matching between the selected case-study and the course material, .

30-27

-Outstanding grasp of the course material.

-Full match between the selected case-study and the course material.

-Correct reading of the communication policy of the company involved in the case-study.

-Fluent expressive output

26-23

-Substantial understanding of the course material.

-Substantial match between the selected case-study and the course material.

-Substantially correct reading of the communication policy of the company involved in the case-study.

-Good expressive output

25-22

-Discreet understanding of the course material.

-Discreet match between the selected case-study and the course material.

- Discreet reading of the communication policy of the company involved in the case-study.

-Discreet expressive output

21-18

-Sufficient understanding of the course material.

-Sufficient match between the selected case-study and the course material.

-Sufficient reading of the communication policy of the company involved in the case-study.

-Sufficient expressive output.

Negative assessment

-Scarce understanding of the course material.

-Scarce match between the selected case-study and the course material.

-Scarce reading of the communication policy of the company involved in the case-study.

-Scarce expressive output.

Teaching tools

Blackboard and chalk (or markers).

Office hours

See the website of Luciano Messori