Course Description
This page lists the offerings for the current Academic Year, in addition to outlining the requirements for a BBM student. For the most updated and accurate list of Communication Managmeent courses offered and their course attributes, please go to OASIS > STUDY > Course & Schedule > Browse Catalogue.
Alternatively, you can go to www.smu.edu.sg:
Undergraduate> Course Catalogue> Select relevant course> View Class Sections.
For non-BBM students, please check the major requirements here.
Managing Core Module for All BBM Students (1 CU)
Management Communication (COR-COMM 1304)
Management Communication equips students with strategies that will enable them to successfully communicate their solutions to organizational problems. Since the course emphasizes the importance of effective written and spoken communication within a business setting, students will be exposed to strategies that will enable them to communicate their ideas and values in a clear, persuasive and memorable way. Students will, therefore, learn the art of producing impactful business documents and delivering engaging presentations in various business contexts. By the end of the course, students will be able to function as proficient communicators who are ready to embrace the communicative challenges inherent in today’s dynamic business environment.
Communication Management Major's Compulsory Modules (2 CUs)
Foundations in Strategic Communication (COMM102)
COMM102 is the core course of the communication management major. It lays the foundations for managing corporate communication and external relations and connects all other electives via a common structure and understanding. In this course, students examine communicative practices in the corporate environment, including internal communication, reputation and image management, crisis communication, public relations, corporate social responsibility, and new communication technologies. Through discussions of corporate communication theories, case studies, and practical applications, this course introduces students to the perspective that the organization is the sum of its stakeholder perceptions and relationships. Students with a communication management major are thus enabled to choose a focus for their curriculum and/or career.
Designing Communication For Behavioural Change (COMM 302)
What makes people notice certain commercials or news and not others? How can media content be catchy, convincing, and contagious? When addressing such questions in organizational settings, communications managers often rely on what they know from executive experience and/or conventional wisdom, executing a number of communication strategies aiming at having a desired impact. This course will show how strategies that may hold intuitive appeal can be challenged and better informed by psychological principles underlying human judgment and decision-making. Students will learn the key psychological principles about how people process information in a given context and how to assess the conditions under which intended and/or unintended consequences arise. The learning, in turn, can be transformed to exert a competitive edge by identifying contributing and constraining factors of strategic communication to make an impact.
Communication Management Major's Elective Modules (CHOOSE ANY 4 CUS)
Fundamentals Of Media Engagement (COMM 121)
Media relations remains an “important” function (Shaw & White, 2004, p. 494) of corporate communications. In media relations, organizations seek favorable publicity for their products and services (Sallot, Steinfatt & Salwen, 1998; Seitel, 2004; Sinaga & Wu, 2007; Yoon 2005) often through information subsidy (Supa & Zoch, 2009) to “enhance the reputation of an organization” (Bland, Theaker, & Wragg, 2005, p. 55). With the proliferation of diverse media platforms, engaging both online and traditional media remains a challenge. How, then, should organizations practice media relations?
Studies on media relations have focused on different aspects of media work. This course adopts Pang’s (2010) Mediating the Media model meant to equip organizations to conduct media relations in a systematic manner with the primary objective of winning the journalists over by the knowledge of their work and their profession. It emphasizes the strategic aspects of media engagement rather than tactical like writing press releases. The aim is to equip organizational leaders with the knowledge of media relations so that they can incorporate this as part of organizational strategy and empower their communication colleagues to carry out the tactical tasks.
It is a useful course for those who wish to:
- Join the corporate ladder as business leaders
- Join business and communication consultancies
- Join public administration
- Anyone who wish to learn how to engage the media
- For those who wish to embark on research
Internal Communication (COMM245)
To achieve anything substantial at work, it is essential, if not necessary to amass support from internal stakeholders - to communicate and persuade colleagues to understand, accept and support ideas. Yet, most communication efforts in organisations tend to be directed externally towards sales, integrated marketing, public and investor relations, etc. Internal communication is often misunderstood; rarely receives thorough planning; and is generally assumed as unnecessary as employees are expected to comply and presumed to be docile. Recognising the importance of internal communication begins with the acknowledgement that organisations comprise sentient, thinking and diverse individuals who might not be readily agreeable and invariably obliging. Internal communication is fundamental as it can enable organisations to align missions and goals, cultivate common beliefs, coordinate activities, develop a shared identity and facilitate decision-making. In exploring the many roles and responsibilities played by internal communication practitioners in organisations, this course will examine theories, frameworks and case studies to develop understanding, skills and insights into the role of internal communication in fast-paced and dynamic workplaces.
Crisis Management And Communication (COMM 246)
Organizations are battling crises of some form or other every day. This can be internal crises like organizational miscommunication, personality clashes; or external crises, for instance, arising from policy mismanagement to terrorism. Due to the vulnerability of the organization to both internal and external uncertainties, no organization is immune from crises. Even as we speak, many organizations are managing the Covid-19 crisis that has engulfed the world.
This course equips students with the necessary skills and abilities to prepare for organizational crises, diagnose the nature of the crises, how to communicate during crises, and how to recover and learn from crises.
It is a useful course for those who wish to be equipped with knowledge for their work in public relations, human resource, finance, consultancy, management, law, and public administration; or any other areas.
Storytelling with AI (COR-COMM 2246)
Storytelling is a timeless skill. But Generative AI is now making it possible for practitioners to more seamlessly bridge the gap between intention and action. In addition, it enables faster content creation at scale. This course will equip you with the knowledge and skills to work together with Generative AI to create compelling and impactful stories for organizations and brands to engage, persuade, and inspire audiences. In addition, you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learnt to a real-time, real-world client project.
User Experience (UX) And Digital Product Design (COMM 255)
This course provides an introduction to user experience (UX) practices, theories, and real-world approaches that can help you prepare for work at some of the most innovative technology companies of today that obsess over their users’ needs, feedback, and satisfaction. With focus on communicating human-centered design across stakeholders in digital technology product organizations, you can learn how to create user experiences that enhance and augment the ways people work, communicate, and interact. Through a series of lectures, hands-on tutorials, and project-based assignments, you will acquire skills in all four basic activities of interaction design: discovery, design, prototyping, and evaluation. You and your project group will design an interactive digital app prototype based on the research findings of real human needs.
Design Thinking And Communication (COMM 256)
Design Thinking is an open-ended, open-minded, and iterative approach to finding solutions for difficult business problems. It uses technology and a designer’s toolkit, while focusing on human needs. You don’t need to be a designer to become a design thinker. This course is your opportunity to learn to apply creative and collaborative tools, such as brainstorming and prototypes, to real-life challenges with a particular focus on how to communicate (i.e., pitch) innovative solutions. As we will discuss design thinking case studies at many Fortune 500 companies, you will be first introduced (in the form of interactive lectures) then practice (through hands-on workshops) the design thinking process. Designs go through many iterations and you will also refine your project multiple times. The course culminates in a group project pitch in front of external judges, who are ready to mentor (and sometimes even invest in) students to turn their entrepreneurial ideas into the next unicorn start-up.
Misinformation Management (COMM 257)
Smartphones, social media and generative artificial intelligence have made easy work of information production, dissemination and consumption. They have also, correspondingly, facilitated the proliferation of misinformation. Widespread false, inaccurate and misleading information can have profound consequences on the well-being of individuals, organisations, and societies; threatening public health and safety, inciting social unrest, and disrupting livelihoods. Its effects have been especially pronounced in recent years, hindering vaccination drives, compelling irrational consumer behaviours, threatening political processes, and causing significant financial losses. What drives some to believe in, and act on misinformation? What can individuals, organisations and societies do to manage misinformation? Can we believe anything that we see anymore? In exploring concepts, conditions and consequences of misinformation, this course invites students to question the truths, tales and lies that may be guiding human behaviours.
Machine Learning For Communication Management (COMM 301)
The course is designed to give students in the Communication Management major (Data, Design, Communication Track) and who are new to data analytics an understanding of how to carry out data-driven and data-informed managerial decision-making in business. The course will provide step-by-step guidance on how to execute machine learning methods using computational programming in R and deploy the analytic results in an interactive dashboard, using Shiny.
Students will be able to understand the processes and results of predictive analytics based on supervised (regression and classification) and unsupervised (clustering and dimensionality reduction) machine learning. This will be done in the context of solving business questions (e.g., predicting customer attrition and customer segmentation). This course will provide useful skills in computational data analytics for aspiring strategic thinkers in organizations.
As there will be discussions of cutting-edge science and technology used in business analytics, the course will be both conceptual and technical (experiential). The experiential (hands-on) learning portion is the critical component—the course will employ hands-on (learning by doing) approaches. To fully understand what can be done and should be done, so that students can use what they learn during the course in their workplaces (or at least envision what could be done, and what questions to ask their organizations’ data analytics teams), it is vital to undertake hands-on programming for predictive analytics.
Strategic Communication In Asia (COMM 334)
COMM334 is an advanced elective module designed for graduating students majoring in corporate communication. With Asia’s economic ascendancy and modernisation, corporate communication in Asia has taken on a new importance in the past two decades. Home to over half of the world’s population, unprecedented political, social and technological forces in an age of discontinuities are creating a new world order for Asia. The importance of communicating strategically and the need for greater cross-cultural understanding have never been more critical for organisations struggling to effectively communicate with diverse stakeholder groups across different geographies in this new multi-polar business environment. This course aims to equip graduating communication students with the ability to apply theory and understand how strategic communication has evolved to influence the integration of paid, earned, shared and owned media which are vital to unearthing unique characteristics that drive communication practice in selected developed and developing nations in Asia. In addition to gaining insights from top Asian practitioners in the region, students will also acquire in-depth knowledge of the socio-political-cultural-economic factors that underpin the practice that influence business outcomes in the world’s most populous continent. This course will prepare students with a corporate communication major to readily transit and take on responsibilities to manage communication for businesses operating across Asia.
Investor Relations (COMM 360)
Investor Relations (IR), sometimes referred to as financial communications or financial public relations, is the strategic management responsibility which integrates finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to deliver effective two-way communication between a company and its stakeholders, ultimately contributing to a company's securities achieving fair valuation.
This course introduces students to the essentials of effective IR and covers the various methods of how public-listed companies can successfully communicate with the global investment community, including institutional investors, retail investors, analysts, financial media, financial bloggers and regulators.
The course will look into how a company communicates with its stakeholders through its life cycle - from Pre-IPO (Initial Public Offering) to IPO and post-IPO, and examine the digital and mainstream building blocks and IR tools which are integral parts of a sound IR programme. Case studies will include Investor Relations for IPOs, mergers & acquisitions, privatisations/delistings, crises, shareholder activism, amongst others.
Students will gain an understanding of the factors which influence equity valuation through two course assignments. First is an assignment where students assume the role of an IR Manager of a listed company to formulate an effective investor relations strategy and develop an IR calendar of activities to engage the financial community. A second assignment will see students assuming the role of sell-side analysts to investigate a listed company, its business and industry to better understand and communicate the key value drivers.
Communication Strategies In The Digital Age (COR-COMM1312)
Have you ever wondered why some videos/campaigns go viral while others flop or how some companies have successfully leveraged Facebook and Twitter to reach out to their customers and clients? How are some companies able to effectively manage a crisis using social media while others flounder, crash and burn? In this course, you will learn how social media affects and has changed the way organisations communicate with their publics. You will analyse the theories, strategies and practices that govern social media usage and application in today's business and social environments and learn how best to harness social media to help an organization achieve its goals and objectives. This course will also touch on current issues affecting the industry due to the rise of social media and the resultant implications for the organisation, industry and society.
Intercultural Communication (COR-COMM 1313)
The course provides strategies on how to read a person’s culture as well as corporate culture. Features of culture such as individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, power distance and issues related to intercultural adaptation, ethnocentrism, stereotyping and prejudice will be discussed. The aim of this course is to develop intercultural competencies, which will make business practices more meaningful and significant.
Sustainability Management And Governance (MGMT 235)
This course provides an introduction to environmental sustainability and human development issues, and the means of framing, analysing and solving such problems. As environmental and social problems mount around the world, firms have become more attuned to the need to devise new products, services and strategies, and to communicate these to a variety of stakeholders, even as they cooperate with them.
Environmental sustainability, and more generally, sustainability, has become increasingly important to developed and developing nations alike. Typical issues include resource scarcity and polluted environments, but more recently, global climate change has become the primary issue for many. In general, sustainability issues often consist of complex interactions between human activity and the environment. The course will apply several academic perspectives to characterizing these problems and their possible solutions.
The course will focus in particular on businesses’ role in causing and addressing sustainability problems and on how they moderate their impacts. An important part of addressing the sustainability of firms is the employment of various concepts and frameworks that help incorporate the sustainability perspective into firms’ strategies and operations. To help characterize firms’ sustainability and determine appropriate courses of action, the course will cover specific managerial tools and frameworks. The primary focus will be on strategy and business models that support change and its operationalization, but the course will also illustrate the role that “greening” other business functions play in the sustainability of the firm, including those of marketing, supply chains, and financing. The course will review core management frameworks to help non- business major students become familiar with more sustainability-specific frameworks, practices and concepts to be covered. These tools are not only means for improving a firm’s sustainability performance, but also support its transparent and effective reporting. Representative examples of sustainability measurement standards will be introduced and their potential impacts in advancing corporate sustainability will be discussed. The course will also reflect on the general role of innovation in all of this. Technology issues covered include the role of information technology in addressing poverty, and solutions that reorganize the industrial system (e.g. renewable energy policies, and industrial ecosystems or industrial symbiosis, i.e., industries that incorporate recycling loops at regional levels).
(Disclaimer: Please note that the course listing is not exhaustive and may vary from term to term. Do write in to the Academic Advisor for more information.)
