Module Description
In this age of globalization, the competencies to communicate cross-culturally well are indispensable. The course provides strategies on how to read a person’s as well as corporate culture. Features of culture such as individualism/collectivism, power distance, masculinity/femininity, and issues related to intercultural adaptation, ethnocentrism, prejudice, stereotyping and racism will be discussed. The aim of this course is to develop intercultural competencies, which will make business practices more meaningful and significant.
At any given point in the life cycle of a business, be it at start-up, growth, maturity or renewal/decline, there is a single constant: the need to compete for capital and investor attention. With the globalization of financial markets, it is vital that communications practitioners work closely with the C-suite to deliver an effective two-way communication between the company and global investors to build trust and loyalty. The results of a well-planned and executed programme would ultimately contribute to the company achieving a fair valuation for its securities and optimize its cost of capital.
This course introduces communications practitioners to the essentials of Investor and Business Communications and investigates how companies successfully communicate with the global investment community. Participants will examine digital and mainstream building blocks and IR tools which are integral parts of a sound investor communication programme, from pre-IPO to IPO and through post-IPO. Case studies will include communications for the various phases of an IPO, mergers & acquisitions, privatisations, corporate crises, shareholder activism, amongst others.
Students will gain an understanding of the factors which influence equity valuation and use this knowledge to develop a communication programme to engage investors and the financial community as part of the Group assignment.
Course outline will be updated soon.
Course outline will be updated soon.
Digital communication especially social media has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for communication management. The main goal of this course is to tap upon these possibilities particularly the ability of organisations to further their engagement with their stakeholders so as to, establish, develop and maintain excellent relationships with the organisation's crucial stakeholders. Drawing upon established theories in the field of public relations such as Relationship Management Perspective and Dialogic Theory, this course will explore the various ways that organisations can capitalise upon the use of social media for communication management. 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 organisation 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.
This course offers an overview of corporate communication by providing an up-to-date treatment of strategic communication in an age of disruption, and connects other modules via a common structure and understanding. With the world of business constantly changing, this course combines fundamental theoretical concepts with practical guidelines and cases to inform communication managers in their strategic and tactical communication work decisions. Designed for postgraduate students, with or without communication background or experience, this course will demonstrate how communication should be purposeful in order to foster trust between organizations and their stakeholders. Students will examine communicative practices in the corporate environment, which will include the importance of building and protecting corporate reputation, corporate identity and branding, financial communication, strategic communication in a changing media environment, and new communication technologies. In particular, it will look at the value of communication from the management and C-suite perspective, which students will acquire through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and team discussions.
This course is designed to inform students about cutting-edge knowledge in behavioral sciences so that students can perform an exercise to create actionable interventions, overcoming motivational, cognitive, social, and affective barriers to solve problems in business and public policy practices.
This course examines digital media within the context of greater Asia and its fragmented markets, diverse cultural practices, and differing regulatory environments. Students will learn how organizations have successfully (and sometimes not) worked across these markets via social networks, blogs, microblogs and other platforms including mobile. Differences between the markets will be highlighted and the managerial implications discussed. The course moves students through a situational analysis and localization, digital strategy, content strategy, measurement and talent management.
Covid-19 has taken the world by storm. Governments are trying their best to manage the evolving crisis; leaders have to step up to communicate and lead. Indeed, organizations (operationalized as governments, corporate, not-for-profit, or even prominent individuals) are, literally, experiencing and battling crises of some form or other. This can be internal crises like miscommunication, personality clashes; to external crises like Covid-19, policy mismanagement, or terrorism. Due to the vulnerability of the organization to both internal and external uncertainties, no organization is immune from crises.
While organizations recognize the probability of the occurrence of crises, studies have shown that many do not have any preparation or plan to deal with them. Some do not find it necessary to take preventive measures; others simply do not know where to begin, and what to do.
This course aims to equip students with the necessary skills and abilities to prepare for organizational crises, diagnose the nature of the crises, communicate during crises, and learn how to lead. The emphasis, thus, is on the preventive, rather than reactive, aspects of crisis management.
Scholars agree that crisis management is a dynamic, ongoing process, through a life cycle. Students will be taken through each step of the life cycle of a crisis, with the aim of helping them learn what they need to do at each phase. While many scholars have posited different frameworks, for this course, Wilcox, Cameron and Reber’s (2015) proactive-strategic-reactive-recovery framework is adopted because of its emphasis on the preventive aspects.
This course introduces students to the theoretical concepts and analytical tools required for formulating and implementing appropriate strategies that affect the enduring success of the entire organisation. Topics covered include external and internal environmental analyses, business-level strategies, corporate-level strategies, strategy process and implementation, and special topics such as competitive dynamics and competition in high tech industries. This course emphasises the application of theory to a number of real world strategic issues. Students are encouraged to synthesise knowledge from other business courses into a comprehensive understanding of firms' competitive advantages.
In this day and age, it is no longer sufficient for managers and leaders in organizations to be simply transactional or simply transformational. They also need to be fair, just, ethical, moral and responsible. The same might be said for organizations themselves. It is not enough for organizations to be profitable they must also behave responsibly and sustainably. This course is divided into two sections that cover (1) what it means be ethical in an organizational setting and (2) the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its role in business and society. The Ethics portion of the course is designed to explore, inform, and stimulate thinking on issues related to behavioural ethics and responsibility as encountered in the corporate world. To create this intellectual exchange, this course will focus on how individual and organizational behaviour is shaped by context as well as by biases, why these factors make it difficult for managers to be responsible leaders, and what can be done about the influence of these factors. It is important to emphasize that the goal of this course is not the ethical or moral transformation of students but to develop a set of tools and frameworks (where possible) that allow us to manage effectively in a world increasingly characterized by stakeholders with competing needs and responsibilities. In the CSR portion of this course we explore the idea that businesses bear a responsibility to society and a broader set of stakeholders beyond their shareholders. An idea that has gained currency since the 1970s. The question remains however whether corporations have a responsibility towards and within society that goes beyond merely being well run companies? Through this course, we will engage in a critical evaluation and discussion of different views on the meaning of CSR and the “proper” role of CSR in business and society. We will also discuss contemporary research and organizational practices that inform the integration of CSR within a firm's core business strategy and operations. We will understand that through strategically managed CSR, including ways to create shared value and apply sustainable business strategies, business corporations can potentially identify business opportunities that help address the world's most pressing challenges and manage relationships with important stakeholders who affect the firm's sustained success.
Finance is about the allocation of capital for productive use in the economy. In this course we examine how financial assets are priced (asset pricing) and how firms raise capital (corporate finance). In the asset pricing portion in the first half, we will learn about the importance of finance in society. We will get familiar with tools that are necessary in finance such as the time value of money and apply these tools to the pricing of bonds and stocks. Finally, we will learn about fundamentals concepts of risk and return, portfolio theory, and how these relate to investing. The segment on Corporate finance (the second half) is about financial decision making in a firm with an objective of maximizing the firm's value. The key corporate finance decisions can be grouped into three types: investment decisions, financing decisions, and dividends decisions. This segment aims to provide students with fundamentally important ideas about what to look for in making good and decisions from a corporate manager's perspective.
Effectively develop and present a workable solution to solve your corporate communication challenge. This course provides an opportunity for each student to demonstrate their ability to diagnose and investigate a live business issue, research the current literature, collect and analyse data, and develop conclusions.
Corporate communication professionals increasingly work in business environments characterized as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). We face changing definitions and boundaries of stakeholder groups, uncertainty and complexity in negotiations, dynamic development of information systems, and challenges in the governance of organizations operating in such environments. During the summer program at UCLA Anderson School of Management, each member of the faculty team presents frameworks and strategies drawn from his or her managerial discipline that enables participants to build an important management toolkit and become effective strategic leaders in organizations that operate in these business environments. The faculty director of the program assists participants in addressing the overarching challenges of working as a corporate communication professional in a VUCA world.
