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Faculty
RS Hubbard, University of Southern California

Course Coordinator
ISUP Secretariat

Prerequisite/progression of the course

Some work experience is preferred.

Course content, structure and teaching

Communication Strategies for Managers is an experientially-based course that focuses on communication strategies for interpersonal, organizational and public interactions in business. The emphasis is on improving interpersonal and organizational communication skills to interact with colleagues and business partners, manage the various relationships with clients and subcontractors, and negotiate with international business partners.

Communication Strategies for Managers gives an opportunity to explore several issues and situations that students would actually experience in real business environments.

The course is divided into the following three broad areas:

• Acquiring information for interacting with colleagues and business partners (Practical techniques to assure the accurate exchange of information)
• Managing relationships with clients or subcontractors (Practical experience of business relationship-building)
• Negotiating with International Business Partners (Application of concepts to the global business environment – with a focus on Chinese and American firms)

Learning Objectives

The overall goal of Communication Strategies for Managers is for students to improve their ability to communicate successfully in the business world. To accomplish this goal, students will learn to understand and apply the principles of business communication strategy. Specifically, they will learn to analyze audience, context, and purpose to develop the most effective strategy for successful communication in a business setting.

Students will use this analytical and strategic approach to improve their skills in each of the following communication categories:

• Business Communication Strategy - Theory: A demonstration of an understanding of the elements of business communication theory in a wide range of business contexts
• Business Communication Strategy - Application: A demonstration of an application of communication theory to develop management communication strategies, including evaluation of purpose, audience, context, and channel choice, and effectively communicate this assessment by analyzing, comparing and critiquing these strategies

By the end of Communication Strategies for Managers, students should have acquired knowledge and skills in the following areas: Business Presentations, Interpersonal Communication and Organizational Communication.

Teaching methods

We will use a variety of learning methodologies, including lectures, reports on various organizations, regional/country studies, visual aids, experiential activities, simulations, case studies, self-assessment, and feedback.

One of the main features of the course is the following Negotiations Simulation: This exercise is a two-party negotiation between representatives of two firms from two countries - America and China. The participants of the exercise will negotiate the terms of a merger of the firms from the cultural perspective and business model of their respective firms.

The objectives of the exercise are to:

• Provide a scorable cross-cultural, two-country negotiation;
• Explore the impact of two widely different cultural styles on both the process of negotiation and the substance of the agreements achieved by the parties
• Explore the organizational and marketing issues related to mergers in diverse geographic areas

Examination

Mandatory mid-term feedback assignment: In order to sit for the final exam or submit a final project, each student must have given one short presentation on a specific topic of intercultural management or the business culture of a specific country, based on at least two academic sources.

Final exam: Project/home assignment (written individually), 15 A4 pages.

Exam aids: country reports, websites of selected organizations, course textbook

Re-take: Project/home assignment (written individually), 15 A4 pages.

Recommended literature

Strategic Communication in Business and the Professions by Dan O’Hair, Gustav W. Friedrich, and Lynda Dee Dixon (Pearson, 2008 – pp.464).

Last updated by ISUP Secretariat 28/01/2010