Communication

One of the greatest challenges for today’s global managers involved in transnational Post-Merger Integrations (PMI), is to be able to build and manage a highly effective team. Since today’s teams cross cultural boundaries, this involves building competencies that simultaneously ensure success across numerous cultural environments and enable accelerated performance through collaborative skills. The new breed of global managers must be prepared to work in a new team environment. Critical to forming and managing effective teams is an understanding and mastery of cross-cultural competence.
This interactive course builds individual and team competencies required for working, managing, and leading across cultures and geographies in the context of transnational Post-Merger Integrations. This course is aimed at demonstrating the impact of culture on communication, building relationships, business culture, and management styles, providing participants with the necessary knowledge, mindset, and skills for more effective multicultural teamwork.

This course discusses the concept of quality journalism and its contribution to democratic society. It analyzes the course of journalism through its various genres, interviews, chronicles, and reports. It offers a study of the works of Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Oriana Fallaci, John Hersey, etc. as examples of different types of journalism. Finally, this course explores the new digital narratives evolution.

This course offers a study of consumer decision-making processes. Topics include: consumer behavior; external factors to consumer behavior; internal factors to consumer behavior; types of purchase and decision-making processes; consumer society.

This course explores the influence of advertising discourse and the effects these messages have on society. Topics include: advertising language, audience and impact of advertising strategies, memory, persuasion, attitudes towards advertising, and advertising campaigns in audiovisual format.

Thomas Friedman predicted in his famous book “The World is Flat” that the advancement of IT would blur the borders and boundaries on this planet so everyone in the world, wherever they are and whatever they do, would be locked into the global supply chain and therefore the global competition, whether they like it or not.

His prediction seems accurate in that now everyone is a part of a so-called globalized economy. Business processes are being standardized across borders, and people have begun to speak a common language, i.e., English. The world would be a much more homogeneous place if globalization continued at this pace.
 

But are we really living in such a monotonous world? Despite globalization, our life, both professional and private, is full of surprises, discoveries, misunderstandings, and even conflicts, arising from cultural differences worldwide. This is partly because globalization has brought in more participants than ever to the world arena, and each participant behaves upon the values of their own home culture. Indeed, there are a variety of cultures in play in this seemingly globalized world.
 

This course tries to address the issue of globalization in two aspects: 1) English as a Lingua Franca, and 2) cultural diversity. The first half of the course examines how the business world is linked by the global common language, i.e., English, from a standpoint slightly different to the traditional one. In the second half, the course explores the world as a culturally diverse place, that will hardly cease to exist in the coming future.

This course examines how to frame and tell compelling stories both orally and visually. It covers how to use story infrastructure in giving presentations and how to communicate meaningfully about oneself.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course offers a study of the history and development of mass communication. The main topics are the development and growth of media from the past to the present; the role of media under various political systems and the influence of communication on national building; and the relationship between media and politics within different historical environments, in order to understand the importance of media to mass communication both past and present. Particular attention is given to several case studies to explain the role of media in the states propaganda.

This course provides a study of the fundamental principles of advertising as well as practical experience as a practitioner in an advertising agency. It covers the role of advertising and promotion and their relationship to our media, economy, culture and marketing system. Topics include types of advertising, process of advertising development, consumer segments and targeting strategies, creative strategies, and media channels and characteristics. Students learn the campaign process, write campaign proposals, conduct consumer research and analyze market environments to obtain ad campaign insights, and make professional presentations. 

This course provides a fundamental introduction to Intercultural Communication. Students examine the following key concepts: culture, race, gender, ethnicity, stereotypes, values, expectations, and assumptions. By focusing on applied outcomes of intercultural communication theory, the course enables students to acquire intercultural competences for their professional and personal life. Students learn interpretative strategies in intercultural communication concepts that allow them to become culturally intelligent. They will acquire tools that enable them to avoid attribution errors when communicating across cultures. Students participate in interactive exercises to practice their intercultural competences. A field trip in the local area is also be a part of the course.

This course explores the meanings of encountering “the Other” by reviewing existing theories and research in intercultural communication. It also examines how encountering someone/something "foreign" builds, shapes, and transforms relationships and communication in our everyday life. Each student should ponder what kind of relationship he/she would like to make in this globalized society that we experience every day. In order to stimulate classroom discussion and promote student-centered active learning, we adopt some innovative instructional methodologies and strategies (e.g., collaborative learning and writing, group presentation, flip teaching, etc.).