BUAD 302: Communication Strategy in Business

Date:8/2013

To:BUAD 302 Students

From:Dr. Robyn Walker

Re:Syllabus for BUAD 302

Instructor Information

Course name:BUAD 302 Communication Strategy in Business

Faculty name:Dr. Robyn Walker

Office:Acct 215E

Mailbox:Acct 400

Email address:

Office hours:Tuesday and Thursday3-4 p.m. and by appointment

No matter what your career goals, the levels of success you reach will depend on your ability to communicate. Will you become a powerful CEO, investment banker, consultant, entrepreneur, marketing or management director, financial executive, or any other type of business leader? The women and men at the top of quality organizations are skillful communicators. Almost without exception, successful business professionals are recognized for their ability to write well, to speak dynamically, and to cultivate business relationships through strong interpersonal communication skills. This course is designed to help you develop or polish those skills and to help you identify the areas you should continue to improve as you pursue your professional career.

Course Description

BUAD 302 is an experientially based course that focuses on developing communication effectiveness with an organizational context. You will be more successful in your classes, your career, and, for that matter, your life if you focus your energies on developing your communication skills. Consider this course as another valuable step in the ongoing process of becoming an effective communicator.

Goal and Learning Objectives

The overall goal of Communication Strategy in Business—BUAD 302—is to help you improve your ability to communicate successfully in the business world. This class will thus focus on learning the theory of business communication strategy as well as putting that theory into practice.

  • Identify and discuss communication theories, models, and principles that impact business communication across diverse industries and fields in a global landscape by analyzing specific communication behaviors, strategies, and goals through case studies and croup discussions.
  • Apply communication theories and principles to achieve communication goals by evaluating the purpose of your message, conducting audience analysis, and selecting the appropriate communication channel to successfully construct and deliver presentations individually and as part of a team in various business contexts.
  • Utilize critical thinking skills to develop and implement communication strategies across diverse business environments by analyzing, comparing, and evaluating the effectiveness of these strategies via scenario-based simulations and exercises.
  • Develop an understanding and awareness of ethical principles and intercultural and diversity factors that impact the communication process as business leaders, managers, colleagues and employees byanalyzing and explaining ethical challenges and incidents in their cultural and organizational contexts.
  • Acquire and apply an understanding of small group communication dynamics, including learning to evaluate and articulate obstacles that impact effective team communication and developing collaborative deliverables.

Required Text

The required reading material for this course is

Walker,R.. (2010).Strategic Management Communication for Leaders.Cincinnati, OH: Cengage.

Recommended: Pink, D. H. (2012). To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others. New York: Riverhead.

Writing and Tutoring Resources

If you are having difficulties with the mechanics of writing, I strongly suggest a self-study program, since one of your forms of assessments will be writing. If you exhibit serious deficiencies in your writing or your speaking, it will be wise for you to make plans early to visit the UniversityWritingCenter on a regular basis and consider getting a tutor to help you. Located on the third floor of Taper Hall, the WritingCenter will allow you to schedule 30-minute appointments with writing consultants trained to assist you in planning, organizing, and revising your assignments. Some consultants are graduate business students in the Marshall School of Business. Others have special skills in working with students for whom English is a second language. The WritingCenter also offers daily workshops on troublesome language and grammar issues, and makes available a number of handouts on an array of grammar and usage points:

Online resources to help you improve your writing are also abundant. A number of colleges and universities have developed OWLS (online writing labs) that can assist you with almost any aspect of writing. You may want to investigate several of these sites and see which one has the right “personality” for you. You could begin your investigation by visiting a metasite created by CapitalCommunity College in Hartford, Connecticut:

International students and non-native writers and speakers of English will also want to investigate the help available to them through USC’s American Language Institute:

Attendance

I anticipate that you will be present in every class and ready to begin work at the time class is scheduled to start. Should you need to be absent – either because of an illness or because you believe that there is something you must do that is more important than attending class – I expect to receive an email from you PRIOR to the start of class. Keep in mind that a message in advance of class does not “excuse” your absence – it simply shows me that you are taking responsibility for choosing to do something else during class time. Multiple absences, even when accompanied by conscientious notification, may be viewed as unprofessional behavior within the context of an organization.

Please note that ELC dates are non-negotiable. I do not have control over the scheduling or facilitation of the ELC activities or mock interviews, so--to use an old phrase--if you snooze, you lose.

Teaching and Learning Philosophy for the Course

In 2004, USC adopted as part of its Strategic Plan a policy to encourage learner-centered teaching at the university. This course adopts a learner-centered approach and in doing so uses a significant amount of experiential learning activities. The rationale for learner-centered education is research that demonstrates that the traditional form of teaching—lecturing—has limited effectiveness in helping students to retain information after a course is over, develop an ability to transfer knowledge to new situations, develop skills in thinking or problem solving, and achieve effective outcomes, such as motivation for additional learning or a change in attitude (Fink, 2003, p. 3).

In addition, a study by Gardiner (1994) suggested that passive forms of teaching, such as lecturing, do not develop the kinds of skills that leaders believe people need in the business world. These include conscientiousness, personal responsibility, and dependability; ability to act in an ethical fashion; skills in oral and written communication; interpersonal and team skills; skills in critical thinking and problem solving; respect for people different than themselves; the ability to adapt to change: and the ability and desire for lifelong learning. Richard Paul (1993) argues that we live in a more complex and rapidly changing world, which means “the work of the future is the work of the mind, intellectual work, work that involves reasoning and intellectual discipline” (p. 13). Because of the rapidly changing world we now live in, well-regarded management writer Peter Senge (1990) has put forth a need to develop “learning organizations.” In these types of organizations, leadership is decentralized so as to enhance the capacity of people to work productively toward common goals. Senge’s basic rationale for such organizations is that in situations of rapid change, only those that are flexible, productive, and adaptive will excel. To create such an organization, people must have the capacity to learn, and to learn, they must have a structure and culture that is conducive to reflection and engagement.

This course thus attempts to create the culture of a learning organization by using experiential learning methods, with the goal of providing opportunities for active student engagement and reflection on the content of the course as well as their learning. This design may be uncomfortable for some of you, since it may be a change from the types of learning environments you are used to. Studies have shown that students (and faculty) often resist the change to learner-centered instruction because teacher-centered learning makes fewer demands of them and requires greater responsibility for their own learning.

Your Responsibilities

Because of the learner-centered approach to this class, you will hold greater responsibility for the quality of your learning experience. That means that you are expected to actively engage and to participate in the experiential activities in the course. In fact, a good part of your grade will depend upon your engagement and participation in those activities. In addition to being an active, participating member of the class, you are expected to display professional behavior, since this course is also designed to help prepare you for effectively communicating in organizational settings.You should come to class fully prepared, even if you were unable to attend a previous class meeting, willing to actively engage in the course exercises and discussion, and to initiate communication with me about any difficulties you might be having with the course materials or with completing an assignment on time.You will also be asked to reflect upon your learning, since reflection is a key component of the learner-centered model. Again, as an active rather than a passive learner, you are primarily responsible for how much you learn in this class; I can present materials and opportunities for learning, but it is up to you to actively engage in that experience. Ultimately, the goal is for you to emerge from this class with a solid understanding of the practices of effective communication within an organizational context and to be well on your way to becoming a self-directed learner for the purpose of enhancing your own personal autonomy.

You should check your grades regularly to help ensure that they have been posted correctly. I have up to 100 students each semester and no teaching assistant, so I need your help. Please make sure that you notify me of any needed corrections within two weeks of the date of any errors. I will not make corrections after the last day of class, except to errors in the grade recording of the final project and final exam.

My Responsibilities

My role as instructor is to provide you access to the foundational knowledge you will need for this course in the form of the assigned readings, to assess your learning of those materials, and to provide you opportunities for practicing the related skills to better ensure that you retain that knowledge and understand its application and relevance in organizational contexts. I am also responsible for being prepared for each course and making clear the instructions and my expectations for each exercise and assignment.

Former Student Feedback:

Hi Professor Walker:

I hope you're having a good summer so far and that you're getting to do a lot of sailing. I am currently working in the law department of a large company in San Diego for the summer. My job entails giving weekly presentations to the lawyers about the progress that the interns have made. I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am at the timing of BUAD 302. Without it, I would not be anywhere near as confident as I am giving the presentations. Also, I have to do a lot of group work and the team work that we did in class has really helped me in communicating with my group and being able to identify what kind of group members we have (and how to work around some of them). I just wanted to let you know that business communication has really helped me already and thank you for focusing on topics that are applicable to real-life situations. Have a nice break.

Academic Matters

  • Plagiarism
  • Retention of graded papers
  • Students with disabilities

Plagiarism

“Plagiarism is the unacknowledged and inappropriate use of the ideas or wording of another writer and can result in severe penalties including an “F” in the course. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to carefully document your sources, even when you are only making use of data or ideas rather than an actual quotation. To avoid having your writing marked by illegitimate assistance, ask yourself whether you would be able, on your own and without further assistance, to revise and improve the writing in question. If the answer is ‘No’---if you would not be able to maintain the same conceptual and stylistic quality without outside assistance—then you should not submit the writing as your own work.”

—Student Guide to the Freshman Writing Program

Retention of Graded Papers

Returned paperwork, unclaimed by a student, may be discarded 4 weeks after grades are posted by the University and, hence, will not be available should a grade appeal be pursued by a student following the receipt of his/her course grade.

Students with Disabilities

Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register withDisability Services

and Programs (DSP) each semester. You can obtain a letter of verification for approved accommodations from DSP.

Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open

8:30 am – 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.

Productivity Tools

The Marshall School of Business computing environment supports the Microsoft Office bundle of productivity tools and the Blackboard course management system. All out-of-class assignments must be prepared with these tools--or tools that produce compatible files--and printed on a laser or inkjet printer.

Additionally, you should have a good, recently published dictionary and a thesaurus and be familiar with the spell-checking and grammar-checking features built into Microsoft Word. Check the program documentation to see how to use these programs and be aware of the program’s limitations. Remember that computer programs are insufficient to adequately proofread a document.

Assignments and Coursework

You are expected to arrive on time and be prepared for all class sessions. Final grades in the course will depend on your performance in the following four types of assignments:

  • Participation and involvement in classroom activities, including oral presentations, role plays, group projects and discussions, and ELC and other activities
  • Knowledge of textbook and other assigned reading materials as measured by in-class quizzes and final exam
  • Presentations
  • Written assignments

The four types of coursework in the bullet list above are described in more detail below.

Participation and Involvement in Classroom Activities and Exercises

Throughout the term, you will participate in interactive exercises in the classroom and in the Experiential Learning Center.

In-class Quizzes and Final Exam

You will be examined as to your knowledge of the course readings, which include those that are assigned from the course textbook as well as any that are posted to Blackboard. You are responsible for reading and understanding the assigned readings; we will not review all of them in class.

Presentations

You will be provided the opportunity to participate in several presentation exercises as well as will be assessed regarding your presentation skills.

Group Projects

You will be involved in two group projects: One involving a virtual team and a second involving an in-class group. The virtual team assignment is a primarily an experiential learning activity in which your participation is crucial. You will also be involved in an in-class group for the preparation and delivery of two group presentations.

Office Hours

My office hours this semester are from 3 until 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and by appointment. It should be noted that the best teaching and feedback often occurs in one-on-one conferences, such as those provided by meeting with your instructor during office hours. Consequently, if you are seeking more individualized attention and feedback, the place to receive that is by taking advantage of my office hours.

Grading Policies

An A = Outstanding or exceptional work

  • "A" work reflects mastery of course, concepts, tools, and techniques, plus a solid understanding of implications, applications, or interrelationships, as may be appropriate.
  • In addition, “A” work reflects your ability to apply and express that understanding with meaningful language. In business, this would mean your manager would accept the work with no revision, be willing to put his or her name on it, and send it forward. In other words, an ‘A’ on a written or oral communication signifies that the communication

- contains a clear, early statement of the main idea

- states the sender’s conclusion as the receiver’s main idea

- has a carefully developed opening, middle, and close

- recognizes complexities by thoughtfully addressing more than one of them

- includes strongly supportive details

- is logically developed and well organized

- employs a style and tone appropriate to the occasion

- demonstrates mature sentence variety and paragraph development

- contains few, if any, clichés

- considers who does what next

- and is FREE of grammar and usage errors

For a more detailed description of the grading rubric that will be used in this class, please see the Writing 340 rubric that was developed by the USC College Writing Program and that is posted on Blackboard.

Marshall School Policy on Grading

Marshall does not have a forced “curve” for the distribution of class grades. The school’s principle is that students should be given the grade they deserve based on class performance and should not be assigned an undeserved grade simply to fit a curve. However, to prevent grade inflation, the School has recommended targets for the mean GPA: 3.0 for required classes and 3.3 for electives. Instructors are expected to adhere to the targets unless they have an exceptionally strong or weak class. Before deviating from the target, instructors must receive permission from the chair of their department.

Late Assignments

Handing in the learning portfolio after the due date will result in a late penalty of ten percent for each day it is late.All assignments are due at the beginning of class.

Grade Review

For all graded assignments (including weekly participation grades) that you believe some error has occurred in the grading, you can, within one week of the due date or period, request—using a memo—that I re-evaluate the assignment or the grading. The original assignment should be attached to the memo or, in the case of participation grading, a daily record or journal entry should be attached, detailing the specific contributions for the week. The memo should carefully explain why you think the assignment should be re-graded. Arguing that “I worked hard and put in a lot of time” or simply saying “I don’t understand why I received this grade” are neither full nor careful explanations. It’s important to also realize that the re-evaluation process can result in three types of grade adjustments: positive, none, and negative.