Unit Rationale

Business communication of course involves speaking as well as writing, and we will spend some time on oral (and visual) as well as written business communication. But the main thrust of the unit is to enable you to better understand the conventions that apply within written contexts in the world of business.

An understanding of context, and an appreciation of purpose and audience (in fact these two are part of any full discussion about context) are most important issues for any successful communication, business or otherwise. We will address these issues time and time again during the session.

Teaching and Learning Strategies

Lecture overheads, power point presentations and any other notes to accompany lectures will be available online through iLearn. These will sometimes be available before the lecture, but please note that some lecturers may choose to post them after the lecture, preferring you to listen and absorb the information during the lecture and then use the notes for revision or reference purposes. In some cases, there will be hard copy handouts to support the lecture. When this happens, the same handout will be available online for students accessing the lectures via iLecture.

Tutorials are held weekly beginning in week 2 of session. Tutorials are compulsory and non attendance without due explanation could lead to you being excluded from the unit. In several tutorials you will be given time to hold team meetings for your group project (see further details below), and it is important for all team members to be present as far as possible.

Tutorial information, assessment tasks, urgent notices and occasional news items, and other general information about the unit will also be posted on the unit iLearn site from time to time, so students will be expected to check it regularly.

Students in this unit will be expected to actively participate in small groups, including but not exclusively limited to a major team project; read relevant materials in advance of or at least shortly after the relevant lecture; and continually relate the communication issues raised in this unit to issues raised in other units throughout their degree program.

Learning Outcomes

The main learning outcome of this unit is for students to acquire a good understanding of the role of context (purpose, audience, mode of delivery etc) in good business communications.

Specifically, through relevant lectures and tutorials as well as the assessment tasks listed below, you will gain insights into:

·        how to synthesise and summarise issues from source material;

·        how to meet the demands of particular business scenarios;

·        how to analyse what other business communicators do in relation to their own business contexts;

·        how to address intercultural issues in a specific context;

·        how to work as a group to develop and present a communications product;

·        how to evaluate your own business communications processes.

Generic skills

Increasingly, employers are demanding that Australian university graduates be able to demonstrate a range of generic skills alongside content-based skills related to their chosen subjects. The obvious generic skill gained from a study of business communication is, of course, communication itself, but we can break this into several more specific generic skills that BBA216 will help you develop:

·         Writing skills: how to plan, compose and edit a variety of formal written texts, following the conventions of standard written English and showing an awareness of various audiences and their communicative needs.

·         Oral skills: an ability to speak clearly, coherently and confidently before a group of peers.

·         Analytical skills: in particular the ability to detect and extract general principles from one set of data, contexts, or even from abstract/theoretical concepts and frameworks, and apply those principles to new sets of data and new communicative challenges.

·         Interpersonal and intercultural skills: an ability to work harmoniously and efficiently in a team whose members may come from a variety of cultural and educational backgrounds.

Required and Recommended Texts and/or Materials

There is no set text for this unit.

A general reference list will be posted as a separate file on the iLearn site.

Individual lecturers may also recommend background reading for their lectures.

Unit Webpage

The BBA216 site on iLearn will provide a range of resources, including course notes, tasks, online discussions, etc. Students have access to the website throughout the session.

Assignment submission and return

For details regarding assessment submission (format requirements, retrun of marked assignments etc) students should consult the relevant sections of the unit ilearn site.

 Lecture Schedule:

Tutorial Schedule: