Prerequisites for admission.

The requirement for the admission to the second-cycle degree program is a first-cycle degree in the following areas: Humanities, Modern Languages and Cultures, Administration and Organization Management Studies, Business and Economics, Communication Studies, Political Sciences and International Relations, Sociology. The knowledge acquired by graduates in one of these areas are adequate to apply for this second-cycle degree program. Graduates in subjects different from the ones mentioned above must have a good knowledge of English and must prove to have gained a certain amount of credits in the following areas: 15 credits in SECS-P/07, SECS-P08, SECS-P/10; 9 credits in M-PSI/01, M-PSI/05, M-PSI/06; 9 credits in INF/01, ING-INF/05. Students are required to prove a good knowledge, both written and oral, of a foreign language according to what specified in the Degree Program Teaching Regulations. These regulations also identify students’ level of knowledge required to be admitted. General knowledge will be also tested following the criteria and methods defined in the regulations. Students with educational debts, i.e. lack of required credits in a specific discipline, will not be admitted.

Educational goals

The Second-cycle degree program in Management and Business Communication aims at providing the students with all the necessary knowledge and skills for planning business and internal/external communication strategies. The program provides both theoretical and practical main methodologies, useful for the analysis of competitive positioning and for the drafting of strategic action plans. It presents the different business planning approaches and the tools for compulsory and voluntary communication necessary for implementing the action plans. Furthermore, the courses focus on the understanding of the methodologies for market’s analysis and monitoring and the research on stakeholders’ behaviors and opinions, which provide students with the skills needed for the planning of adequate strategic and external communication plans. The necessary knowledge for ensuring coherent choices of strategic positioning, and external and internal communication strategies are provided by the studies on organizational psychology and on human resources management, which analyse the tools for business management.
During the first years students will acquire the fundamentals of economics and business management, business economics, statistics and business law.
The second year will provide students with an in-depth study of business management, financial reporting, brand management and sociology of consumption.
On the one hand, the course aims at teaching the meaning, the importance and the techniques of business economic and financial communication, that has to be seen as the set of information on the evolution of businesses’ income, financial and patrimonial structure, conveyed by the corporate governance to the several stakeholders. For this reason the program focuses on the objectives, the tools and the rules governing economic and financial communication and deepen the understanding of the evaluative and operational decision made by the main financial interlocutors.
On the other hand, it strengthens the knowledge and skills on how to plan communication campaigns, events, to design the image and identity of the brand and to manage and implement integrated communication plans addressed to the economic and institutional actors of the context of reference.
In both years students will be able to attend practical and workshop classes and/or to do work placements in order to apply and strengthen the acquired skills in a workplace context.
Students can also customize their study plan by choosing among a number of elective courses.
At the end of the first year students are asked to submit, to a relevant board of examiners, a thesis proposal, where they have to provide their research objectives and the analysis’ methodologies they intend to use.
The teaching activity will be organised with lectures and always integrated with exercises and simulations in the management of business case studies. Learning results will be assessed with written tests and oral interviews, alongside the assessment of project work completed individually or in groups and by discussions of case studies in class. Besides lectures, the students, among other things, carry out laboratory projects during which, under the supervision of a scientific tutor, and working in small groups, they will be able to check and deepen their ability to apply their knowledge through the autonomous completion of projects, such as the drawing up of a strategic plan, the planning of a communication campaign, etc. During the laboratory activities, there will be contact with external interlocutors in the world of work, to whom the results of the activities performed will be presented. This will allow for an assessment of the development of communicative abilities, and strengthen the capacity for critical judgement. The final test consists in an individual learning programme through which the student and the tutor assess the knowledge and skills acquired. The preparation of the thesis requires a part dedicated to the formulation of a theoretical framework for the development of an interpretative model of the research problem, an experimental part accompanied by a critical description of the methodologies available and of the methodology chosen for the empirical analysis of the theme and a discussion of the results obtained.

Communication skills

Graduates, covering positions inside governmental, for-profit and non-profit organizations, will be able to: - present and support strategic plans to all internal and external stakeholders applying adequate argumentation and communication strategies; - present the tools of external and internal economic communication, both compulsory or voluntary; - present and support the choice of control and monitoring parameters related to strategic plans and integrated communication’ results - present and support strategies for the evaluation of stakeholders’ opinions and behaviors, useful for monitoring results. Students’ communication skills will be assessed through on-going tests, group presentations, oral exams and during the defence of the thesis

Making Judgements

Graduates in Management and Business Communication, covering positions inside governmental, for-profit and non-profit organizations, will be able to: - assess the alternatives to be included in the strategic/business/marketing plan, analyze its sustainability, indicate the expected results from each plan, their limits and the advantages they might bring if implemented. Depending on the particularity of the context of reference, graduates shall be able to judge the different strategic options and the available communication tools; - assess, through the analysis and the interpretation of the chosen indicators, the performance of the strategic lines of action followed, referring to both previous and subsequent analyses; - assess and select the most adequate communication mixture, depending on the chosen strategic lines and to check performances and effectiveness of the chosen tools; - depending on the objectives expected, assess and select the most adequate economic communication tools in order to spread the information, considering the different types of internal and external interlocutors; - select, depending on the economic and social context of reference, the analysis’ objectives and the available economic resources, the efficient methodologies to gather data and monitor behaviors and opinions of the stakeholders. Thanks to group projects and workshops, students will gradually strengthen autonomous judgment skills and they can deepen their knowledge of specific subjects useful for the final examination thanks to elective courses. Final examination is intended to keep students busy from the end of the first year, when they have to submit the thesis proposal in order to present the desired objectives and the methodologies used. The aim of the proposal is to evaluate students capability to design a project starting from already acquired knowledge and being able to gather and manage useful information.

Learning skills

Students are asked, as part of the learning activities and/or as part of their assessment, to prepare individual or group projects aimed at stimulating students’ interaction and their active participation in activities organized by the academic or professional staff. Individual or group workshops and presentations, project works and simulations and case-study analyses are among the learning activities offered. For their final examination students have to write a thesis which includes a literature review so to identify the interpretative model used, the following chapters will be dedicated to the empirical study, to critically assess the available methodologies and those actually used, and to analyze the obtained results. These learning activities aim at stimulating students’ interest for further and in-depth studies of the subjects offered, at planning projects analyzing the objectives in a critical way. They also let students to critically and autonomously manage study time and plans, depending on their own interests.

Knowledge and understanding

Graduates in Management and Business Communication, covering positions inside governmental, for-profit and non-profit organizations, will be able to: - understand the strategies useful to carry out an analysis of markets’ construction and evolution and the dynamics that govern businesses especially when, in complicated contexts, it is impossible to rely on theories and models based on the concept of equilibrium; - know the main scientific approaches related to strategies and distinguish the approaches oriented on formalization from those set off with emerging processes and with the planning of the stakeholders’ objectives and their consequences on the designing of plans and lines of action; - know how to implement an industrial/business plan taking into consideration academic theories and national and international management practices, understand the specific internal or contextual phenomena, which influence the implementation of a plan; - know the main methodologies for monitoring and measuring business performances and results, and understand the relations between strategies and results; - know the main tools for the planning and the release of compulsory and voluntary economic communication, always bearing in mind the targeted interlocutors; - know the main approaches to human resources management and those for the planning and management of the internal marketing. Students will acquire these competences through the teaching activities offered, especially the courses on economics and business management, social and organizational psychology and statistics. The elective courses offered will allow students an in-depth study of the subjects that interest them the most.

Applying knowledge and understanding

Graduates in Management and Business Communication, covering positions inside governmental, for-profit and non-profit organizations, will be able to: - prepare business/marketing/strategic plans, considering stakeholders’ objectives, lines of action and development and all the operations necessary in order to achieve the objectives; - design an external communication plan, specifying impact and contact objectives for each medium used and defining economic plans; - plan and implement monitoring systems to analyze behaviors and opinions of the stakeholders, using specific data collection tools and being capable to analyze the data collected and critically assess the results obtained; - design and/or renew the image and identity of the company, managing all phases of analysis and collecting useful information from the stakeholders. The ability to put the knowledge acquired into practice will be strengthen thanks to the teaching activities offered where students will learn the methodologies in order to plan and implement economic plans and company image and communication campaigns. Students can also apply their knowledge through laboratory sessions, with the support of academic tutors.