Strategic Communication and Leadership Concentration

This course provides an introduction to the principles, concepts, and tools of behavioural strategy. “Behavioural strategy merges cognitive and social psychology with strategic management theory and practice” and it “aims at bringing realistic assumptions about human cognition, emotions, and social behaviour to the strategic management of organisations. The course is structured around the three key pillars of behavioural strategy: human cognition, emotions, and social behaviour within the context of strategic decision-making by managers.

The world runs on social relationships and social networks. Relationships are essential to getting work done, and to the way leaders engage in leading and leadership. Effective leaders and followers in any position use relationships to manage up, down and sideways. Work is accomplished through formal and informal relationships – social networks – and participants can be more effective if they understand the strength and weakness of their social relations. As well, in any job it is important to build power and manage relationships with peers and superiors. But how do you do it? In this course, we provide answers to this question by using a social network perspective.  

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the field of persuasion and give you hands-on experience to understand how persuasion “works”. We will discuss theories related to attitudes, persuasion and social influence to illuminate the underlying behavioural and psychological constructs. You will learn the key behavioural and psychological concepts and develop the intellectual ability to apply them in situations where you need to persuade both businesses and individuals. As a related outcome of this course, you will also develop negotiation skills. 

This course focuses on designing inclusive workplaces that provide employees and customers with equal opportunity. How a culture of respect, involvement and success can be created for all employees is the core focus. In today’s marketplace, there is a growing demand for inclusion. Brands have lost equity due to unintentionally disrespecting diversity. In this course, we will study principles, individual differences, and group affiliations that create a diverse workforce, which serves a diverse customer base. 

Change is a constant, and organisational change is a regular theme for any leader. Leading change is difficult because you need to convince people that they should give up habits, routines, and scripts that perhaps work well and make their lives easier. Leaders that are good at influencing social change processes understand what motivates people and how to get people to commit to new lines of thinking and action through negotiations. Leading change can be top-down, bottom-up and middle-out. It can also be re-active when a crisis or shift takes place in the market or proactive when leaders take steps to change before an interruption calls for change. In this course, we explore some of the challenges and traps that can derail leaders' attempts to change people and organisations.  

This course offers a hands-on approach to the study of people, management and organisations. We provide students an opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills that are critical to tackling today's managerial problems. The course emphasises experiential learning coupled with lectures, readings, class discussion/debate, guest speakers, personal and group assignments. The content will reflect the most relevant business topics at the given time such as crisis management, disruptive innovations, etc.