INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AMRITSAR

Master of Business Administration

Course Outline

Course Code and Course Title Business Communication – I

Course type Core
Pre-requisites (if any) None
Course Credit 0.75
Total no. of sessions 15
Session Duration 75 minutes
Term I
Year and Batch 2021-23
Sections (if any) A, B, C and D

Instructor(s) Mukesh Kumar, Ranjan Kumar

Contact Details mkumar@iimamritsar.ac.in
ranjank@iimamritsar.ac.in
Office
Consultation Hours 10

Introduction
The Business Communication (BC-I) course provides aspiring managers with the conceptual
foundation and guided practice required to master the fundamentals of management
communication. Managers are expected to effectively manage day-to-day business as well as
unforeseen complex situations, lead and motivate diverse and geographically-distributed
teams, and influence stakeholders within and outside the organization. This requires
communication agility and proficiency in a dynamic, hyper-mediated ‘phygital’ (physical as
well as digital) environment.

Higher competitive pressures, shorter product life cycles, increased demands for quality and
service, more regulatory constraints, more significant concerns for cost containment,
heightened awareness of environmental stresses, and an increasing emphasis on sustainability
– these are just some of the pressures increasing the complexity of a manager's job. Equally,
the contemporary manager has a greater opportunity than ever to make a significant difference
in the organization's success and enhance stakeholder impact.

Therefore, effective and impactful communication is an essential component of the modern

manager’s toolkit. This can take the form of, but is not limited to a compelling PowerPoint
presentation, a well-phrased memorandum, a persuasive proposal, a well-organized email, a
thorough, analytical report, or even a team meeting summary on whatsapp! This course focuses
on how to develop a keen understanding of communication processes, imbibe 'best practices'
for successful organizational communication, and provides opportunities to master managerial
communication skills.

Learning Outcomes/Course Objectives

 Develop a keen understanding of communication processes and dynamics in a
managerial setting
 Imbibe the fundamentals of the building blocks of managerial communication skills
 Create and deliver a presentation that assimilates the underlying building blocks

In essence, the course curriculum and objectives of BC-I are aimed at creating a robust conceptual
foundation for participants and, through guided practice, preparing them for an intensive skill
immersion module in BC-II that will target various practical scenarios of managerial
communication.

Textbooks and Learning Materials

Text Book(s)

Mary, M. (2012). Guide to managerial communication. Pearson Education, India

Reference Book(s)

 Business Communication: Making Connections in a Digital World (11th Edition) by Lesikar,

Flately, Rentz and Neerja Pande Published by Tata McGraw, 2009.

 Business Communication: From Principles to Practice; by Matthukutty M. Monippally, Tata

McGraw, 2017.

 Business Communication for Managers by Penrose, Rasberry, Myers, published by

Cengage Learning, 2004.

Pedagogy Used/Learning Process

The present course in Business Communication is designed to move participants from
principles of communication to practicing these principles. Therefore, the course will primarily
depend on pedagogical practices like Role –Play, Cases, Individual Exercises, Group
Exercises, Movie Clips, Presentation by students. The Lecture method will be used
intermittently only to introduce and debrief the activities.

Evaluation Components/Assessment of Student Learning

Assessment Tool Percentage Description

Quizzes and Assignments
End term Exam
Class Participation (Case
Analysis & Class Exercises)
Presentation
20 To check and evaluate the students’
40 understanding of concepts and
application of appropriate tools and
techniques.
10 To improve their ability to work
individually and also in teams. It would
provide them opportunities to explore
diverse perspectives for a business
problem.
30 To demonstrate the ability to integrate
the information and the skills
accumulated in their course with the
applied research in the respective areas.
This also gives them a chance to show
their presentation skills.
Session Plan
This section gives the detail regarding the topics to be covered, the time required to cover each
topic, the module under which it falls, etc.
Session Module Topic
1 Introduction  What do we study in Business
communication?
 What are the terms Business
Communication, Managerial
Communication, Corporate
Communication, etc.?
 How has Business
 communication evolved over
the years?
 What are the various
components of Business
 Communication?
2 Understanding  How to make messages Clear,
Purpose and 7 Cs of Credible and Engaging
Communication
 Discussion on measures to
achieve Clarity, Concreteness,
and Completeness
3 Understanding 7 Cs  Discussion on the role of
Continued Consideration in Business
Communication
 Measures to achieve
 Conciseness, Coherence, and
Correctness
4 Becoming a  Demonstrate the problems in
Listening Manager Listening
 Individual Listening Style and
their impact on relationships
 Steps for making Listening
effective at the workplace
5 Improving  Discussion on nonverbal and
Nonverbal their interpretations
Communication  Role of culture in shaping
nonverbal communication cues
 Demonstrate the role of
nonverbal in conveying
ambiguous cues
6 Business  Design Features for visual aids
Presentation  Choosing colors
Workshop Day 1  Using text/images/videos
 Using statistics
Chapter No./Reading
material/Cases
Reading 1: Foundations of Business
Communication; Newman & Ober, 2013
Reading 2: Communication Strategy;
Munter, 2014
Reading: The Seven C's of Effective
Communication, Effective Business
Communication, (Boston: McGraw Hill,
1997), Herta A. Muphy, Herbert
W. Hildebrandt, and James P. Thomas
pp.32-60.
HBR Article: 3 Ways to Make Your
Writing Clearer: Product ID: H05JMW-
PDF-ENG.pdf
Reading: Chapter 5: MM Monippally,
Business Communication: From Principles
to Practice, McGraw-Hill Publishers New
Delhi 2013 ISBN: 9781259026164
Pre-class Activity: Respond to
‘Willingness to Listen Measure’
http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/mea
sures/wtlisten.htm
Chapter 4: Introduction in the Real
World: An Introduction to Communication
Studies available at
https://doi.org/10.24926/8668.0401 HBR
Case: Congressional Candidate Dan Silver
and KNP Communications; Product ID:
910013-PDF-ENG
HBR Article: How to Elevate Your
Presence in a Virtual Meeting: Product ID:
H05IOV-PDF-ENG.pdf
 7 Business  Presenting Statistics
Presentation  Storytelling in the Business
Workshop Day 2 Context

8 Improving Tone in  Discussion on the role of
Communication:  tone in messages
Email Writing  Why do written messages cause
Exercise more conflict than spoken ones?
 Framework for keeping the tone
right
9 Delivering Bad  Conveying bad news to an
Messages: individual/groups
Email/memo  Discussion on structure and
writing/Report content of such messages
Writing  Reviewing and revising a
 message containing bad news
HBR Case: When the Tone of an Email
Went Wrong, Ivey case; Product ID:
W16282-PDF-ENG
Chapter 6 & 8: Effective
Communication, Herta A. Murphy, Tata
Mcgraw Hill Education Private Limited,
New Delhi
HBR Article: How to Deliver Bad News to
Your Employees by Amy Gallo;
https://hbr.org/2015/03/how-to-deliver-bad-
news-to-your-employees

10 Communicating  Consideration in Business HBR Article: How to Manage

with Empathy Messages Coronavirus Layoffs with Compassion:
 Conveying your concern for the product ID: H05JOY-PDF-ENG
individuals/groups
 Framework for conveying
empathy
11 Communicating  Assertive vs. Aggressive Chapter 9 and 10: Introduction in the
Assertively Messages Real World: An Introduction to
 Discussing the Assertiveness Communication Studies available at
Continuum across culture https://doi.org/10.24926/8668.0401
 Role plays to demonstrate the HBR Article: A Simple Way to Be More
difference between assertive and Assertive (Without Being Pushy); Product
aggressive communication. ID: H03VII-PDF-ENG
12 Group Presentation Groups of four will present on a
by Participants: business topic, which will be
evaluated by both the audience and
the instructor.

13 Group Presentation Groups of four will present on a

by Participants: business topic, which will be
evaluated by both the audience and
the instructor.

14 Group Presentation Groups of four will present on a

by Participants: business topic, which will be
evaluated by both the audience and
the instructor.

15 Group Presentation Groups of four will present on a

by Participants: business topic, which will be
evaluated by both the audience and
the instructor.
Additional Instructions (if any)
The students are required to be appropriately prepared for the presentations and discussions during the
course. They are also supposed to analyse one another’s performance and benefit from the observations
made by their peers.