Study programme of the Master in Corporate Communication (MCC)

In the first semester, students attend the core general management classes.
In the second semester, they take core corporate communication courses.
During the third semester, students can choose from a rich selection of elective courses. They can also opt for an exchange programme with another university in Switzerland or abroad.
During the last semester students attend a set of professionalizing courses (12 ECTS), and they can choose between a Field Project, or a Thesis (18 ECTS)

The programme develops analytical and decision-making abilities for corporate communication, grounded in a sound knowledge of management. In order to help develop these analytical and decision-making skills, lectures are integrated with more active teaching methods, consisting of discussion of case histories, role-playing, business games, individual and group projects, etc.

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Specialisations

• Corporate Social Responsibility and the Common Good
  Organisations do not operate in a vacuum. Their activities and their behaviours have an impact on many different internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, stakeholders interact with organisations guided by their own expectations, which evolve continuously through complex conversations that give shape to society and its norms. In order to earn their licence to operate, organisations need to operate also in the best interest of society and contribute to the common good. This thematic area delivers philosophical, conceptual and instrumental tools necessary to manage organisations responsibly. It offers both organisational and market perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Social Marketing	6
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Communication and Marketing Ethics	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Argumentation in Conflict Resolution	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  The Platform Society	3
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  Negotiation	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Project Management	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

• Crossmedia, Transmedia and Multimodal Communication
  Relying upon an interpretation of organisations as networks of conversations with multiple stakeholders and audiences, this thematica area addresses the emerging challenges of today’s communication and its fragmentation around the multiple touchpoints constellating the stakeholder-company relationships and across multiple off- and on-line media. It debates the role of traditional and new media, as well as the construction of meaningful contents to provide to a variety of publics. Courses confront a crossmedia perspective, which leads to considering how the same communicative content has to be adapted to different media/touchpoints, to a transmedia perspective, which instead explores how a communicative content can be split and dispatched across various media. Last, the thematic area covers the multimodal (e.g. verbal and visual) nature of today’s contents and its effects.

  Social Media Management	6
  Online Communication Design	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	6
  Additional courses upon availability
  Neuromarketing	3
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  User Experience Design	3
  Cinema and Audiovisual Futures	6

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

• Visual and Material Culture
  Customers buy and consume much more than goods, services, and experiences. They look for meanings, which their purchases embed or help generate. This ‘economy of symbols’ requires specific understanding of how customers create and share on/off-line meanings as well as of how these meanings are connected to the socio-cultural and technological context in which they emerge. By actively participating in this (de)construction of meanings, marketing managers have expanded their persuasive levers that, among others, include advertising representations, brand contents and narratives, participation in the digital society, and rhetorical prototypes. Through its distinctive palette of courses, this thematic area offers critical understanding of the links connecting markets, culture, and society. In doing so, it sheds light on the commercial benefits and the socio-cultural implications of said ‘economy of symbols’.

  Consumer Culture	6
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Digital Fashion Communication: an Introduction	3
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  Elements of History and Theory of Photography	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	6

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

• Customer Experience and Value
  Following a customer-centric logic, this thematic area provides conceptual and practical understanding of customer value in relation to customer experience. The multiplication of on-line and physical touchpoints constellating the customer journey have made experience and value even more compelling. The thematic area integrates various types of value providers (brand, communication, marketing, retail, and sales managers as well as customers themselves). It also covers a wide range of marketing levers (e.g., brands, cultural engineering, customer experience, service design, transmedia narratives) to maximize customer value in both consumer and industrial settings.

  Customer Experience and Relationship Management	6
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Neuromarketing	3
  User Experience Design	6
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

• Organisation and Human Resource Management
  Concerned with organising and decision making, this thematic area aims at improving future managers’ capabilities in handling, leading, and motivating people, learning from previous experiences, increasing the rationality of decisions, and not being fooled by the seemingly obvious, though highly questionable, outcomes of management.

  Analytical Thinking	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Leadership and Teams	3
  Negotiation	3
  Organisational Design and Change	3
  Project Management	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Communication Strategies in Financial Disclosure	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Enterprise Resource Planning	6
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Management ed innovazione nella pubblica amministrazione e nel non profit	3
  Managerial Accounting	3
  Networks and behavior in organizations	3
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	6

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

• Strategy and Entrepreneurship
  In today’s markets, which are increasingly disrupted by technological change as well as by social and demographic transformations, organisations require continuous and systematic business model innovation. Managers also need to act more entrepreneurially when approaching daily business.
  This thematic area combines training in strategic management aimed at growing entrepreneurial attitudes and processing skills.

  Analytical Thinking	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Negotiation	3
  Project Management	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Writing Business Plans	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Customer Experience and Relationship Management	6
  Industrial Organization	3
  Leadership and Teams	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Social Media Management	6
  Social Marketing	6
  User Experience Design	6

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

• Cinema and Audiovisual Futures
  How will cinema and moving images evolve in the years to come? This thematic area explores various contemporary forces that are shaping cinema and audiovisual culture.
  Courses will incorporate historical, industrial and aesthetic appreciations of cinema as well as new forms of interactive and networked media that have moved into the mainstream. The thematic area offers unique opportunities for students to put their insights into practice by producing their own audiovisual essays and engaging with the Locarno Film Festival as a local cinematic institution with a global reach. 
  In doing so, the thematic area provides fresh engagements with cinema and audiovisual media in order to thoroughly grasp their roles in future society and culture. 

  Course	ECTS
  Cinema and Audiovisual Futures	6
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	6
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Storie e poetiche del cinema italiano	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Strategies in Screen Industries	6
  Social Media Management	6
  Storytelling, Self and Society	3
  Letteratura e arti visuali	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.
  Changes in the study programme may occur.

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Specialisations

• Corporate Social Responsibility and the Common Good
  Organisations do not operate in a vacuum. Their activities and their behaviours have an impact on many different internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, stakeholders interact with organisations guided by their own expectations, which evolve continuously through complex conversations that give shape to society and its norms. In order to earn their licence to operate, organisations need to operate also in the best interest of society and contribute to the common good. This thematic area delivers philosophical, conceptual and instrumental tools necessary to manage organisations responsibly. It offers both organisational and market perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Social Marketing	6
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Communication and Marketing Ethics	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Argumentation in Conflict Resolution	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  The Platform Society	3
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Negotiation	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Project Management	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Crossmedia, Transmedia and Multimodal Communication
  Relying upon an interpretation of organisations as networks of conversations with multiple stakeholders and audiences, this thematica area addresses the emerging challenges of today’s communication and its fragmentation around the multiple touchpoints constellating the stakeholder-company relationships and across multiple off- and on-line media. It debates the role of traditional and new media, as well as the construction of meaningful contents to provide to a variety of publics. Courses confront a crossmedia perspective, which leads to considering how the same communicative content has to be adapted to different media/touchpoints, to a transmedia perspective, which instead explores how a communicative content can be split and dispatched across various media. Last, the thematic area covers the multimodal (e.g. verbal and visual) nature of today’s contents and its effects.

  Social Media Management	6
  Online Communication Design	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	6
  Additional courses upon availability
  Cinema and Audiovisual Futures	6
  Neuromarketing	3
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  User Experience Design	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Visual and Material Culture
  Customers buy and consume much more than goods, services, and experiences. They look for meanings, which their purchases embed or help generate. This ‘economy of symbols’ requires specific understanding of how customers create and share on/off-line meanings as well as of how these meanings are connected to the socio-cultural and technological context in which they emerge. By actively participating in this (de)construction of meanings, marketing managers have expanded their persuasive levers that, among others, include advertising representations, brand contents and narratives, participation in the digital society, and rhetorical prototypes. Through its distinctive palette of courses, this thematic area offers critical understanding of the links connecting markets, culture, and society. In doing so, it sheds light on the commercial benefits and the socio-cultural implications of said ‘economy of symbols’.

  Consumer Culture	6
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Marketing Semiotics	3
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	3
  Digital Fashion Communication: An Introduction	3
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  Online Communication Design	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Customer Experience and Value
  Following a customer-centric logic, this thematic area provides conceptual and practical understanding of customer value in relation to customer experience. The multiplication of on-line and physical touchpoints constellating the customer journey have made experience and value even more compelling. The thematic area integrates various types of value providers (brand, communication, marketing, retail, and sales managers as well as customers themselves). It also covers a wide range of marketing levers (e.g., brands, cultural engineering, customer experience, service design, transmedia narratives) to maximize customer value in both consumer and industrial settings.

  Customer Experience and Relationship Management	6
  Creativity and Product Innovation	3
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Sales Management and Customer Value	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Channel Management and Retailing	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  Neurosciences, Marketing and Corporate Communication	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Neuromarketing	3
  User Experience Design	6
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Organisation and Human Resource Management
  Concerned with organising and decision making, this thematic area aims at improving future managers’ capabilities in handling, leading, and motivating people, learning from previous experiences, increasing the rationality of decisions, and not being fooled by the seemingly obvious, though highly questionable, outcomes of management.

  Analytical Thinking	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Leadership and Teams	3
  Negotiation	3
  Organisational Design and Change	3
  Project Management	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society
  Communication Strategies in Financial Disclosure	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Enterprise Resource Planning	6
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Management ed innovazione nella pubblica amministrazione e nel non profit	3
  Managerial Accounting	3
  Networks and behavior in organizations	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Strategy and Entrepreneurship
  In today’s markets, which are increasingly disrupted by technological change as well as by social and demographic transformations, organisations require continuous and systematic business model innovation. Managers also need to act more entrepreneurially when approaching daily business.
  This thematic area combines training in strategic management aimed at growing entrepreneurial attitudes and processing skills.

  Analytical Thinking	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Negotiation	3
  Project Management	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Writing Business Plans	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management: Strategic Design and Creative Applications	6
  Customer Experience and Relationship Management	6
  Industrial Organization	3
  Leadership and Teams	6
  Online Communication Design	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Creativity and Product Innovation	3
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Social Media Management	6
  Social Marketing	6
  User Experience Design	6

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Cinema and Audiovisual Futures

  Course	ECTS
  Cinema and Audiovisual Futures	6
  Video Essay for Communications, Culture and Society	6
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Storie e poetiche del cinema italiano	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Social Media Management	6
  Storytelling, Self and Society	3
  Letteratura e arti visuali	3

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication - curriculum 2021-2023

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Specialisations

• Corporate Social Responsibility and the Common Good
  Organisations do not operate in a vacuum. Their activities and their behaviours have an impact on many different internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, stakeholders interact with organisations guided by their own expectations, which evolve continuously through complex conversations that give shape to society and its norms. In order to earn their licence to operate, organisations need to operate also in the best interest of society and contribute to the common good. This thematic area delivers philosophical, conceptual and instrumental tools necessary to manage organisations responsibly. It offers both organisational and market perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Social Marketing	6
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Communication and Marketing Ethics	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Argumentation in Conflict Resolution	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  The Platform Society	3
  "Race" and Media Representations	3
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Negotiation	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Project Management	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Crossmedia, Transmedia and Multimodal Communication
  Relying upon an interpretation of organisations as networks of conversations with multiple stakeholders and audiences, this thematica area addresses the emerging challenges of today’s communication and its fragmentation around the multiple touchpoints constellating the stakeholder-company relationships and across multiple off- and on-line media. It debates the role of traditional and new media, as well as the construction of meaningful contents to provide to a variety of publics. Courses confront a crossmedia perspective, which leads to considering how the same communicative content has to be adapted to different media/touchpoints, to a transmedia perspective, which instead explores how a communicative content can be split and dispatched across various media. Last, the thematic area covers the multimodal (e.g. verbal and visual) nature of today’s contents and its effects.

  Social Media Management	6
  Online Communication Design	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Brand Management	3
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Neurosciences, Marketing and Corporate Communication	3
  Marketing Semiotics	3
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  User Experience Design	3
  Estetica Moderna e Contemporanea	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Visual and Material Culture
  Customers buy and consume much more than goods, services, and experiences. They look for meanings, which their purchases embed or help generate. This ‘economy of symbols’ requires specific understanding of how customers create and share on/off-line meanings as well as of how these meanings are connected to the socio-cultural and technological context in which they emerge. By actively participating in this (de)construction of meanings, marketing managers have expanded their persuasive levers that, among others, include advertising representations, brand contents and narratives, participation in the digital society, and rhetorical prototypes. Through its distinctive palette of courses, this thematic area offers critical understanding of the links connecting markets, culture, and society. In doing so, it sheds light on the commercial benefits and the socio-cultural implications of said ‘economy of symbols’.

  Consumer Culture	6
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  Brand Management	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Marketing Semiotics	3
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  The Platform Society	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Architecture and Tourism	3
  Digital Fashion Communication: An Introduction	3
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  "Race" and Media Representations	3
  Estetica Moderna e Contemporanea	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  The Culture of Media and Technology Companies	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Customer Experience and Value
  Following a customer-centric logic, this thematic area provides conceptual and practical understanding of customer value in relation to customer experience. The multiplication of on-line and physical touchpoints constellating the customer journey have made experience and value even more compelling. The thematic area integrates various types of value providers (brand, communication, marketing, retail, and sales managers as well as customers themselves). It also covers a wide range of marketing levers (e.g., brands, cultural engineering, customer experience, service design, transmedia narratives) to maximize customer value in both consumer and industrial settings.

  Customer Experience and Relationship Management	6
  Creativity and Product Innovation	3
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Channel Management and Retailing	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  Neurosciences, Marketing and Corporate Communication	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management	3
  User Experience Design	6
  Storytelling, Self, and Society	3
  Estetica Moderna e Contemporanea	3
  Arte pubblica	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Organisation and Human Resource Management
  Concerned with organising and decision making, this thematic area aims at improving future managers’ capabilities in handling, leading, and motivating people, learning from previous experiences, increasing the rationality of decisions, and not being fooled by the seemingly obvious, though highly questionable, outcomes of management.

  Analytical Thinking	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Leadership and Teams	3
  Negotiation	3
  Organisational Design and Change	3
  Project Management	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management	3
  Communication Strategies in Financial Disclosure	3
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Enterprise Resource Planning	6
  Event Management	3
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Management ed innovazione nella pubblica amministrazione e nel non profit	3
  Managerial Accounting	3
  Networks and behavior in organizations	3
  People Management and Leadership in Public Sector	3

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

• Strategy and Entrepreneurship
  In today’s markets, which are increasingly disrupted by technological change as well as by social and demographic transformations, organisations require continuous and systematic business model innovation. Managers also need to act more entrepreneurially when approaching daily business.
  This thematic area combines training in strategic management aimed at growing entrepreneurial attitudes and processing skills.

  Analytical Thinking	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Business Ethics	3
  Negotiation	3
  Project Management	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Writing Business Plans	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Brand Management	3
  Customer Experience and Relationship Management	6
  Industrial Organization	3
  Leadership and Teams	6
  Online Communication Design	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Creativity and Product Innovation	3
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Social Media Management	6
  Social Marketing	6
  User Experience Design	6

  Students, if they wish, can earn a specialisation by selecting 18 ECTS within the same thematic area. The Master offers six thematic areas for specialisation.

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication - curriculum 2020-2022

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Common Good

Organisations do not operate in a vacuum. Their activities and their behaviours have an impact on many different internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, stakeholders interact with organisations guided by their own expectations, which evolve continuously through complex conversations that give shape to society and its norms. In order to earn their licence to operate, organisations need to operate also in the best interest of society and contribute to the common good. This thematic area delivers philosophical, conceptual and instrumental tools necessary to manage organisations responsibly. It offers both organisational and market perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

*Students have to validate at least 18 ECTS within the list of courses of each option and add 12 more ECTS from other electives listed in any of the four specializations.

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Crossmedia, Transmedia and Multimodal Communication

Relying upon an interpretation of organisations as networks of conversations with multiple stakeholders and audiences, this thematica area addresses the emerging challenges of today’s communication and its fragmentation around the multiple touchpoints constellating the stakeholder-company relationships and across multiple off- and on-line media. It debates the role of traditional and new media, as well as the construction of meaningful contents to provide to a variety of publics. Courses confront a crossmedia perspective, which leads to considering how the same communicative content has to be adapted to different media/touchpoints, to a transmedia perspective, which instead explores how a communicative content can be split and dispatched across various media. Last, the thematic area covers the multimodal (e.g. verbal and visual) nature of today’s contents and its effects.

*Students have to validate at least 18 ECTS within the list of courses of each option and add 12 more ECTS from other electives listed in any of the four specializations.

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Visual and Material Culture

Customers buy and consume much more than goods, services, and experiences. They look for meanings, which their purchases embed or help generate. This ‘economy of symbols’ requires specific understanding of how customers create and share on/off-line meanings as well as of how these meanings are connected to the socio-cultural and technological context in which they emerge. By actively participating in this (de)construction of meanings, marketing managers have expanded their persuasive levers that, among others, include advertising representations, brand contents and narratives, participation in the digital society, and rhetorical prototypes. Through its distinctive palette of courses, this thematic area offers critical understanding of the links connecting markets, culture, and society. In doing so, it sheds light on the commercial benefits and the socio-cultural implications of said ‘economy of symbols’.

*Students have to validate at least 18 ECTS within the list of courses of each option and add 12 more ECTS from other electives listed in any of the four specializations.

Changes in the study programme may occur.

Customer Experience and Value

Following a customer-centric logic, this thematic area provides conceptual and practical understanding of customer value in relation to customer experience. The multiplication of on-line and physical touchpoints constellating the customer journey have made experience and value even more compelling. The thematic area integrates various types of value providers (brand, communication, marketing, retail, and sales managers as well as customers themselves). It also covers a wide range of marketing levers (e.g., brands, cultural engineering, customer experience, service design, transmedia narratives) to maximize customer value in both consumer and industrial settings.

*Students have to validate at least 18 ECTS within the list of courses of each option and add 12 more ECTS from other electives listed in any of the four specializations.

Changes in the study programme may occur

Study plan of the Master in Marketing and Transformative Economy - curriculum 2019-2021

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication – curriculum 2018-2020

In the first semester, students attend the core general management classes. In the second semester, they take core corporate communication courses. During the third semester, students can choose from a rich selection of elective courses. They can also opt for an exchange programme with another university in Switzerland or abroad. During the last semester students work in teams on a field project, consulting client organizations, and individually write up their Master’s thesis.

Thematic Areas

• Corporate Social Responsibility and the Common Good
  Organizations do not operate in a vacuum. Their activities and their behaviours have an impact on many different internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, stakeholders interact with organizations guided by their own expectations, which evolve continuously through complex conversations that give shape to society and its norms. In order to earn their licence to operate, organizations need to operate also in the best interest of society and contribute to the common good. This thematic area delivers philosophical, conceptual and instrumental tools necessary to manage organizations responsibly. It offers both an organizational and market perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

  Semester III	ECTS
  Corporate Social Responsibility	3
  Social Marketing	6
  Intercultural Communication	3
  Cause Related Marketing	3
  Global Corporate Communication	3
  Communication and Marketing Ethics	3
  Business Ethics*	3
  Argumentation in Conflict Resolution	3
  Applied Social Entrepreneurship	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  The Network Society	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Negotiation	3
  Social Innovation	3
  Project Management	3

  * The course will not be offered in the A.Y. 2019/20.
   

• Crossmedia, Transmedia and Multimodal Communication
  Relying upon an interpretation of organisations as networks of conversations with multiple stakeholders and audiences, this thematica area addresses the emerging challenges of today’s communication and its fragmentation around the multiple touchpoints constellating the stakeholder-company relationships and across multiple off- and on-line media. It debates the role of traditional and new media, as well as the construction of meaningful contents to provide to a variety of publics. Courses confront a crossmedia perspective, which leads to considering how the same communicative content has to be adapted to different media/touchpoints, to a transmedia perspective, which instead explores how a communicative content can be split and dispatched across various media. Last, the thematic area covers the multimodal (e.g. verbal and visual) nature of today’s contents and its effects.

  Semester III	ECTS
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Online Communication Design	3
  The Network Society	3
  Social Media Management	3
  Brand Management	3
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Media Relations	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Marketing Semiotics	3
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  User Experience Design	3
  Estetica Moderna e Contemporanea	3
  Scenografia	3

   

• Visual and Material Culture
  Customers buy and consume much more than goods, services, and experiences. They look for meanings, which their purchases embed or help generate. This ‘economy of symbols’ requires specific understanding of how customers create and share on/off-line meanings as well as of how these meanings are connected to the socio-cultural and technological context in which they emerge. By actively participating in this (de)construction of meanings, marketing managers have expanded their persuasive levers that, among others, include advertising representations, brand contents and narratives, participation in the digital society, and rhetorical prototypes. Through its distinctive palette of courses, this thematic area offers critical understanding of the links connecting markets, culture, and society. In doing so, it sheds light on the commercial benefits and the socio-cultural implications of said ‘economy of symbols’.

  Semester III	ECTS
  Digital Corporate Communication	3
  Multimodal Rhetoric	3
  The Network Society	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Marketing Semiotics	3
  Brand Management	3
  Advertising and Consumer Representations	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Online Communication Design	3
  Architecture and Tourism	3
  History of Media Management	3
  Digital Fashion Communication	3
  Estetica Moderna e Contemporanea	3

   

• Customer Experience and Value
  Following a customer-centric logic, this thematic area provides conceptual and practical understanding of customer value in relation to customer experience. The multiplication of on-line and physical touchpoints constellating the customer journey have made experience and value even more compelling. The thematic area integrates various types of value providers (brand, communication, marketing, retail, and sales managers as well as customers themselves). It also covers a wide range of marketing levers (e.g., brands, cultural engineering, customer experience, service design, transmedia narratives) to maximize customer value in both consumer and industrial settings.
   

  Semester III	ECTS
  Online Communication Design	3
  Transmedia Narratives	3
  Customer Experience Design	3
  Customer Relationship Management	3
  Service Design Marketing	3
  Sales Management and Customer Value	3
  Pricing and Value	3
  Channel Management and Retailing	3
  Additional courses upon availability
  Global Consumer Culture	3
  Brand Management	3
  User Experience Design	3
  Estetica Moderna e Contemporanea	3
  Scenografia	3
  Interventi Artistici nell'Architettura	3

   

Changes in the study plan may occurr. In case of discrepancies, or for any legal purpose, the study plan indicated by the Director or the Programme Manager of the Master shall prevail.

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication - curriculum 2017-2019

The two-year programme consists of general management courses, core courses, elective courses and the Capstone Work.

The General Management courses (30 ECTS) cover the main areas of management and are offered in common with the Master in Marketing and the Master in Management. These are compulsory and to be taken during the first term.

The Core courses (36 ECTS) are specialization courses distributed on the second and third term. They include two methodology courses (Data Analysis and Corporate Communication Research). Core course are compulsory.

The Elective courses (24 ECTS) are to be chosen from relevant courses on corporate communication related topics. The list of electives offered during each term can change. The choice of an elective is to be agreed upon with the program coordinator. Electives can be taken during the second and third term of the program (if needed also during the fourth term). The selection of specific elective courses allow students to obtain 'minors'.

The Capstone Work (30 ECTS) consists in the Field project (12 ECTS) and the Master's Thesis (18 ECTS), both to be carried out in the fourth term.

During the second and third semesters, students are required to earn 24 ECTS of electives courses.
Students can choose the courses they are interested in, among (a) elective courses offered in four distinctive minors, (b) other electives and (c) core courses offered in other USI's Master programmes.
Students can decide to obtain one or two 'minors' by taking all courses listed in the minor(s) of their choice. Every 'minor' consist of four courses of 3 ECTS for a total of 12 ECTS.

Changes in the study plan may occur. In case of discrepancies, or for any legal purpose, the study plan indicated by the Director or the Programme Manager of the Master shall prevail.

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication - curriculum 2016-2018

The two-year programme consists of general management courses, core courses, elective courses and the Capstone Work.

The General Management courses (30 ECTS) cover the main areas of management and are offered in common with the Master in Marketing and the Master in Management. These are compulsory and to be taken during the first term.

The Core courses (36 ECTS) are specialization courses distributed on the second and third term. They include two methodology courses (Data Analysis and Corporate Communication Research). Core course are compulsory.

The Elective courses (24 ECTS) are to be chosen from relevant courses on corporate communication related topics. The list of electives offered during each term can change. The choice of an elective is to be agreed upon with the program coordinator. Electives can be taken during the second and third term of the program (if needed also during the fourth term). The selection of specific elective courses allow students to obtain 'minors'.

The Capstone Work (30 ECTS) consists in the Field project (12 ECTS) and the Master's Thesis (18 ECTS), both to be carried out in the fourth term.

Electives and Minors

During the second and third semesters, students are required to earn 24 ECTS of electives courses.

Students can choose the courses they are interested in, among:

• elective courses offered in four distinctive minors;
• other electives and
• core courses offered in other USI's Master programmes.

Students can decide to obtain one or two 'minors' by taking all courses listed in the minor(s) of their choice. Every 'minor' consist of four courses of 3 ECTS for a total of 12 ECTS.

• Elective Courses Offered in four Distinctive Minors

• Other Electives (examples)

• Core Courses offered in other USI’s Master Programmes (examples)

Changes in the study plan may occur. In case of discrepancies, or for any legal purpose, the study plan indicated by the Director or the Programme Manager of the Master shall prevail.

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication - curriculum 2015-2017

The two-year programme consists of general management courses, core courses, elective courses and the Capstone Work.

The General Management courses (30 ECTS) cover the main areas of management and are offered in common with the Master in Marketing and the Master in Management. These are compulsory and to be taken during the first term.

The Core courses (36 ECTS) are specialization courses distributed on the second and third term. They include two methodology courses (Data Analysis and Corporate Communication Research). Core course are compulsory.

The Elective courses (24 ECTS) are to be chosen from relevant courses on corporate communication related topics. The list of electives offered during each term can change. The choice of an elective is to be agreed upon with the program coordinator. Electives can be taken during the second and third term of the program (if needed also during the fourth term). The selection of specific elective courses allow students to obtain 'minors'.

The Capstone Work (30 ECTS) consists in the Field project (12 ECTS) and the Master's Thesis (18 ECTS), both to be carried out in the fourth term.

Electives and Minors

During the second and third semesters, students are required to earn 24 ECTS of electives courses.

Students can choose the courses they are interested in, among:

• elective courses offered in four distinctive minors;
• other electives and
• core courses offered in other USI's Master programmes.

Students can decide to obtain one or two 'minors' by taking all courses listed in the minor(s) of their choice. Every 'minor' consist of four courses of 3 ECTS for a total of 12 ECTS.

• Elective Courses Offered in four Distinctive Minors

• Other Electives (examples)

• Core Courses offered in other USI’s Master Programmes (examples)

Changes in the study plan may occur. In case of discrepancies, or for any legal purpose, the study plan indicated by the Director or the Programme Manager of the Master shall prevail.

Study plan of the Master in Corporate Communication - curriculum 2014-2016

The programme stretches over two years (120 ECTS credits) and is structured to allow the students to personalise their study curricula according to their individual interests.

Typically, in the first semester students attend the general management classes in order to acquire the basics of management.

The second and third semesters are dedicated to core courses and electives. Students are required to take core courses that regard specific communication management topics and methodology and to complete their curriculum with elective courses. They can also acquire minors in four areas: Digital Marketing-Digital Communication, Content Design, Public Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility. During the last semester students work in teams on a field project and individually write up their master’s thesis.

Electives and Minors

During the second and third semesters, students are required to earn 24 ECTS of electives courses.

Students can choose the courses they are interested in, among:

• elective courses offered in four distinctive minors;
• other electives and
• core courses offered in other USI's Master programmes.

Students can decide to obtain one or two 'minors' by taking all courses listed in the minor(s) of their choice. Every 'minor' consist of four courses of 3 ECTS for a total of 12 ECTS.

• Elective Courses Offered in four Distinctive Minors

• Other Electives (example)

• Core Courses offered in other USI’s Master Programmes (examples)

Changes in the study plan may occur. In case of discrepancies, or for any legal purpose, the study plan indicated by the Director or the Programme Manager of the Master shall prevail.