Financial Communication

The course provides a broad overview of the field of financial communication, covering the following topics:

1. Communication Theory foundations: the pragmatics of human communication
2. Finance foundations: information and the financial markets
3. The pragmatics of signaling
4. The Interaction Field: key concepts and application to the financial markets
5. The Interaction Field: firms, investors, intermediaries and other stakeholders
6. The interaction schemes and the genre system of financial communication
7. The disclosure process
8. Quantitative and qualitative aspects of firm valuation
9. The importance of business narratives for financial communication
10. Start-up narratives that are too good
11. News, narratives and the financial markets
12. The end of narrative: social media disruptions, hype and crypto
13. Narrative turning points: going public
14. Corporate governance and investor activism
15. Crises  

The course will help students to

• Use foundations of communication theory and finance to understand financial communication as social interaction between multiple stakeholders around investment activities and as information flow affecting investment decisions.
• Understand the interaction between firms and financial markets in terms of signaling and disclosure, taking into account intermediaries and other stakeholders.
• Focus on valuation as the core of the communicative interaction between firms and financial markets, appreciating the synergy of qualitative (narrative) and quantitative information in firm valuation
• Appreciate the importance of business narratives for the financial markets and how they change from start-up, to IPO and through crises.
• Become familiar with some of the most common and important genres of financial communication.
• Use both the finance and the communication scholarships to understand financial communication problems.

In presence

Lectures
In class discussion of cases and problem-solving activities.
Reading, summarizing and presenting relevant scientific literature

Group activity: In class presentation: narrative and numbers in firm valuation (10%)

Group activity: in class presentation of relevant scientific literature (10%)
Final written exam (80%)