Financial Communication
People
Description
The course provides a broad overview of the field of financial communication, covering the following topics:
- The birth of Financial Communication: Public Relations and Accounting perspectives
- Communication Theory foundations: The pragmatics of signaling
- Finance foundations: information and the financial markets
- The Interaction Field: key concepts and application to the financial markets
- The Interaction Field: firms, investors, intermediaries and other stakeholders
- The interaction schemes and the genre system of financial communication
- The disclosure process
- Firm valuation: between narrative and numbers
- Firm valuation and market structure
- From firm valuation to financial products
- Business narratives and financial communication
- Start-up narratives
- IPO and communication
- News, narratives and the financial markets
- Financial Journalism.
Objectives
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
- 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.
Teaching mode
In presence
Learning methods
Lectures
In class discussion of cases and problem-solving activities
Reading, summarizing and presenting relevant scientific literature
Examination information
Two in-class group presentations (20%)
Final written exam (80%)
Bibliography
Compulsory
- Damodaran, Aswath. Narrative and numbers: the value of stories in business. New York: Columbia Business School, 2017. (Textbook. Students are expected to be deeply acquainted with its contents)
- Laskin, Alexander V.. Investor relations and financial communication: creating value through trust and understanding. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley Blackwell, 2022. (Textbook. Students are expected to be deeply acquainted with its contents)
- Laskin, Alexander. The Handbook of Financial Communication and Investor Relations. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2017. (Students will work in groups to analyze and present select chapters from the Handbook)
Education
- Master in European Studies in Investor Relations and Financial Communication, Lecture, 2nd year
