BUSD112 - Managing Markets

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Nil

Incompatible

BUSN112 Managing Markets , MKTG100 - Marketing: Creating and Capturing Customer Value

Unit rationale, description and aim

All organisations need to be able to evaluate, analyse and respond to external forces. Key amongst the environments within which organisations operate are the legal/political, economic and consumer environments. In this unit, students will develop the required knowledge effective managers need for analysing the challenges of the changing external environment by learning strategies to support effective decision-making in Marketing, Statistics, Business Law and Economics. The knowledge students develop in this unit will enable them to analyse the potential risks and opportunities of doing business in competitive consumer and business markets. Students will achieve this by developing an understanding of the legislative and economic frameworks relevant to business with a particular emphasis on consumer and business law perspectives. Taking this knowledge students will apply it to the outwardly focused management function of marketing. The aim of this unit is to enhance students’ knowledge of the external environments in which organisations operate, to develop basic statistical skills, to analyse trends in these environments and apply this knowledge to activities relevant to the marketing function.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Identify the impact of the key regulatory and economic dimensions in the organisation’s macro environment (GA5)

LO2 - Identify the core marketing models and concepts for sustainable business and social outcomes (GA2, GA5)

LO3 - Compare different statistical techniques to inform marketing decisions (GA5, GA8)

LO4 - Show knowledge of communication theory and information literacies by applying relevant knowledge, skills and judgement for business and academic audiences (GA5, GA9)

Graduate attributes

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

Topics will include:

• fundamentals of business law in the Australian context
• key models of economic and Australian economic institutions
• types of competition
• introduction to marketing and the consumer orientation
• the marketing mix
• segmentation, targeting and positioning
• marketing research
• descriptive statistics and their application in business decisions
• approaches to data presentation to enhance understanding of statistical outcomes
• communicating effectively in a variety of settings and organisational contexts.

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit takes an active learning approach to guide students in the analysis and synthesis of knowledge associated with the interaction of external environments on organizational business functions. Students are able to explore the knowledge base underpinning markets, economics business law and basic statistics in a series of on campus workshops. These workshops allow students to actively acquire knowledge both individually and collaboratively. Students will systematically develop their understanding of the impact of changes in the macro and micro (market/industry) environments on the organisation’s marketing (and other) operations. Students will acquire economic legal, regulatory, marketing and statistical knowledge useful in analysing business actions in the marketplace. In doing so verbal and non-verbal communication skills are developed.

Mode of delivery: This unit is offered mainly in ‘Attendance mode’ with aspects of ‘Multi-mode’ incorporated into the delivery to maximise the learning support offered to students. Students will be required to attend face-to-face workshops in specific physical location/s and have face-to-face interactions with teaching staff to further their achievement of the learning outcomes. This unit is also structured with some required upfront preparation before workshops – learning materials and tasks set via online learning platforms. This will provide multiple forms of preparatory and practice opportunities for students to prepare and revise.

Further to this, to ensure students are ready to transition from the Diploma and articulate into the second year of undergraduate study, transition pedagogies will be incorporated into the unit as the key point of differentiation from the standard unit. This focuses on an active and engaging approach to learning and teaching practices, and a scaffolded approach to the delivery of curriculum to enhance student learning in a supportive environment. This will ensure that students develop foundation level discipline-based knowledge, skills and attributes, and simultaneously the academic competencies required of students to succeed in this unit.

Assessment strategy and rationale

To pass this unit, students are required to complete and submit three graded assessment tasks and achieve an aggregate mark of at least 50%. Marking will be in accordance with rubrics specifically developed to measure levels of achievement of the learning outcomes for each assessment item.

The assessment strategy for this unit allows students to demonstrate mastery and understanding of important economic and legal concepts, apply knowledge of key marketing concepts and models to the analysis of a real-world situation and to interpret and integrate basic statistical skills into business decision making. Assessment one focusses on the co-creation of knowledge. The descriptive knowledge acquired will be demonstrated in Assessment two, while analytical and interpretive skills will be demonstrated in Assessment three. 

Strategies aligned with transition pedagogies will be utilised to facilitate successful completion of the unit assessment tasks. For each assessment, there will be the incorporation of developmentally staged tasks with a focus on a progressive approach to learning. This will be achieved through activities, including regular feedback, particularly early in the unit of study to support their learning; strategies to develop and understand discipline-specific concepts and terminology; in-class practice tasks with integrated feedback; and greater peer-to-peer collaboration.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Baye, MR 2017, Managerial economics and business strategy, McGraw Hill, New York.

Croucher, J 2016, Introductory mathematics and statistics, McGraw Hill, North Ryde.

Elliot, G, Rundle-Thiele, S, Smith, S, Waller, D, Eades, L & Bentrott, I 2018, Marketing, 4th edn, John Wiley and Sons, Milton.

Jaggia, S, Kelly, A, Salzman, S, Olaru, D, Sriananthakumar, S, Beg, R & Leighton, C 2020, Essentials of Business Statistics: Communicating with Numbers, McGraw Hill Education, North Ryde.

Kolter, P & Keller, K 2016, Marketing management, Global edn, Pearson Higher Ed, New York.

Layton, A, Robinson, T & Tucker, IB 2018, Economics for today, 5th Asia Pacific edn, Cengage, South Melbourne.

Journal articles

Clements, KW 2019, ‘Four Laws of Consumption’, The Economic record, vol. 95, no. 310, pp. 358–385.

Cooper, RG 2019, ‘The drivers of success in new-product development’, Industrial marketing management, vol. 76, pp.36–47.

Duarte, Fabian, 2012, Price elasticity of expenditure across health care services. Journal of health economics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 824–841.

Eckhardt, GM, Houston, MB, Jiang, B, Lamberton, C, Rindfleisch, A & Zervas, G 2019, ‘Marketing in the Sharing Economy’, Journal of marketing, vol. 83, no. 5, pp.5–27.

Gronroos, C 1994, ‘From marketing mix to relationship marketing: Towards a paradigm shift in marketing’, Management decision, vol. 32, no. 2, p. 4.

Forsyth, A 2020, ‘COVID-19 and Labour Law: Australia’, Italian labour law e-journal, vol. 13, no.1, viewed 23 July 2021, <https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/10812>.

Glynn, J 2021, ‘Australia's RBA Signals Monetary Stimulus Is Here for the Long Haul’, WSJ Pro. Central Banking.

Hecht, AA, Perez, CL, Polascek, M, Thorndike, AN, Franckle, RL, Moran, AJ 2020, ‘Influence of Food and Beverage Companies on Retailer Marketing Strategies and Consumer Behavior’, International journal of environmental research and public health, vol. 17, no. 20, p. 7381–, viewed 23 July 2021, <https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17207381>.

Steinhoff, L, Arli, D, Weaven, S & Kozlenkova, IV 2018. Online relationship marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 369–393, viewed 23 July 2021, <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-018-0621-6>.

Thurbon, E, 2021, ‘Australia and the Rules of International Trade and Finance’, in Conley Tyler, M, Gyngell, A & Wakefield, B (eds), Australia and the Rules-Based International Order, The Australian Institute of International Affairs, Deakin, pp. 167–209.