Unit rationale, description and aim
Within the Catholic intellectual tradition and acting in Truth and Love, Australian Catholic University is committed to the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human person and the common good. 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, giving them a practical and global outlook to business. 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, while undertaking ethical consideration for business decision making. 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.
Identify the impact of the key regulatory and econ...
Learning Outcome 01
Identify the core marketing models and concepts fo...
Learning Outcome 02
Compare different statistical techniques to inform...
Learning Outcome 03
Show knowledge of communication theory and informa...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
Topics will include:
- fundamentals of business law in the Australian context
- macro-environmental analysis (PESTEL)
- 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.
Assessment strategy and rationale
To pass this unit, students must demonstrate competence in all learning outcomes and achieve an aggregate mark of at least 50%.
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 1 focuses on the cooperation of knowledge. The descriptive knowledge acquired will be demonstrated in Assessment 2, while analytical and interpretive skills will be demonstrated in Assessment 3. Students will progressively be submitting assessment tasks during the study period, while receiving feedback from each to feed forward into their next task.
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
Assessment 1: Active Learning Task This assessme...
Assessment 1: Active Learning Task
This assessment focuses on assessing the student’s understanding of key legal, economic and marketing concepts. Students will be assessed based on collaborative tasks during the semester covering core concepts.
Submission Type: Individual
Assessment Method: Written evidence of task completion
Artefact: Various written outputs
30%
Assessment 2: Concept Map This second assessment...
Assessment 2: Concept Map
This second assessment requires students to develop a concept map of the key economic and regulatory forces impacting on a business. Students will choose three key economic issues and three regulations (one Local, one State and one Federal) identified in the map and communicate how these impact on their business.
Submission Type: Individual
Assessment Method: Concept map / Written explanation
Artefact: Concept Map
20%
Assessment 3: Marketing Proposal Students are re...
Assessment 3: Marketing Proposal
Students are required to create a marketing proposal for a specified business. This will include a detailed analysis of the market along with the creation of a segmentation and positioning strategy and basic marketing mix. The proposal will demonstrate student’s understanding and application of the key marketing concepts and models relevant to starting a business that considers social and environmental responsibilities. Students will apply descriptive statistical skills to a provided data set to analyse the data in support of their marketing decisions.
Submission Type: Individual
Assessment Method: Written proposal data analysis
Artefact: Written proposal with data visualisation
50%
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.
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.
Mode of delivery: This unit is offered in multimode to cater to the learning needs and preferences of a range of participants and maximise effective participation for isolated and/or marginalised groups.
Representative texts and references
Baye, MR & Prince, J 2021, Managerial Economics and Business Strategy, 10th edn, McGraw Hill Education, New York.
Croucher, J 2016, Introductory mathematics and statistics, McGraw Hill, North Ryde.
Elliot, G, Rundle-Thiele, S, Waller, D, Bentrott, I, Hatton-Jones, S & Jeans, P 2020, Marketing, 5th edn, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd., Milton, QLD.
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 2019[KR1] , Economics for today, 6th edn Asia Pacific, 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.