Business and Commerce

This unit addresses the theory of competitive markets,and the need for and effects of government intervention. This includes a consideration of the nature of economics, consumer behaviour and market demand, the firm –its technology and costs, market structures, markets for input, public goods and externalities. This unit also provides the microeconomic framework required to develop an appreciation and understanding of the pricing and output by firms and their implications for economic efficiency.

This unit aims to introduce students to finance and provide an introductory knowledge of the Australian financial system. The unit will discuss some of the fundamental financial concepts such as the time value of money and the concepts of risk and return. Students will learn to apply these fundamental concepts in the areas of investments in equity and debt. These issues will be discussed in the local and international context.

The digital revolution has changed the practice of business. Data to support business decisions (data collected by business systems as well as through the Internet and Social Media such as Facebook and Twitter) are growing exponentially and becoming increasingly difficult to understand and use. Business Analytics is the broad use of quantitative reasoning skills in business decision making. Business Analytics helps managers to solve complex business problems, improve business performance, anticipate and plan for change while managing and balancing risks. This unit will provide students with the analytical knowledge and skills to explore data to find patterns and relationships in data; assess uncertainty and risk of business decisions; evaluate decisions; and forecast and predict trends.

Our world is now a world of information. On the one hand this makes many things easier, fun or even possible but on the other it can cause us to be overloaded with information and distracted by our constant connections. In this unit we look at how we might manage better and use information and connections in business, at work and in everyday life.
The unit begins by considering the changes that the digital world has made to our lives and how we live in a world immersed in information and social media. We then look at how we can search and analyse information and utilise social media for business, learning and collaboration. We then look at how information can be used to assist people but also to monitor and manage people at work and at home. Finally, we consider how to use ICT in a more secure manner.

The unit provides the underlying concepts and purpose of Law for Commerce and the Australian legal system. The unit covers the law relating to contract, consumer protection, business entities and relationships, and torts with a focus on negligence.

Marketing focuses on the creativity involved in the marketing process, ranging from understanding consumer needs to designing customer-driven integrated marketing strategies using the marketing mix. It is the intention to build the knowledge on the marketing planning process and how this is successfully implemented in market and computer-oriented organisations that include profit-oriented companies, government and the not-for-profit sector.

The aim of this unit is to provide students with a critical understanding of the intellectual foundations of the study of management. The unit will provide the opportunity to analyse how the solutions to management ‘problems’ have developed under different conditions throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. The unit also explores how management practice influences, and is influenced by, the external environment. This will involve examining how managerial action impacts on and is shaped by the environment, through a consideration of, ethics, social responsibility, and the social and cultural context of management.

This module’s learning and assessment activities provide students with guidance on what constitutes academic integrity. It will allow students to develop knowledge, skills and good practice principles to avoid plagiarism and collusion and thereby maintain academic integrity.