BUSINESS AND SOCIETY 2021/22

General course idea:
Since we are facing unprecedented sustainability challenges, several calls have been made to rethink or re-imagine capitalism. Contemporary
world complexities include climate change, tax avoidance, pandemics, pollution, modern slavery, economic and social inequalities, sustainability
challenges at large. This course's key aim is to constitute a "wakening call" for students on the need to address grand sustainability challenges
in their future jobs as regulators, policy makers, analysts, managers etc.
The teaching style is topic-based, case-based, participatory and project oriented. Students taking this course should not see themselves as
mere "absorbers" of codified concepts, but as living and thinking individuals, who will have to take complex business decisions and who are
expected to learn, discuss and face the paradoxes and tensions that are inherent when business decisions have to be taken in highly uncertain
and risky environments like the ones we are currently living in.
Required Readings:
All materials will be available on the E-learning course website..
Participants will be expected to keep abreast of contemporary developments in corporate social and environmental responsibilities, business
and human rights, sustainability challenges by reading the relevant press (e.g. The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, Foreign
Affairs) and other newspapers or journals.
Course Description:
Core topics
Shareholder value maximization vs. stakeholder theory
Corporate wrongdoing and corporate social responsibility
New business models for a more responsible capitalism
Business and human rights
Special topics
Economic inequality and tax evasion
Finance and climate change/Responsible Investing
Migrants and modern slavery
Food waste
Responsible innovation and circular economy
EU Green Deal for a toxic free environment