Business in Society (19CBA00001)
General information
Type: |
OB |
Curs: |
1 |
Period: |
S semester |
ECTS Credits: |
4 ECTS |
Teaching Staff:
| Group |
Teacher |
Department |
Language |
| Sec: A |
Maja Tampe |
Ciencias Sociales |
ENG |
| Group |
Teacher |
Department |
Language |
| Sec: B |
Maja Tampe |
Ciencias Sociales |
ENG |
COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM
Organizations of all kinds are faced with the challenge of environmental and social sustainability, often urged on by consumers, regulators, investors, and other stakeholders. Firms in particular find it necessary to rethink their relations with society. These trends toward sustainability present both opportunities and risks for firms. For some, this shift offers possibilities for new products and services, for reinventing old ones, for solving problems in new ways, and for reaping economic and reputation benefits from pursuing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. Others, however, face real struggles with far from obvious solutions.
As these challenges of sustainability and stakeholder relations are increasingly central to business strategy, professionals in business analytics have a key role to play given that progress on sustainability is often founded on making sense of complex and big data. The BiS course analyzes where business analytics fits in this task of translating real-world challenges into future business opportunities and of creating the change needed, at the pace needed, for a sustainable world
Course Learning Objectives
The principal goal of this course is to equip you with the concepts, frameworks and tools needed to effectively manage the challenge of sustainability in your future career. Specifically, the course pursues three overarching learning objectives:
1) To develop your systems thinking. We examine the environmental, economic, social, political, and organizational drivers of sustainability and CSR and see how they interact.
2) To assess strategies for sustainable business. We evaluate the business case for sustainability, both in the opportunities it presents and in its uncertainties and limitations. We also explore organizational hurdles to sustainability strategies and ways to overcome them.
3) To equip you with tools and frameworks to meaningfully reflect on your own choices, as a manager and entrepreneur in your future career and as a consumer, on how you want to lead, participate in, contribute to, or possibly resist the changes around sustainability and CSR.
Assessment criteria
Classroom participation: 35%
Individual assignments: 25%
Group assignment/final presentation: 40%
Your active participation - in the discussion in class and through written contributions - is integral to the design of this course. Class participation counts for 35% of your final grade. We expect you to be fully prepared, and to have read the cases and assigned readings and to fully participate in the discussion. (Those students for whom English is not a first language and/or may have difficulty speaking up in class are encouraged to meet with one of the faculty to discuss how your participation in class can be ensured.) We have designed this class as an integrated whole and expect regular attendance.
Timetable and sections
| Group |
Teacher |
Department |
| Sec: A |
Maja Tampe |
Ciencias Sociales |
Timetable Sec: A
| Group |
Teacher |
Department |
| Sec: B |
Maja Tampe |
Ciencias Sociales |
Timetable Sec: B
