Technology, Ethics & Humanism (2235.YR.015082.1)

General information

Type:	OBL	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	4 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Valentina De Marchi	Sociedad, Política y Sostenibilidad	ENG

No prerequisites

No previous knowledge is needed to attend this course

The distribution of the workload will be similar to the evaluation system. We expect participants to dedicate almost in equal parts their time to (a) prepare each session and actively contribute to the dialogue to discuss the issues; and (b) work on individual assignments which will require to reflect on the topics addressed in class; (c) contribute to the group assignment and its presentation.

Organizations of all kinds are faced with challenges related to environmental and social sustainability, often urged on by consumers, regulators, investors, and other stakeholders, which might represent both opportunities and risks to the organization. To face such challenges, firms need to deeply revisit their operations, to update their role in society, and to reflect on the ethical implications of their activities.

Ethical and sustainability challenges are central to digital businesses, so that professionals in digital businesses need to be equipped not only to address them but also to understand how they can leverage their activities to enable other organizations to be more sustainable as well. This course analyzes where digital business 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.

The principal goal of this course is to equip you with the concepts, frameworks, and tools needed to effectively manage the challenge of social and environmental sustainability in your future career. Specifically, the course pursues the following overarching learning objectives:
1) To develop an awareness of the ethical, social, and environmental challenges facing digital businesses;
2) To understand in what way and to what extent those challenges impact digital businesses, and how digital businesses can impact them;
3) To become familiar with digital ethics challenges, and to understand what ethical dilemmas need to be faced and how to make the best possible choices;
4) To acquire tools and to learn about frameworks that facilitate ethical and sustainable decision making, and to reflect meaningfully on your own choices, as a manager and entrepreneur in your future career and as a citizen;
5) To understand how digital business activities should evolve to ensure ethical and sustainable conduct.

1. CONTENT: In this course we are going to explore the key environmental, social, and ethical challenges that digital businesses need to address, or that they can help to tackle, considering the planetary boundaries and human rights as the fundamental, overarching frameworks. Furthermore, we are going to problematize the role of digital businesses in society, understanding how they can be the source of those problems, a victim of their existence, yet also part of the solution, when transforming their activities to pursue social good. We are going to address ethical dilemmas, i.e., situations in which two or more valid ethical claims clash, to gain a deeper understanding of the ethical issues that digital businesses need to address when developing platforms or any digital content, and to acquire tools for decision making. We are going to define and identify different types of business models for sustainability that are suitable for digital businesses, and we will discuss how product and service development, operations, and supply chain management are to be transformed to reduce negative environmental impacts. Finally, we are going to discuss digital ethics, including topics like content moderation in online platforms and the use of technology for unintended purposes. Thus, our goal will NOT be to learn how to develop a detailed technical solution in any of the particular areas described above, but rather to equip you with a general understanding, so that as future managers you know what the relevant issues are, you are familiar with the types of tools and best practices in use, and you can therefore interpret and integrate potential social and environmental challenges into your management practices.

This course is organized as a participative and reflective experience, weaving theory, living cases, assignments, guest speakers, and a team project experience. We expect your active participation in class, whether we discuss cases, role play in simulations, explore the implications of concepts, or interact with a guest speaker. Your active participation serves several purposes. First, it will support your own learning through the development of the abilities to summarize and explain ideas, to formulate good questions, and to develop and possibly defend your own argument. Second, it will enrich the classroom, making it dynamic and supporting everyone's learning. Third, it will contribute to the final grade that you will achieve in this class. Overall, we expect you to engage reflectively with the ideas, materials, and your classmates in a safe learning environment. This will require you to reflect on what the ideas and concepts addressed in class mean to you and to your view of digital businesses. The course will be taught by two instructors, each providing a different perspective of the topics covered.

Group	Teacher	Department
Year 1	Valentina De Marchi	Sociedad, Política y Sostenibilidad