MG468 Half Unit
Foundations of Management III: Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
This information is for the 2024/25 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Rebecca Campbell (MAR.5.15)
Availability
This course is compulsory on the Global MSc in Management, Global MSc in Management (CEMS MIM) and Global MSc in Management (MBA Exchange). This course is not available as an outside option.
Pre-requisites
This is a second year course for Global Master's in Management students who must have successfully completed the first year of the programme.
Course content
The purpose of the course is to provide students with a thorough understanding of key ideas in business ethics, the governance of social enterprises and ethical leadership, in order to prepare them for future leadership roles. Business leaders have a special role to play because of their ability to determine an organisation’s mission, vision and values, how companies should be governed and led, and the ethical standards which business should aspire to.
In the first part of the module, we discuss some of the main philosophical approaches to ethics. Normative ethical theory helps us to do better than use vague opinions or hunches when we are trying to decide right from wrong. We make extensive use of case studies. For example, we look at the challenges faced by Tony’s Chocolonely in building a supply chain free of slave labour. We consider Patagonia’s transition to a new ownership structure in order to continue its mission to save the planet. We look at what led Siemen’s to being fined over $1.6B for bribery, and how they then turned the organisation around.
In the second part of the module we look at the governance of social enterprises and other hybrid organisations, focussing on performance measurement and control.
In the final part of the module we look at organisational leadership in the context of business ethics and corporate governance. We examine various models of organisational leadership, including Michael Maccoby’s thesis that many business leaders today are “productive narcissists”, as well as recent research on ethical leadership..
Our teaching encourages students to address questions such as:
- To what extent should we hold a company responsible for its supply chain?
- Are socially virtuous business practices compatible with shareholder capitalism?
- Who does bribery harm? What can companies do to limit corruption when they