MGMT333-13S1 (C) Semester One 2013

Managing Corporate Responsibility

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 18 February 2013
End Date: Sunday, 23 June 2013
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 1 March 2013
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 17 May 2013

Description

In pursuing the ethical basis for business policy and practice, we will look at changing notions of corporate performance. Participants will address such issues as: What is success in business? What good does business do and how does it do it? What are major causes of the breakdown of business ethics? We will also study the practice of business ethics, with the aim to expand capacity for moral inquiry, dialogue, and decision making in ways that will be useful in your professional and civic lives.

Almost every day you hear about a breach of business ethics or an irresponsible company. But could this have been prevented? What are major causes of the breakdown? Aided by theory, we will study the practice of business ethics, with the aim to expand capacity for ethical inquiry, dialogue, and decision making in ways that will be useful in your professional and civic lives.

Teaching Style
The course will be taught in an interactive manner, students are put in discussion groups during part of the class time and we use New Zealand and international case study examples. Ethical theory is used as a way to understand the different criteria that we use to make (and justify) practical ways of being responsible as individual and corporation. Students have the opportunity to apply assessment to their personal or career interests.

Students are required to come prepared to each lecture. That means having read the relevant chapter and ready to discuss the discussion questions.

Topics Include
What makes a decision an ethical one?
What makes a corporation a responsible one?
Moral Imagination
Identifying Ethical Risks and Opportunities
Rights and (Corporate) Responsibility
Corporate Sustainability

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand personal and organisational factors that enhance and diminish ethical decision-making.
2. Apply ethical concepts and strategies to current NZ  business/organisational cases.
3. Formulate a personal and class-code of ethics and analyse the factors that contribute/distract from sticking to the code.
4. Understand the theory and practice of stakeholder engagement.
5. Present arguments for and against the “business case for ethics” argument.

Prerequisites

MGMT230 and 30 points from MGMT at 200-level. RP: Other essay-based courses

Recommended Preparation

Other essay-based courses

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Marjo Lips-Wiersma

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Test 28 Mar 2013 40% Test
Case Study Presentation and Marking 40% Case Study Presentation and Marking
Reflective Journal 31 May 2013 20% Reflective Journal


Test (40%) – In class 28 March
The test consists of a select number of the discussion questions combined with case study illustrations, that we have addressed in class.

Case study presentation (30%) and Marking (10%) – Week 7-12
The presentation consists of a case study that you will design as part of a group. In class you can decide whether you prefer to do an individual or (small) group presentation. You are encouraged to follow your own interest (and career aspirations) in your choice of topic. For example you can compare the ethics of two large international companies such as Telecom and Vodafone; you can build a case on a topical issue, such as water allocation, or palmoil or labour conditions; you can also study examples of social entrepreneurship or fair trade. The case study discussion has to be supported by a combination of theory and practical case material.
Case material can be drawn from Newspapers, You-tube/Twitter, National Radio, direct interviews etc etc. Students are also required to mark the case study presentations of their fellow students.
Reflective Journal (20%) Four ethical principles (a code of ethics) to live by. Hand in date 31 May but no penalty for lateness until 5 June, 3 PM. The purpose of this assignment is understand  what enables you to make ethical decisions and what challenges you to do so. The journal is kept during during term 1 and 2. For your reflections you are asked to draw on a combination of personal experience, reflection on class ethics & class discussion/theory.

Detailed information on each of the assessments will be made available on LEARN

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Gibson, Kevin; Ethics and business : an introduction ; Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Course links

LEARN

Notes

Departmental Academic Policies
The Department assumes that you have read this document.

You should also read the General Course and Examination Regulations

Dishonest Practice
The University of Canterbury considers cheating and plagiarism to be serious acts of dishonesty.  All assessed work must be your own individual work unless specifically stated otherwise in the assessment guidelines. Material quoted from any other source must be clearly acknowledged. You must not copy the work of another person (student or published work) in any assessment including examinations, tests and assignments. Any person, who is found to have copied someone else's work, or to have allowed their work to be copied, will receive a fail grade for that piece of assessment and may face disciplinary action which may lead to a fine, community service or exclusion from the university.

IMPORTANT: Where there are concerns regarding the authorship of written course work, a student can be required to provide a formal, oral explanation of the content of their work.

Coversheets - Group and Individual

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $682.00

International fee $3,000.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Management, Marketing and Tourism .

All MGMT333 Occurrences

  • MGMT333-13S1 (C) Semester One 2013