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Course content and structure
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The course is an introduction to sustainable business with a
focus on firms’ environmental and social impact on society. It
provides students with an understanding of business sustainability,
Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility (CSiR), shared value and the
triple bottom line. The course addresses stakeholder approaches to
strategic management, sustainable supply chains, social and
environmental management systems, CSR/sustainability reporting and
socially responsible investment in a global context.
Students will obtain knowledge about how corporations integrate
social and environmental issues in order to identify new business
opportunities, communicate (and collaborate) with their
stakeholders, compete in global markets, and address sustainability
expectations and requirements of firms in the early 21st
century. Beside introducing a number of sustainability issues (in
companies of various sectors), the course provides students
with analytical skills and theories to critically interrogate
sustainability ideals and practices.
Sustainable business and CSR concerns the governance of
environmental, social and economic aspects. In a world where
corporate reputation is essential to the success of business, CSR
and its focus on stakeholder dialogue and responsible business
development can enhance the market share of enterprises.
CSR/sustainability strategies may include optimization of
operational efficiency to increase workplace productivity (human
resource management) and to reduce costs associated with
environmental or social risks (risk management), e.g., in global
supply chains. The course develops students’ competencies with
regard to govern such new business opportunities to the advantage
of the corporations.
The course rests upon a stakeholder view of the corporation. Its
central proposition is that organizational wealth is created (or
destroyed) through a corporation's interaction and
communication with its stakeholders. Emphasis will be given to
characterizing and discussing what constitutes as effective
stakeholder engagement. To this end, the course will, in
particular, look into how social and environmental issues can be
integrated in business through stakeholder engagement
processes.
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Preliminary list of readings:
- Friedman, M. 1970. The Social Responsibility of Business is to
Increase its Profits. New York Times.
- Carroll, A. B. 1979. A three-dimensional conceptual model of
corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4):
497-505.
- Bansal, T., & Song, H.-C. 2017. Similar But Not the Same:
Differentiating Corporate Sustainability from Corporate
Responsibility. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1): 105-149.
- Herzig, C., & Kühn, A.-L. 2017. Corporate Resposibility
Reporting, in: Rasche, A., Morsing, M., & Moon, J. (Eds).
Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategy, Communication,
Governance. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.
- Rasche, A. 2009. A necessary supplement: what the UN Global is
and is not. Business and Society, 48(4): 511-53.
- Buhmann, K., Jonsson, J., & Fisker, M. 2018. Do no harm and
do more good too: connecting the SDGs with business and human
rights and political CSR theory. Corporate Governance: The
International Journal of Business in Society, 19(3): 389-403.
- Mitchell, R.K., Agle, B.R. & Wood, J. 1997. Toward a Theory
of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle
of Who and What Really Counts”, Academy of Management Review,
22(4): 853-886.
- AccountAbility. 2015. AA1000 Stakeholder engagement
standard (2015).
- Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. 2011. Creating Shared Value.
Harvard Business Review, 89(1/2): 62-77.
- Crane, A, Palazzo, G, Spence, L & Matten, D. 2014.
Contesting the value of ‘Creating Shared Value’, California
Management Review, 56(2): 130-153.
- Ambec, S., & Lanoie, P. 2008. Does it pay to be green? A
systematic overview. Academy of management Perspectives, 22(4):
45-62.
- Montabon, F., Pagell, M., & Wu., Z. 2016. Making
Sustainability Sustainable. Journal of Supply Chain Management,
52(2): 11-27.
- Distelhorst, G., Hainmueller, J., & Locke, R. M. 2017. Does
Lean Improve Labor Standards? Management and Social Performance in
the Nike Supply Chain. Management Science, 63(3): 707-728.
- Villena, V. H., & Gioia, D. A. On the riskiness of
lower-tier suppliers: Managing sustainability in supply networks
Journal of Operations Management, 64(1): 65-87.
- Narula, R. 2019. Enforcing higher labor standards within
developing country value chains: Consequences for MNEs and informal
actors in a dual economy. Journal of International Business
Studies, 50(9): 1622-1635.
- Lund-Thomsen, P., Lindgreen, A., & Vanhamme, J. 2016.
Industrial clusters and corporate social responsibility in
developing countries: what we know, what do not know, and what we
need to know. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(1): 9-24.
- Jamali, D., Lund-Thomsen, P., & Khara, N. 2015. CSR
institutionalized myths in developing countries: An imminent threat
of selective decoupling. Business & Society, 56(3):
454–486.
- Nadvi, K. 2008. Global Standards, Global Governance and the
Organization of Global Value Chains. Journal of Economic Geography,
8(3): 323-343.
- Arleta, A.A., Majoch, A., Hoepner, G.F, & Hebb, T.
2017. Sources of Stakeholder Salience in the Responsible Investment
Movement: Why do investors sign the Principles for Responsible
Investment?. Journal of Business Ethics, 140(4): 723-741.
- Van Duuren, E., Plantinga, A., & Scholtens, B. 2016. ESG
Integration and the Investment Management Process: Fundamental
Investing Reinvented. Journal of Business Ethics, 138 (3):
525–533.
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