• Describe, classify, criticize, structure, and combine the concepts, theories and methods related to the broader debate around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
• Describe and analyze the main contemporary challenges for business organizations vis-à-vis their different stakeholders, including the impact they have on their stakeholders.
• Understand how social and environmental issues create problems and opportunities for corporations, and how these issues can be addressed by different corporate functions.
• Understand how businesses interact with relevant actors in the non-market environment, including, but not limited to: governments, non-governmental organizations, business associations, and international organizations.
• Apply the concepts, theories, and frameworks discussed in class to concrete cases and examples.

Today’s business environment has powerfully reinforced the centrality of responsible business practices. Especially when looking at the many governance gaps that persist in the global economy and the inability of transnational political actors to address them, reflections about the responsibility of corporations for social and environmental problems seem inevitable.
This course explores the changing role of business in global society by looking at how firms increasingly interact with actors in the non-market environment, including, but not limited to: governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements, and international organizations. We will make extensive use of the concept of corporate sustainability which is critically reflected upon and compared with other concepts such as corporate accountability, corporate citizenship, and stakeholder management. The main aim of the course is to enable students to understand and critically appraise how businesses are affected by and affect many of today’s societal challenges, such as: corruption, climate change, poverty, and human rights.
The course starts with a theoretically grounded introduction of the debate around corporate sustainability. This introduction frames the overall debate and familiarizes students with key terminology. Next, students will apply these theoretical insights to discuss corporations’ responsibilities with regard to selected issue areas (e.g. labor rights in global supply chains). Finally, students learn about how and why business firms increasingly interact with governmental and non-governmental actors (e.g. via public-private partnerships).

The basic pedagogical approach rests on an interactive lecturing style and case-based reflections on topics. Students are asked to adequately prepare cases and to actively participate in class discussions. 

Chapters from: 

Rasche, A./Morsing, M./Moon, J./Kourula, A. (2023). Corporate Sustainability (2nd Edition) Cambridge/​New York: Cambridge University Press.

Plus additional readings, such as:

Karnani, A. (2011).  ”Doing Well by Doing Good”: The Grand Illusion. California Management Review, 53, 69-89.

Rasche, A. (2012).  The United Nations and Transnational Corporations: How the UN Global Compact Has Changed the Debate, in: Lawrence, J./Beamish, P. (eds.) Globally Responsible Leadership. Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp. 33-49.

Plus Cases:

Harvard Business School Cases on: IKEA (Global Sourcing), Siemens (Anti-Corruption), and Shell (operations in Nigeria)