Business in Society

Corporate citizenship, business ethics, and CSR are terms which are no longer relegated to the back pages of annual reports.

As a consequence of global trends and growing public interest concerns about the environmental and social impacts of business activities, it has become a strategic priority for international business to address the wider and more indirect impacts of their operations and to engage in dialogue with a broader group of stakeholders, beyond shareholders, employees and governments.

In this module you will focuses on the evolving roles and responsibilities of business in society. In particular you will explore the drivers that are promoting corporate social and environmental responsibility worldwide as well as growing stakeholder expectations of international business operating in poor countries.

The intellectual learning outcomes will cover the following:

Understanding the changing relationship between business, government, and society, particularly through the concept of the corporation as a citizen
Analysing the role, scope, and responsibilities of business in the global economy
Understanding the broader economic, social, and environmental impacts and responsibilities of the organisations in local and global contexts
Understanding the concept of sustainable development and the link with business, government, and civil society as well as the development of public policy, and business responses to it, in this area.

The practical learning outcomes cover the following:

The ability to use 'counterpoint' argument and understand different perspectives in multi-stakeholder dialogue
The ability to map and prioritise stakeholders' interests and to design, and engage in, stakeholder dialogue
Social leadership and the capacity to develop and manage social and environmental performance including innovative business models and tools to manage and report on social and environmental performance: for example, business-NGO-government partnerships
The use of social, ethical,and environmental accounting and auditing tools
The ability to articulate to both business and non-business audiences, the scope of, and boundaries to, a company's social and environmental responsibilities, in the context of different scenarios of government and civil society.

There is another elective module available in this field.

Corporate Governance