MRSyllabus_E0211.v1 Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Academic Year: 2014-2015 Trimester 3 rd Instructor: Tommaso Ramus __________________________________________________________________________________ Course Description : Why does Ethics matter in business? What are the ethical responsibilities associated with being a manager, an accountant or a financial trader? What are the main communalities and differences of recent corporate scandals and how is it possible to adopt individual and organizational strategies to prevent new ones? Why should business organizations behave in a socially responsible way? How can organizations develop a business strategy that integrates the generation of commercial and social value? This course will assist students to answer such questions through the discussion of case studies concerning ethical issues and dilemmas faced by managers, financial professionals and entrepreneurs in different cultural, industrial and organizational contexts. __________________________________________________________________________________ Course Content : This course will examine the most recent approaches to corporate social responsibility and a broad range of alternative applied ethics theories in support to managerial and professional decision making. Perspectives will include professional and applied ethics, law, public policy, organizational design, strategy, and organizational behavior. The course will be based on the analysis and discussion in class of case studies concerning the most controversial corporate scandals such as Enron, challenging corporate crises such as Deutsche Telekom and Guidant Corporation and innovative CSR strategies as in the case of Nike and Timberland. __________________________________________________________________________________ Course Objectives : • Become familiar with tools and procedures to prevent, identify and resolve corporate scandals and crises caused by unethical behaviours • Understand the mutual relationship between financial, relational and ethical drivers in managerial decision making • Become familiar with tools and procedures to understand and manage different stakeholders’ demands and pressures • Understand the opportunities associated with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement and how to integrate socially responsible practices in organizational and strategic planning __________________________________________________________________________________