Business Ethics and Sustainability
Business organisations are not only responsible for their corporate activities, but they also need to take care of individuals within the company and society around them. As such, business organisations need to operate ethically by considering moral standards applied in their environment. In addition, concerns over sustainability of the business have been growing. Consequently, businesses should not only think about profit, but consider their impact on the wellbeing of the society and the planet earth. This course is designed to help students understand basic concepts of business ethics and sustainability. It also encourages students to learn from business cases covering ethical issues and sustainable development which trigger critical thinking and appropriate decision making for sustainable business operations.
This course adopts learning-focussed teaching with semi-flipped classroom approach. Learning-focussed teaching means that students’ learning process is paramount and developed through open discussion and critical thinking rather than one-way lecture. In the flipped classroom environment, students are expected to prepare themselves prior to the class discussion. Whilst selected topics and readings are offered to trigger the class discussions, students are welcome to bring and discuss their own materials beyond what has been suggested in this syllabus. This way, students are responsible for their own learning. They are the centre of knowledge that is (re)constructed together with the lecturer acting as a pure facilitator.