GRA 8285 Creating and Leading Green Organizations

GRA 8285 Creating and Leading Green Organizations

Course code: 
GRA 8285
Department: 
Leadership and Organizational Behaviour
Credits: 
4
Course coordinator: 
Per Espen Stoknes
Arne Carlsen
Course name in Norwegian: 
Creating and Leading Green Organizations
Product category: 
Executive
Portfolio: 
EMBA Business Administration - Elective courses
Semester: 
2027 Spring
Active status: 
Active
Level of study: 
Master
Teaching language: 
English
Course type: 
One semester
Introduction

In this course, we focus on how you can lead and manage the change process involved in executing green strategies for the transformation of a company to a successful sustainability business. We will look at what kind of organizations and competences that will be needed to take advantage of the next big wave of the green shift opportunities. This includes state-of-the-art approaches for change management and resource mobilization, such as cultivating positive relationships, generative resistance, meaning making, giving behavior, facilitating agency as well as using the progress principle. As a part of these process of resource mobilization, you will work with developing a green business plan for your own company. 

Learning outcomes - Knowledge

Upon completion, the student will be able to:

  • Analyze methods for integrating sustainability opportunities into corporate strategies
  • Evaluate the impact of sustainable practices on talent attraction and retention
  • Differentiate between purpose, green ethics, corporate ethics, and personal ethics
  • Explain the key public policies in the EU and Nordics designed to enable the transition to a sustainable economy
  • Analyze strategies for building engagement and mobilizing human resources effectively in change efforts, leveraging individual strengths and contributions
  • Evaluate principles from the Nordic model when designing organizations that foster self-determination, initiative, and creativity
Learning outcomes - Skills

Upon completion, the student will be able to:

  • Develop green business plans for own companies/projects at strategic levels
  • Formulate strategies to transform sustainability accounting and ESG reporting from compliance into a competitive advantage
  • Evaluate sustainability frameworks for goals and designing reporting relevant to the organisational context
  • Implement and execute sustainable growth projects
  • Facilitate meaning-making and unleash desires to contribute to a greener world
  • Transform resistance into a resource and cultivate high-quality connections during organizational change efforts
  • Design interventions to cultivate pro-social behavior and foster agency within organizations
General Competence

Upon completion, the student will be able to:

  • Evaluate personal leadership styles in relation to the attributes of high-performing green executives
  • Propose innovative strategies to address and overcome cultural and organizational inertia in sustainability transitions
Course content
  • What is the high-performing green executive
  • Purpose and sustainability-ethics at corporate and personal levels
  • How to make and execute a game-changing sustainability strategy?
  • How to deal with resistance to sustainability initiatives or green strategies?
  • Tackling cultural and organisational inertia
  • Making and calculating the financial case for sustainability investments
  • Public policies for enabling the transition: overcoming the obstacles (procurement, perverse subsidies, taxes etc)
Teaching and learning activities

The course is conducted through a total of 32 hours of lectures and other classroom activities. We expect active class participation and supportive behavior for fellow students. Each participant is held co-responsible for a learning environment that is open, challenging and respectful.

Candidates may be called in for an oral hearing as a verification/control of written assignments)

Attendance to all sessions in the course is compulsory. If you have to miss part(s) of the course you must ask in advance for leave of absence. More than 25% absence in a course will require retaking the entire course. It's the student's own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/ It's learning or other course materials.

The course is a part of a full EMBA programme and examination in all courses must be passed in order to obtain the EMBA certificate.

In all BI Executive courses and programmes, there is a mutual requirement for the student and the course responsible regarding the involvement of the student's experience in the planning and implementation of courses, modules and programmes. This means that the student has the right and duty to get involved with their own knowledge and practice relevance, through the active sharing of their relevant experience and knowledge.

Software tools
No specified computer-based tools are required.
Qualifications

Granted admission to the EMBA programme. Please consult our student regulations.

Disclaimer
Changes in exam type can be made until the course starts. In addition, unforeseen events or external conditions may call for deviations in teaching and exams.​

Assessments
Assessments
Exam category: 
Submission
Form of assessment: 
Submission PDF
Weight: 
40
Grouping: 
Group (2 - 6)
Duration: 
4 Week(s)
Comment: 
Written assignment in groups, counts 40% of the final grade.
Exam code: 
GRA 82851
Grading scale: 
ECTS
Resit: 
Examination when next scheduled course
Exam category: 
Submission
Form of assessment: 
Submission PDF
Weight: 
60
Grouping: 
Individual
Duration: 
4 Week(s)
Comment: 
Individual written assignment, counts 60% of the total grade.
This examination is based on the students' experience from the modules, with describing these including personal reflections and links to theories from curriculum.
Exam code: 
GRA 82852
Grading scale: 
ECTS
Resit: 
Examination when next scheduled course
Type of Assessment: 
Ordinary examination
All exams must be passed to get a grade in this course.
Total weight: 
100
Student workload
ActivityDurationComment
Teaching
32 Hour(s)
Prepare for teaching
25 Hour(s)
Student's own work with learning resources
63 Hour(s)
Self study, feedback activities/counselling and exam.
Sum workload: 
120

A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 4 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 110 hours.

Reading list