ELE 3710 Business and Professional Ethics
ELE 3710 Business and Professional Ethics
Business and professional ethics as a course topic has two main functions. On the one hand, ethics is potentially helpful when it comes to analyzing, handling and not least preventing moral conflict cases in business contexts. On the other hand, business ethics invites a constructive and critical look at business professional roles, at business practices, and not least at other business school disciplines.
The course emphasizes work with cases and it reflects that the subject business and professional ethics should be a field of good listening, reflection and discussion. For a first impression, watch perhaps a popular presentation of what the field is about such as the one by St Gallen university: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0NkGtNU_9w or search on your own for online presentations of business ethics and/or of corporate responsibility.
After completing the course, students should:
- Know the most important terminology, theories and authors' names within normative and descriptive business ethical theory
- Understand the strengths and weaknesses of chosen approaches
After completing the course students should:
- Be able to apply concepts and theories fruitfully and critically, to business ethical and professional ethical problems in the literature, as well as in real business and business school life
- Be able to draft and organize work with real moral conflict situations in business contexts
- Be able to identify ethical aspects in other business school subjects
- Be able to ask critical questions about such theories and about business practices
After completing the course, students should:
- have acquired an ethical competence which represents a good basis for further learning and deepening (competence understood as a summary term for knowledge-based skills of the kind listed above, while ethical refers to reflection about complexity, dilemmas, questions of right and wrong, in this case in business and professional contexts)
- After completing the course, students should have acquired a reflected attitude when it comes to their own morality, i.e. have developed personal ethics and a sense of social responsibility as a business school graduate
- Also, and not the least, students should have acquired an ability and a willingness to follow up words with deeds, never forgetting that business ethics is about the wise and responsible balancing of business and non-business considerations
- Why moral conflict cases are ubiquitous
- Cases sorted by fields, with debriefing and discussion: human resource management ethics, marketing and PR ethics, professional ethics, environmental ethics, cross-cultural business ethics
- Business and professional ethics, additional topics and approaches
- Business ethics and corporate responsibility, structured by different kinds of stakeholders
- Business ethics as a research and a teaching discipline
- Different approaches to moral philosophy. With a focus on discourse ethics and a Socratic dialogue in the Nelson-Heckmann tradition, see about the latter perhaps http://sfcp.org.uk/socratic-dialogue/
- Thinking beyond moral conflict cases: business ethics as professional ethics
The work on a term paper is the primary activity for most students and begins typically two weeks after the start of the course, at the latest.
Each student is recommended to write a short diary of her/his learning process, covering each class meeting typically with 3-5 lines. Such a diary could then serve as a basis for a short conversation with the instructor in the periphery of a class meeting.
No specified computer-based tools are required, but the course exploits and refers to useful web-based resources.
This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded by using points on a scale from 0-100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course as a whole. Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam elements will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades when the course starts.
At re-sit all exam components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course.
All critical information about course contents and course organisation are shared on the learning management system, accessed via @bi
Higher Education Entrance Qualification
No special prerequisites.
| Assessments |
|---|
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 60 Grouping: Group (3 - 3) Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: In special cases, term paper groups can consist of two individuals or of interrelated individual papers. Exam code: ELE37101 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Presentation Weight: 25 Grouping: Group (3 - 3) Duration: 15-20 Minute(s) Comment: In special cases, term paper groups can consist of two individuals or of interrelated individual papers. Pre-recorded presentations are possible and sometimes even invited. Exam code: ELE37101 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Presentation and discussion Weight: 15 Grouping: Individual Comment: Individual participation can be covered either by a book chapter presentation (or of a similar text), or by writing a term paper review. Students are expected to show up for at least 80% of all class sessions. Exam code: ELE37101 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
| Activity | Duration | Comment |
|---|---|---|
Teaching | 30 Hour(s) | |
Prepare for teaching | 30 Hour(s) | |
Student's own work with learning resources | 20 Hour(s) | |
Group work / Assignments | 70 Hour(s) | Write term paper, individual and group work together |
Submission(s) | 20 Hour(s) | Assignments and indiv feedback |
Group work / Assignments | 30 Hour(s) | Other group work during and in addition to class , e.g. related to presentations |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 7,5 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 200 hours.