GRA 6447 Better Business for a Better World - SUMMER COURSE
GRA 6447 Better Business for a Better World - SUMMER COURSE
This three-week intensive summer course examines a range of marketing research aiming to understand when and why firms, marketers, and consumers do things that are good for society, and when they do things that are problematic. Students will learn to critically analyze cutting edge academic research and practice applying the lessons of academic research to real world problems faced by businesses and consumers.
The course will examine the extent to which welfare, individual happiness, social cohesion, and sustainability are impacted by marketing and consumption, both favorably and unfavorably. We will draw from insights developed in marketing, psychology, sociology, and economics.
The course has two major objectives. First, it tries to make students familiar with critical perspectives and scientific findings about the impact of their marketing and business on society as a whole. Second, it builds marketing expertise and highlights practical strategies practitioners can use to help firms make profits while also helping to create a better world.
GRA 6447 Better Business for a Better World is available to students on MSc in Strategic Marketing Management and MSc in Business.
The course is not open to students on the BI-LUISS Joint Master of Science in Marketing (the contents of this course are covered in GRA 6446)
- Understand economic, social, and evolutionary explanations for the impact of human consumption behavior on the world’s resources, on individual happiness, and on sociality.
- Understand a range of methodologies that have led to insight about the relationship between marketing, happiness, sociality, and sustainability.
- Apply theories explaining the effects of marketing on the social and natural world, and the potential for marketing to create a better world.
- Can analyze and critically evaluate various sources of information and use them to structure and formulate scholarly arguments.
- Can independently analyze existing theories, methods, and interpretations in the field and work on practical and theoretical problems.
- Will be able to view their own professional education and practice in the light of possible effects on society and the environment.
- Students can communicate about academic issues, analyses and conclusions in the fields of marketing and sustainability, both with specialists and the general public.
- Students can present ideas and positions in oral debates and in writing.
Issues covered in the course:
- Marketing’s positive contributions to society.
- Corporate social responsibility as a marketing practice.
- Negative consequences of marketing for the world: materialism, stereotyping, overconsumption, exploitation, impulsive & compulsive buying.
- Marketing, self-control, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Evolutionary origins of unsustainable consumer behavior.
- Social Marketing.
- Behavioral economics: Nudging of sustainable consumer behavior.
- Moral balancing and rebound effects.
- Political orientation and consumer behavior.
- Marketing and the sharing economy.
- Recycling - circular economy – upcycling.
- The beneficial and detrimental impacts of technology.
The course will be heavily research based. It requires the students to directly study and process academic research papers, related to each topic, at a rate of 2-3 per session, plus supplemental videos and articles. Class sessions will iterate between lecture, discussion, and in-class or out-of-class activities. Lectures will introduce theory and method of the research papers. Validity, implications, and consequences of the findings will be the subject of class discussions & class activities.
Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class.
All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have specific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.
Disclaimer
Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Multimedia production Weight: 100 Grouping: Individual Duration: 4 Week(s) Exam code: GRA 64471 Grading scale: Pass/fail Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.
- Written assignment: 12-15 ppt slides
- Multimedia production: 10-15 minute recorded presentation