This course is designed to provide a reflection on the responsibilities of business organisations in
society and on the role of managers and professionals in clarifying, discussing, and implementing
these responsibilities. The course aims to:
* Provide a deeper understanding of the role and conduct of business in society,
* Explain concepts of ethics, responsibility, sustainability, leadership, and social entrepreneurship,
* Discuss with fellow students the ins and outs of these relevant concepts,
* Apply the accumulated knowledge in practical case studies and through personal reflection.

You can watch hours of popular movies – some of them real blockbusters – to get an idea about what is wrong in business. Not all businesses, but quite a few of them are dealing with covert practices that their leaders would like to keep in the dark. When the story finally breaks loose, it is a nice and often juicy set-up for a few hours of sometimes ingenious misbehaviour that makes many viewers morally uncomfortable. Think of #Metoo resulting in films like Tár, She said, Bombshell, Surviving R. Kelly, or Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich. Or think about the 2008 financial crisis or the supposedly immoral behaviour in the financial sector in the decades preceding this crisis. These event resulted in interesting movies like Inside Job, Margin Call, The Big Short, Too big to fail, Wall Street (sequel 1 and 2) and The Wolf of Wall Street. Then you have several movies about individuals standing up against injustice and – literally – toxic behaviour of companies. Examples are Dark Waters, Erin Brockovich, Silkwood, and The Insider. Furthermore, there are the more informative movies and the documentaries, like #Dieselgate, Food Inc., The Corporation, and Enron: The smartest guys in the room. Actually, you can spend entire weeks on watching movies that display lapses of ethical judgment and blatant indecent behaviour. What is behind this behaviour and these actions of companies – and what does it take to do things right? That is what this course is all about.

An excerpt of the relevant literature:
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on consequentialism, https://seop.illc.uva.nl/entries/consequentialism/
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on deontology, https://seop.illc.uva.nl/entries/ethics-deontological/
* Stanford Encyclopedia on Philosophy Virtue Ethics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/
* David Vogel (1991), The Ethical Roots of Business Ethics, in Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 1 Nr. 1
* Michael Sandel (2013), Market Reasoning as Moral Reasoning, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 27, Number 4—Fall 2013—Pages 121–140
* Bovens, M. (1998). The Quest for Responsibility. Cambridge University Press, 22-42 & 106-134
* Trotter et al. (1989), Bhopal, India and Union Carbide, Journal of Business Ethics 8: 439-454
* Ripken, S. (2009), Corporations are people too: a multi-dimensional approach to the corporate personhood puzzle, Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law, Vol. 15, Issue 1
* Friedman, M. (1970). The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase
its Profits. The New York Times Magazine, 1-5
* Parmar, B. L., Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Purnell, L., De Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder theory: The state of the art. The Academy of Management Annals, 4(1), 403–445
* Abel Diaz Gonzalez and Nikolay A. Dentchev (2020), Ecosystems in support of social entrepreneurs: a literature review, Social Entrepreneurship Journal
* Porter, M. & Kramer, M. (2011). Creating Shared Value. Harvard Business Review, 63-77
* Crane, A., Palazzo, G., Spence, L.J. & Matten, D. (2014). Contesting the Value of "Creating Shared Value". California Management Review, Vol 56, No. 2, 130-153
* Badaracco, J., How to Tackle Your Toughest Decisions, Harvard Business Review, 2016
* Solomon, R., Corporate Roles, Personal Virtues: An Aristotelean Approach to Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly, July 1992, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 317-339
* Ebrahim A., Rangan, K. (2014), What Impact? A framework for measuring the scale and scope of social performance, California Management Review, Spring, Vol. 56, 3, p.118-141
* Peter Singer’s ‘All animals are equal’ from the document Ethical Theory, p.13-22

This course is in transition for the bachelor Fiscal Economics.
See the Bachelor Education and Examination Regulations for more information.

The following rule applies to bachelor Fiscal Economics students.
TRANSITIONAL REGULATION (EBC2081):
The bachelor Fiscal Economics has been discontinued.

There will be repeat education for year 1 and year 2 courses up to and including academic year 2025-2026 and exam-only up to and including academic year 2026-2027. For year 3 courses there will be repeat education up to and including 2026-2027 and exam-only up to and including academic year 2027-2028.

Whether a course is in transition, cancelled, or replaced may depend on the cohort you are in. Sometimes there are additional criteria. It is therefore very important to carefully read the EER and any addendum so you can apply the rules to your individual situation.


PREREQUISITES:
In order to participate in this course, all participants should have a basic understanding of the functioning of organisations, management of and co-ordination within organisations, organisational ecology, co-ordination mechanisms in industries – such as, for example, the choice between allocation through planning or through market forces – and of an ‘economic order’.
An advanced level of English.