Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and - more recently- Sustainable Business (SB) describe the relations between firms, understood as major economic actors, and society at large, in the light of the general principles of justice, equality, responsibility and reciprocity. This course will provide students with the analytical instruments to grasp, evaluate the implications and provide solutions to the most pressing ethical issues facing businesses. Broadly, the course aims to provide students with: • knowledge of the main theories and paradigms emerging in Business Ethics; • understanding of the ethical aspects of dilemmas and trade-offs emerging in a business; • an improved ability to make clear and informed ethical assessments to be applied to business and corporate management.

Knowledge and Understanding By the end of the course, students will acquire: • Better knowledge of the main theories and dilemmas emerging in the scholarly debate on CSR and Sustainable Business • Improved understanding of different approaches and competing perspectives (e.g.: stakeholder theory, the paradox of stakeholders, input-output, theories of legitimacy, environment and stakeholder view, definitions of community) • Increased capacity to engage critically with the readings and to connect normative thinking to other, empirical, strategic, legal perspectives. • Better capacity to look at real-world business cases and dilemmas providing solutions coming from an ethically informed perspective. Applying knowledge and Understanding Students will be able to apply their acquired knowledge in their future professional activities, in several ways. In particular, students will be trained in: • Drafting and preparing Business Cases aimed at providing a better understanding of the issues involved in the business activity for corporate managers and/or CSR units • Carrying out research providing new solutions (for either academic or professional purposes) in the field of corporate social responsibility and sustainable business. • Giving public talks, working in teams, developing sustainable business models and inspire new solutions to both ethical and environmental problems emerging in business contexts. Making Judgements Due to critical approach employed in the course and the emphasis placed on autonomous re-elaboration and critical discussion, students will be able to: • Provide informed ethical assessments of business activities. • Develop an autonomous and critical view about how business should be shaped in order to inspire new ethically, socially and environmentally responsible solutions • Carry out different research works (both individual and in teams), which will entail the increased capacity to select relevant material, to engage critically with such material and to present independent and original solutions. • Recognize the difference (and apply when appropriate) between normative, descriptive and strategic judgements. Communication Skills During the course students will be asked to contribute to the discussion in several ways, via group presentations on specific business cases and active engagement in class discussion. Students are therefore expected to improve their communication skills and the overall degree and quality of participation in class discussions. Group presentations on ethics case studies (ranging from business ethics, corporate governance, to ethical leadership) are planned in the second half of the module 2. Groups will be asked to select one case and give a seminar in class. Learning Skills By the end of the course students are expected to acquire the following skills: • Better capacity to design, draft and autonomously carry out a business ethics case. • Improved ability to make intelligent use of informed ethical assessment to apply to Business. • Increased competence in providing well-organized and clear arguments in support of their views. • Increased expertise in the fields of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Business. Students will be able to use the skills acquired in this course for both professional and academic purposes. This is confirmed by the fact that several students, who have been enrolled in this course in previous academic years, are now enrolled in MA programs in fields related to the course, or have carried out internships in the field, seeking to undertake a professional career in the field of CSR&SB.

The course provides students with the analytical instruments to understand and evaluate the most pressing issues in the contemporary debate on CSR&SB. A substantive part of the course will focus on the “stakeholder framework” from both theoretical and strategic perspectives. The notion of stakeholder itself and what is known as “stakeholder theory” constitute perhaps the most relevant contributions to recent business ethics. Since the introduction of this concept by Edward Freeman in 1984, a concern for the interests of all stakeholder groups has become a widely recognized feature of ethical management. Although the stakeholder approach has been developed in various ways, it has been expressed most often in the moral prescription that managers, in making decisions, ought to consider the interests of all stakeholders. The course will consider both the critical aspects of this theory, its recent developments and the wave of its practical applications to the business. The course will introduce the relationship between Business Ethics , CSR and Stakeholder theory, with an emphasis of the role of the new – and more holistic - understanding of the idea of sustainability applied to the firms. The content of the course is structured as follows: • Introduction to Ethics and Business • Ethics and Economics • Corporate Social Responsibility: definition, core issues, and recent developments, Introduction to Sustainable Business. • Stakeholder theory • Normative approach to the stakeholder management •The paradox of the stakeholder theory • Theory of stakeholders identification and salience • Legitimacy of the stakeholders • Stakeholder community • Stakeholder theory and environment • CSR and the ESG Movement

Main Text Books Freeman R., Harrison J., Wicks A., Palmar B., De Colle S., 2010. Stakeholder Theory. The State of the Art. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/stakeholder-theory/FEA0B845888E463076284961856724C9 Rasche, Morsing, Moon, (eds.) 2017. Corporate Social Responsibility. Strategy, Communication and Governance. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/corporate-social-responsibility/A1B05BAB51E5DD45FDC8701A87D2878B (available via library as electronic resource). This book will be used for case studies. Further Readings: Carroll, A.B. (1999). "Corporate Social Responsibility: Evolution of a Definitional Construct." Business Society 38 (3):268-95. (http://bas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/3/268). Donaldson, T e Dunfee, T.1995. “Integrative Social Contract Theory: A Communitarian Conception of Economic Ethics.” Economics and Philosophy. 11:85-112. Introducing Stakeholder Framework Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. (1995). The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications. The Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 65-91. doi:10.2307/258887. Phillips, Robert, R. Edward Freeman, and Andrew C. Wicks. “What Stakeholder Theory Is Not.” Business Ethics Quarterly 13, no. 4 (2003): 479–502. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3857968. Agency Relationship vs Fiduciary Relationship Freeman, R. E. (1994). “The Politics of Stakeholder Theory: Some Future Directions”. Business Ethics Quarterly, 4(4), 409-421 Boatright, J. (1994). “Fiduciary Duties and the Shareholder-Management Relation: Or, What's so Special about Shareholders?” Business Ethics Quarterly, 4(4), 393-407. Goodpaster K. (1991). “Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis” Business Ethics Quarterly 1, no. 1 (January 1991): 53–73. Theory of Identification Ronald K. Mitchell, Bradley R. Agle, and Donna J. Wood, 1997: Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of who and What Really Counts. AMR, 22, 853–886. Stakeholder Legitimacy Phillips, R. (2003). Stakeholder Legitimacy. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13(1), 25-41. Stakeholder Community Dunham, L., Freeman, R., & Liedtka, J. (2006). Enhancing Stakeholder Practice: A Particularized Exploration of Community. Business Ethics Quarterly, 16(1), 23-42. Retrieved May 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3857725. Stakeholder and Environment Phillips, R., & Reichart, J. (2000). The Environment as a Stakeholder? A Fairness-Based Approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 23(2), 185-197 Starik, M. (1995). ‘Should trees have managerial standing? Toward stakeholder status for non-human nature’. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(3): 207-217. Orts, E., & Strudler, A. (2002). The Ethical and Environmental Limits of Stakeholder Theory. Business Ethics Quarterly, 12(2), 215-233. Beyond Stakeholder Theory Orts, E., & Strudler, A. (2009). Putting a Stake in Stakeholder Theory. Journal of Business Ethics, 88, 605-615. Strudler, A. (2017). “What to Do with Corporate Wealth,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 25: 108-126.

The teaching methods of this course are organised around the intended learning objectives. They will include: • Lectures • Seminars in class (class discussions are organised every week) • Case studies (two cases will be studied for the mid-term written exam, other 5 cases discussed during the first portion of seminars will be the basis for the project work) • Group presentations

Attending Students’ Assessment The assessment for this course is seen as a process rather than one or a collection of different methods. It responds to the need to embed the overall evaluation within the learning process. Thus, a relevant portion of the assessment will be connected to in-class activities and to the level of students’ involvement in and response to such various activities. This process will entail 5 components: • Attendance rate: 10% • Active participation in class discussion: 10% • Midterm: 30%. • Group Presentation: 20%. • Final paper: 30%. Non-Attending Students’ Assessment Non-attending students are those who attend less than 60% of the classes or those who do not take the midterm exam. • Final Oral Exam: 100%

Final Grade (above 28/30)