HRM30130 Responsible Management, Sustainability and Society

Academic Year 2024/2025

This module explores the nature of responsible management and the relationship between business and society, and how societal issues are increasingly affecting all aspects of corporate strategy and behaviour. It will introduce students to the key issues of morality, ethics and the law and explore contemporary issues in this arena. Moreover, topical issues, around which informed perspectives and opinions diverge, will form an integral part of the curriculum, e.g. global warming, sustainability, inequality, globalization and the employment practices of MNCs in low-cost economies, gender inequality at work. The module aims to provide students with a strong sense of the connections (and tensions) between individual, organisational, and societal actions and outcomes, a sense of social embeddedness, while also retaining a positive/entrepreneurial outlook. This module will exploit these issues and frame student assessment and evoke student engagement through debate, critical analysis and written and verbal expression.
It is worth keeping in mind that much of the material covered in this module is by its nature somewhat controversial and political. Consider, for example, the following questions: • ‘Do corporations have too much power and influence’? • ‘Do businesses have any social responsibilities?’ • ‘Should management be responsible if it negatively impacts the bottom line?’ • ‘What role should the state play in regulating businesses?’ • ‘What labour standards should western companies adhere to when manufacturing in developing countries? • Is an economic model based on growth unsustainable?

These are questions to which there is no ‘one right answer’. Rather there are a range of view points and the challenge of students of the subject is to critically assess differing viewpoints by drawing on appropriate empirical and theoretical academic research.

Thus, we are less interested in your ability to rote learn facts on a subject, and more interested in your ability to put aside preconceived ideas, to think critically about a subject from a range of positions, and to construct a nuanced argument on an issue based on rigorous academic analysis.