Advanced Seminar in Corporate Social Responsibility [ LLSMS2222 ]

Corporate Social Responsibility course (LSMS2098 / LSMS2099 / ESPO2212 or equivalent).

COURSE SCHEDULE AND CONTENT OF THE SESSIONS
The course is structured around 2-hour, 3-hour or 4-hour classroom sessions on Friday morning, plus 120h of individual and group work outside ' before and after ' the course. This time will be needed to prepare classes and your projects.
Please check regularly the course website for changes in dates, room or deadlines!

AGOR 02

Friday 31/01 - 8.30-10.30

• Topic: Description of the course
• Teachers: Ina Ehnert, Mikael Petitjean, Claude Verstraete, Valérie Swaen
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines : ---

Friday 7/02 - 8.30 ' 11.45

• Topic: CSR and Corporate Strategy (1) - Theoretical framework
• Teacher: Claude Verstraete
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines : de Woot (2009)

Friday 14/02 - 8.30 ' 11.45

• Topic: CSR and Corporate Strategy (2) - Business cases
• Teacher: Claude Verstraete
• Deadline for group composition (via Icampus) and choice of the company

Friday 21/02 - 10.00 ' 12.00

• Topic: CSR and finance (1)
• Teacher: Mikael Petitjean
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines : See icampus

Friday 28/02 - 9.30 ' 12.45

• Topic: Sustainable HRM and Work Systems
• Teachers: Ina Ehnert and Mari Kira (Aalto University)*
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines : Prepare one text per team: Ehnert, 2014; Kira, Eijnatten, Van & Balkin, 2010; Kira & Lifvergren, 2014

Friday 7/3 - 8.30 ' 12.45

• Topic: CSR and marketing
• Teachers: Valérie Swaen
• Read Smith (2009) and Unilever and Quick cases

Friday 14/3 - 8.30 ' 10.30

• Topic: CSR and finance (2)
• Teacher: Mikael Petitjean
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines : See icampus

Friday 21/03 - 8.30 ' 10.30

• Topic: Testimonies
• Corporate contributor: Stefan Vincent (Co-founder and director of Ethiquable Benelux)*
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines :  ---

Friday 21/03 - 10.45-12.45

• Topic: CSR and consumer behavior
• Corporate contributor: Valérie Swaen
• Read Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) and 'The carrot, the stick and the plastic bag' case

Friday 28/03 - 8.30-12.45

• Topic: CSR and Finance (3)
• Teacher: Mikael Petitjean
• Deadline for sending the preparation to Laurent Ledoux

Friday 4/4 - 8.30 ' 12.45

• Topic: Management of Ethical dilemmas
• Corporate contributor*: Laurent Ledoux (Federal Ministry for Mobility & Transports)*
• Preparation of the case studies (see icampus)

Friday 25/4 - 8.30-12.45

• Topic: CSR in supply chain
• Teacher: Claude Verstraete
• Compulsory readings/Deadlines : See icampus

Friday 02/05 - 8.30 ' 12.45

• Presentation of the case study analysis by students
• Deadline for the written report

* Biographies of external contributors are on the icampus website.

The course contributes to the development of key competences expected from all graduates at the Louvain School of Management (see figure 1).

This course will contribute in particular to developing the following competences at an advanced level:

• Priority in this course is given to 1) corporate citizenship to enhance your ability to act consciously, aware of your responsibilities, placing human and ethical considerations at the very heart of your thinking and actions; 2) master a multidisciplinary body of knowledge (contents, methods, models and conceptual frameworks) related to CSR and sustainable development; and 3) personal development to enhance your self'knowledge and independence, to better prepare yourself to deal with ethical dilemmas common in the practices of organizations.
• Secondary competences also developed in the course are 1) to manage a project by working in a team under conditions of resource constraints, to provide comprehensive analyses of challenging corporate situations related to the impact of companies/organizations on the natural environment or society at large; and 2) to communicate your analysis effectively to different stakeholders.

EVALUATION METHODS OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE
The assessment of your performance will be composed of the following elements:an evaluation of students' attendance and participation in class and
- Attendance and participation (25%) : This will be at conferences presented by corporate contributors, including preparation that will be asked to students before attending (paper reading, case study preparation');
- Teamwork (50%) and oral presentation of this teamwork (25%) : A group of 2-3 students will be preparing this work ' during the semester and it will be presented in a 10-pages report together with a ppt presentation during the last sessions of the seminar. This teamwork will represent a good mix between literature review on the topic chosen, a case study analysis and critical and personal perspective.
EVALUATION CRITERIA
For the teamwork, written report and oral presentation:
- Quality of participation during debates and discussion in class - ability to ask good questions, relevance of links established between theory and practice;
- Quality of written documents (format and content of the teamwork) including depth of analysis; quality of arguments used; quality of bibliographical sources; relevance and quality of the methodological approach'
- Quality of the oral presentation (format and content).

RULES REGARDING PLAGIARISM AND CHEATING
Please note that full and correct referencing is expected for all of your written assignments and will be checked. If you have any questions about correct referencing, please refer to the guidelines in the course of Professor Chantal de Moerloose. The University's general guidance for students on plagiarism and cheating can be found at http://www.uclouvain.be/plagiat and http://www.uclouvain.be/99514.html

COURSE OBJECTIVES AND LEARNING GOALS
The objective of this seminar is to discover different angles of friction between the theory, empirical research and practice of CSR as experienced in the business world.
At the end of the course, you should be able to:

• understand the multidimensionality of CSR; decide and act responsibly, while taking into account the social, economic and environmental outcomes in the short, medium and long term, for the various stakeholders;
• adopt an independent reasoning, look critically at acquired knowledge and managerial practices; more specifically, critically assess academic articles and corporate strategies dealing with CSR issues;
• gain an appreciation of the unique challenges inherent to CSR design and implementation;
• better communicate through their written projects, team-based work, oral presentation and debate organized during course sessions.

PEDAGOGICAL TOOLS AND TEACHING METHODS
Three pedagogical tools will be used:
- Preparation classes - discussing papers and books published on the theme: Presentation and analysis of up-to-date research in the field (for instance, special issues in finance and CSR; in marketing and CSR; in human resources and CSR) in order to elicit critical thinking on ethical, social and environmental issues raised by contemporary organizations; to develop a range of thinking abilities and argumentation skills to target concrete problems arising in the domain of the organizations' steering;
- Case studies ' discussing cases on the theme and participation of corporate partners: A certain number of concrete cases will be analyzed concerning the companies' responsibility versus society, the environment and specific stakeholders (suppliers, consumers, shareholders, sub-contractors, employees, etc').
- Essays presentations by the students on the basis of a case study, with feed-back from lecturers.

The student is understood as an independent, self-organised learner. We expect every student to prepare the readings (see course schedule) in order to be able to contribute in a competent way and as actively as they can to the discussions in class.

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND CONTENT

Today's crisis brings our financial, economic and governance systems to an unprecedented moment of truth. 'Business as usual' is not an adequate response, instead both practitioners and academics need to search for alternative ways of doing business that allow both prosperity and a sustainable development.
This advanced CSR seminar aims at providing tools enabling the students to elicit critical thinking on ethical, social and environmental issues raised by contemporary organizations. Moreover, the specificity of the firms' impact on economic life will be addressed by analyzing the principles and practices covered by the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
This seminar will give an opportunity to students to deepen their knowledge on diverse issues and dimensions linked to CSR (for instance, diversity, intergenerational skill transfer, carbon management, bribery) and concretely apply their knowledge on concrete and real case studies proposed by companies. This seminar will be a place for discussion, debate, critical thinking on
concrete cases of corporate practices.

Examples of CSR issues in different management fields that could be investigated from one year to the other in this seminar:
- CSR and corporate strategy: : Various CSR engagement models ' the 10 strategic
success factors in today's business environment and the CSR related challenges and
issues ' CSR failures and successes related to corporate strategy '
- CSR in human resource management: Developing sustainable work and HRM systems,
understanding the changing role of HRM in developing sustainable business organisations
and dealing with paradoxical choice situations and ethical dilemmas.
- CSR in the supply chain: R&D challenges in today's business environment and non CSR
temptations ; key supply chain challenges related to CSR ( programmed obsolescenceproduction
facilities location- safety management ' suppliers relations 'raw material
selection- packaging ' logistics '
- CSR in accounting, audit and control: Social and environmental accounting/auditing;
Existing management systems / Norms and standards; Social and environmental
reporting'
- CSR in finance: Financial and sustainable value creation, the ethical roots of the financial
crisis, socially responsible investment, corporate governance issues'
- CSR in marketing: Differentiation and value creation; Managing reputational risks;
Labelling; Cause-related marketing; Communicating CSR'

SUPPORT AND INITIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compulsory readings:
> Documents and papers useful to prepare classes as well as PowerPoint files and case studies will be made available through icampus. The list already includes:

•  Bhattacharya C.B. and Sen S. (2004), 'Doing better at doing good: When, why, and how consumers respond to corporate social initiatives', California Management Review, 47 (1), Fall, 9-24.
• de Woot, Philippe (2009), Should Prometheus Be Bound? Corporate Global Responsibility, Palgrave-Macmillan.
• Ehnert, I. (2014). Paradox as a Lens for Theorizing Sustainable HRM: Mapping and Coping with Paradoxes and Tensions. In: I. Ehnert, W. Harry and K. Zink (Eds), Sustainability and Human Resource Management: Developing Sustainable Business Organisations, pp. 247-269. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.
• Kira, M., Eijnatten, F.M. Van & Balkin D.B. (2010), Crafting sustainable work: Development of personal resources, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 23, 5, 616-632.
• Kira, M. & Lifvergren, S. (2014), Sowing the seeds for sustainability, In: I. Ehnert, W. Harry and K. Zink (Eds), Sustainability and Human Resource Management: Developing Sustainable Business Organisations, pp. 57-8. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.
• Smith C.N. (2009), Bounded Goodness: Marketing Implications of Drucker on Corporate Responsibility, In Smith C. N. and Lenssen G. (Ed.), Mainstreaming Corporate Responsibility, Chapter 21, Wiley, ISBN: 978-0-470-75394-1.

Additional readings:
> Barry E. (2012), Sustainable marketing, Pearson, ISBN 978-0-273-72328-8.
> Bhattacharya C.B., Sen S., and Korschun D. (2011), Leveraging Corporate Responsibility : The stakeholder route to maximizing business and social value, Cambridge University Press.
> Boatright J. (ed.), Finance Ethics: Critical Issues in Theory and Practice, Wiley. ISBN: 0470499168
> Boatright J., Ethics and the Conduct of Business, 7th edition, ISBN-10: 0205053130 | ISBN-13: 978-0205053131.
> Boatright J., Ethics in Finance, 2nd edition, Wiley-Blackwell.
> Crane A., McWilliams A., Matten D., Moon J. and Siegel D.S. (2009), 'The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility', 978-0-19-957394-3.
> Ehnert, I., Harry, W. and Zink, K. (Eds., 2014), Sustainability and Human Resource Management: Developing Sustainable Business Organisations. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.
> Gond J-P. and Moon J. (2011), Corporate social responsibility: Critical perspectives on business and management, Routledge, ISBN-10: 0415548047 | ISBN-13: 978-0415548045.
> Harrison R., Newholm T. and Shaw D. (Ed., 2007), The Ethical Consumer, Sage, ISBN : 978-1-4129-0352-3.
> Kotler P., Hessekiel D., and Lee N. (2012), Good works ! Marketing and corporate initiatives that build a better world' and the bottom line, Wiley , ISBN : 978-1-118-20668-3.

ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION AND CONTACT DETAILS

> Programmes: Master in Management or Master in Business Engineering; exchange students.
> Cycle : 2nd semester
> Course status: In the option 'Ethics in Business'

> Workload: This course accounts for 5 ECTS and takes place from January 31 until May 9 (see course schedule). Please check also the schedule for the assessments. The workload for every student includes 30h for presence in the course plus 120h for individual and group work.
> Teaching language: English
> Professors: Ina Ehnert (ina.ehnert@uclouvain.be); Mikael Petitjean (mikael.petitjean@uclouvain.be); Valérie Swaen (Valerie.swaen@uclouvain.be); Claude Verstraete (claude.verstraete@skynet.be).
Please always make appointments by e-mail before coming to the office.
> Before contacting us: Please keep yourself informed through the course website (iCampus) and by attending the course. Please make sure that your e-mail account is connected to iCampus and that you read carefully the incoming announcements and information that is provided. All relevant information for a successful course assessment will be uploaded and/or communicated directly during the sessions. With regard to information on the assessment, please do NOT rely only on information that is posted by peers in forums, on facebook etc. as this information can unfortunately be wrong.