The contemporary business and financial environment is changing at a pace unseen in human history. The explosion in scientific and technological development over the past thirty years has fundamentally changed the way we interact with each other across private and public channels. Our expectations of how businesses should behave is no longer based purely on shareholder value, but encompasses an array of social, environmental, and governance issues. At the same time, a small number of companies and individuals have come to dominate global business and own a significant percentage of the world’s assets.
These changes bring with them complex ethical and moral dilemmas. In order to objectively assess these, it is necessary to both understand the issues at hand, and have a rigorous analytical framework with which to examine these from an ethical perspective. This course aims to equip you with the skills to do both.
During the semester we examine a number of current business and financial topics and dissect the moral issues inherent in each. These include:
- The commoditization of personal data and challenges of surveillance capitalism
- Tax avoidance by multinational companies
- Corporate whistleblowers
- The erosion of traditional workers’ rights and the rise of the gig economy
These are complex areas, and it is not the purpose of this course to deliver definitive ethical judgments. However, in understanding competing theories and different arguments in practice, you move into a position to make informed decisions about the topics above. This understanding allows you to developing skills such as analytical thinking, team work, empathy, and argumentation and a host of other issues with relevance not just for this course, but your studies going forward, and future career.
Related Discipline(s)
This course would also be of interest to the following discipline(s):Leadership Studies
