MBA8000 Business Ethics and Sustainability

Other requisites

Students are required to have access to a personal computer, e-mail capabilities and Internet access to UConnect. Current details of computer requirements can be found at http://www.usq.edu.au/ict/students/standards/default.htm.

Synopsis

The fundamental role of business is to benefit society through the provision of value-adding products and services. Unfortunately, we are becoming increasingly aware of business activities that not only fail to benefit society, but cause it enormous harm. Whilst some harmful activities are intentional, many aren't, but are the consequence of unforeseen outcomes. Studying ethics can never make deliberately malicious people behave better, but it can help the well-intentioned make decisions that are less harmful to society. We adopt an optimistic perspective, arguing that by and large, people are fundamentally well-intentioned and do their best with the knowledge they have, and when they know "better", they do better. This course is about helping people know better by raising their moral imagination so they can consider a variety of possibilities of moral consequences to their decisions and develop the ability to imagine a wide range of possible issues, consequences and solutions. This challenging study first introduces students to various ethical frameworks, which it then applies to various business contexts, enabling them to better understand the complexity of ethical decision-making in today's global business environment. Ethics is a most engaging and highly stimulating area of investigation and this course only serves to introduce you to the field in anticipation that wanting to "know better" will be the life-long pursuit of USQ business graduates.

Course offers