Introduction to CSR

The course provides a comprehensive overview of the essential theoretical foundations of business and corporate ethics and also establishes numerous practical application references. At the beginning of the lecture, the necessity of dealing with the topic of business and corporate ethics is discussed. Subsequently, important theoretical foundations of business and corporate ethics as well as corporate social responsibility (CSR) are presented in detail. In detail, the fundamental relationship between economics and ethics is discussed, key terms are defined and a distinction is made between individual, corporate and business ethics. Building on this, particular problems of business and corporate ethics in an international context are explained.

In the next step, various approaches to business and corporate ethics are presented and critically discussed. The aim is to understand the special features of the approaches and to work out their differences. Business and corporate ethics have no impact if their findings are not applied in practice. Accordingly, the lecture then focuses on the discussion of selected approaches to the concrete implementation of business and corporate ethics in international companies.

The course consists of a lecture and a tutorial. The entire course will be held in German. Due to the restrictions in teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both the lecture and the tutorial will take place completely digitally. In the winter semester 2020/2021, there will be no face-to-face teaching for MIBAS.

Teaching will be largely asynchronous. This means that the content of the lecture and tutorial will be made available in the form of videos and can be accessed by students at a time of their choice. From a methodological point of view, PowerPoint slides are used as a framework for discussing the content to be discussed. These slides will be included in the lecture and tutorial videos. The set of slides will be made available in German and can be downloaded by the course participants on STiNE or OpenOLAT. These slides serve more as a visual “stimulus” and not as a substitute for a lecture manuscript. Students are therefore strongly advised to supplement the lecture slides with their own notes.

However, there will also be individual sessions with synchronous teaching in both lectures and tutorials. Synchronous teaching means that students take part in a course digitally and live via Zoom. The synchronous appointments are intended to enable lecturers and course participants to get to know each other and exchange ideas. In the tutorial, synchronous teaching enables a participatory teaching format that is intended to create space for independent thinking and work.

The online teaching for the entire course is organized with the help of OpenOLAT. It is therefore important that students register for the course not only in STiNE but also in OpenOLAT:

https://www.openolat.uni-hamburg.de/url/RepositoryEntry/121701531  

The exam takes the form of a take home exam (open book). The questions can be answered in German or English. A retake date will be offered.

The exam will also be administered via OpenOLAT. Detailed instructions on the technical implementation will be made available to students early on in the semester.

Important:

- Registration for the exam and, if necessary, deregistration takes place via STiNE!
- Only exams taken by students who are registered for the exam via STiNE will be assessed.
- Students who are registered for the exam via STiNE but do not upload their answers to the Take Home Exam to OpenOLAT will be deemed to have failed the exam unless they can provide evidence of technical problems (e.g. screenshots, logging of the internet connection and IP addresses used in the router, evidence of unexpected construction work or power supply failure by the provider, etc.).

Students are strongly advised not to delay submitting their exams until the last minute. In addition, course participants abroad must take into account that all times apply to the time zone UTC+1 (Hamburg)!

The exam will be the same length as a 90-minute face-to-face exam. However, students will be given a period of five days to complete the exam. Students can use the OpenOLAT forum on the first two days of the processing period to ask questions about the exam.

The processing period for the exam is between the following dates:

23.02.2021, 08.30 a.m. - 27.02.2021, 11.59 p.m. (UTC+1, Hamburg).

The following notes on attempts to cheat apply:

The assignment can be answered with the help of the lecture and tutorial materials as well as independent research. However, it should be noted that the source must be cited for all content that is not taken from lecture or tutorial materials. This also applies to direct and indirect quotations from the scientific articles discussed in the exercise. It is expected that the usual rules of good scientific practice are observed. Information on the format will be included in the assignment and will correspond to our usual guidelines for term papers. Corresponding guidelines and information on correct citation can be found in the notes for term papers on the chair's homepage:

www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fachbereich-sozoek/professuren/gilbert/dateien/formale-vorgaben-ha.pdf

Although aids may be used, the exam must be completed independently. Collaboration with other students is not permitted. Identical or only slightly different passages in the exam answers of several students will be assessed as an attempt to cheat. In such cases, all students concerned will fail.