Applied Business Ethics

The seminar Applied Business Ethics focuses primarily on the relationship between theory and practice in business ethics. Students will thus critically discuss and present current topics and issues on international business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability management. The participants will train their ethical reflection capabilities and get to know the challenges linked to multinational companies’ efforts to implement ethical business practices.

The seminar will be held in English, meaning that coursework, presentations and papers can be submitted in English only.

Topics to be covered in this seminar are:

• Business for a better World? Potential, Limits and Cases of Social Entrepreneurship
• Business Models of the Platform Economy: A Critical Analysis from a Business Ethics Perspective
• Multi Stakeholder Initiatives: Potential, Limits and Cases
• Integrative Social Contracts Theory: Concept and Critical Analysis of the Grand Theory in International Business Ethics
• Sweatshops and their Role in Global Value Chains: A Critical Analysis

The following learning objectives shall be met:

• Competence development in the area of international business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability,
• Competence development in the area of creating sustainable value for companies and societies,
• Competence development in the area of handling ethical dilemmas and using instruments of sustainable management,
• Raising awareness of moral responsibilities of future business executives.

The entire seminar will be held in person. The course description contains all the relevant information on the seminar. Please read it carefully! There you will find all the seminar appointments and a list of introductory literature for each topic.

Introductory literature will be provided following the topic allocation.

The grade is comprised as follows:

50% paper (10-12 pages), 50% group presentation and discussion of findings.