CCGL9018 Global Issues

Corporate Social Responsibility

This course is under the thematic cluster(s) of:

Sustaining Cities, Cultures, and the Earth (SCCE)

Sustainable Development Goals

Timetable for Lectures Required Reading

Course Description

This course provides an interdisciplinary overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), focusing on the interplay between corporations and their key stakeholders. Over the past several decades many factors have contributed to increased expectations for corporations to carry more social responsibilities. Asia is not an exception. At the same time, our governments have acted to reduce their roles in addressing social problems, in favor of market-based approaches.

CSR has progressed from traditional philanthropy and donation to encompass not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them. Through their stakeholder relations management and innovative business models, companies can not only develop practices to address environmental and social issues, but also identify opportunities for innovative products and technologies.

In recent decades the emergence of CSR has brought a new wave of social innovations to the marketplace. “Social enterprises” have emerged that emphasize both social and financial sustainability, and, therefore, traditional non-profit organizations, governments and corporations need to adapt themselves to embrace this social innovation. Thus, the topics of sustainability reporting, nonprofit organizations, social enterprises and other topics of interest to students will be discussed in-depth to bring this course to a more forward-looking perspective.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

Demonstrate a heuristic understanding of economic concepts relevant to analyzing CSR issues.
Understand, analyze and critically interpret cases and examples of issues in corporate social responsibility using the relevant economic concepts.
Reflect upon the interactions between economic and political dimensions of corporate social responsibility issues and their moral dilemmas.
Understand, analyze and critically interpret and reflect upon the relationship between issues of corporate social responsibility affecting businesses and its broader relationship with the nature of society and duties of citizenship.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

Second semester (Sat)

Study Load

Activities	Number of hours
Lectures	24
Tutorials	12
Preparation for tutorials	12
Reading / Self-study	60
Assessment: Essay / Report writing	60
Total:	168

Assessment: 100% coursework

Assessment Tasks	Weighting
Written report	50
Class participation	10
Essay	40

Required Reading

The course content to be discussed in this course is very contemporary. All required lecture notes, cases and readings will be organized by the instructor and distributed to the students at the beginning of semester. Reading will include, but may not be limited to the following. Additional readings may be added for class discussion.

Berle, A. A., Jr. (1932). For whom corporate managers are trustees: A note. Harvard Law Review, 45(8), 1365-1372.
Coase, R. (1960). The problem of social cost. The Journal of Law and Economics, 3, 1-44.
Dodd, E. M., Jr. (1932). For whom are corporate managers trustees? Harvard Law Review, 45(7), 1145-1163.
Drucker, P. F. (1999). Management challenges for the 21st century. New York: HarperBusiness.
Freeman, R (1984). Stakeholder management: framework and philosophy. Boston: Pitman. [Chap. 3]
Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Times Magazine.

Course Co-ordinator and Teacher(s)

Course Co-ordinator	Contact
Professor S.L.K. Fung Faculty of Business and Economics (Accounting and Law)	Tel: 3917 4214 Email: flksammy@hku.hk
Teacher(s)	Contact
Professor S.L.K. Fung Faculty of Business and Economics (Accounting and Law)	Tel: 3917 4214 Email: flksammy@hku.hk