Description

This course intends to teach how ethics is involved in determining the value and meaning of individual and collective actions across a variety of business contexts. Being based on an open access edition of Business Ethics, a Creative Commons book made available to the general public by 2012 Book Archive initiative, this course reflects a case study approach to teaching ethics as a philosophical subject that can be relevant to making career choices, job-related decisions and evaluative judgments. Therefore, it is hoped that in this course you will find applications and illustrations of Business Ethics concepts in relation to real-life ethical dilemmas, business world topics, and specific case studies that call for independent thinking and ethical argumentation. As an online resource, the textbook that this course is based upon is periodically updated with links to current discussions and events, which ensures its continued relevance.
The approach of Ethics and Social Responsibility adheres to the scope and sequence of a typical introductory business ethics course that relates ethical theories of philosophy to the questions typically found in the economic world. In addition to a comprehensive coverage of key theories of ethics, business situations in which they are regularly applied, and representative case studies that can be found in reading materials, student assignments for this course are organized around engaging questions, discussions that help students apply the ethical theories, and moral issues that advance learners toward the understanding of business ethics in meaningful ways.
Although the text of the original course book was reorganized to suit the needs of this course, different chapters of the course book are organized around topics that are introduced sequentially, to enable a comprehensive, workshop-like acquisition of ethical reasoning skills. The course is designed to acquaint students with: (1) What Business Ethics is, (2) Different theories of ethics as tools for decision making, (3) Critical perspectives on ethical decisions, (4) Workplace related ethical issues, and (5) Various tenets of corporate social responsibility.
In this course, each unit will also contain additional readings that will be specified either in the Reading Assignments or in Learning Journal Assignments. Likewise, the Self-Quiz questions that are found at the end of each unit are aimed at expanding the understanding of ethical issues and social responsibility topics that are covered by the reading materials. By contrast, the Graded Quiz and Final Exam questions will test the knowledge of the most important aspects of the required textbook materials.