Courses & Curriculum

Curriculum Development

With the help of faculty interested in sustainability, the David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise has developed and continues to develop themed new courses on Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (e.g. online course on Sustainable Management; new MBA course on Global Climate Change-Business Opportunities and Threats. These courses give our students an opportunity to gain some expertise in areas related to sustainable enterprise. In addition to our own courses, we are identifying sustainability courses from around the university suitable for JMSB students.

JMSB Courses in Sustainability

Executive MBA Courses

EMBA 699: Strategy for a Sustainable World

Dean Sanjay Sharma, JMSB

There is increasing evidence that historical separation between business strategy and social responsibility is breaking down. Rather than treating social and environmental issues as an expensive luxury, many companies are now fusing their environmental performance and social mission with business strategy. Unlike their predecessors, sustainable enterprises use business as an instrument of social development and environmental improvement. Environmental thinking and social responsiveness are integrated proactively into core business processes, systems, and strategies. For a growing number of companies, competitive advantage is rooted in such new capabilities such as pollution prevention, continuous innovation, design for environment, social development, and stakeholder engagement. This course explores the nature of the “triple bottom line” – the simultaneous delivery of financial, social, and environmental performance – by corporations.

MBA Courses

MANA 695: Global Climate Change: Business Opportunities and Threats

Dr. Paul Shrivastava, David O’Brien Distinguished Professor and Director of David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise

Global climate change is one of the most important challenges facing humankind. It has enormous consequences for our global economy and society. This course focuses on understanding climate change and its business implications. As the global economy evolves in the next decade or two to adjust to climate change, it will create new opportunities and threats. In this course we examine business opportunities in renewable energy, clean tech, green tech and related areas. We study organizational environments as they are being shaped by global climate change, as well as sustainable business opportunities and threats to achieving long-term prosperity.

MBA 625: Managing Strategic Action (Strategy and Social Responsibility in Action)

Catalin Ratiu, PhD Candidate and Lecturer, Management Department

This course explores the process by which strategic intent and strategy are linked to managerial action. The course focuses on both the development of strategic action in response to issues emanating in the broader external environment as well as issues concerned with the implementation of action programs in contemporary organizations. Using strategic management and organizational theory concepts as a framework, the course examines how firm strategy is linked to governance, organizational structure, performance evaluation, and management control systems. Specific topics concerned with the external environment include managing social responsibility, economic and social entrepreneurship and technological change. A principal objective of the course is to enhance the student’s ability to make decisions through case studies, student presentations and lectures.

MSc Courses

Mark 672Y: Social Responsibility and Public Policy in Marketing

Dr. H. Onur Bodur, Associate Professor, Marketing Department

In this course, students are introduced to marketing literature on consumer and corporate social responsibility. The focus of readings is on the impact of marketing decisions and consumer behavior on consumer and public welfare, firm performance, and business decisions. The course coverage encompasses broad societal concerns that range from environmental conservation and health-related issues to over-consumption. The course aims to provide an overview of literature and help students develop fundamental understanding of the research in social responsibility in marketing with public policy implications. The students are introduced to related theoretical frameworks in marketing, psychology, and economics.

Undergraduate Courses

COMM 299S: Sustainable Management

Dr. Paul Shrivastava, David O’Brien Distinguished Professor and Director of David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise

This course focuses on understanding the new emerging business environment and creating and implementing ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable organizations in carbon-constrained economies. In the course students examine sustainable organizational vision, strategies, products, and processes for achieving long-term prosperity.

MANA 369: Business and Sustainability

Dr. Raymond Paquin, Assistant Professor, Management Department

This course explores how changing perceptions around environmental and social issues influence current business practices. In doing so, we discuss the impact these influences have on business and how adept firms can gain competitive advantage through embracing these issues and integrating them into their core strategies. Though environmental and social issues have gained prominence in recent years and have even spawned conversations around concepts – e.g., sustainability, sustainable strategy, sustainable development - many firms are still ill-equipped to successfully address these issues in their own actions. Thus, this course focuses on developing your understanding of the opportunities here, what you can do to develop more sustainably aware action into your personal and professional lives, and how firms can profitably integrate environmental and social issues into their own strategies and actions.