Postgraduate Course: Ethics and Sustainable Governance (CMSE11593)
Course Outline
| School | Business School |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | The course provides strategic, technical, and applied understanding of business ethics and sustainable governance. The course can of interest to all students seeking careers related to sustainability but also all students seeking to work in managerial roles who require to understand external ESG pressures on their organisations, but also organisational tools and processes that can help them be more proactive and effective in dealing with ESG concerns.
The course will provide a common lecture series and will focus on four key areas:
1. Decision making under competing pressures/priorities
*Analysis of business cases to reflect on how we make decisions under competing/conflicting pressures
*Studying corporate contexts that facilitate unethical decisions
2. Corporate governance for ethical business
*Firm governance structures essential for sustainable transition
*Intra-firm controls (such as: performance measurement, codes of conduct, and whistleblowing) and business ethics
3. Regulatory governance schemes for sustainability
*Introduction to governance schemes for sustainability
*Transnational governance of sustainability
4. Investors and sustainability
*Introduction to responsible investments
*Shareholder engagement |
| Course description |
The course starts off by a reflection on ethical decision making when dealing with competing economic, social, environmental and governance priorities/pressures. We will discuss organisational setting that facilitate unethical behaviour and ways to address them.
We then discuss corporate governance including themes ranging from board structure/role, compensation system, compliance and whistle blowing mechanisms. We discuss why in most cases ¿ companies entangled in major cases of malpractice seem to have robust governance systems in paper.
We follow this with external governance mechanisms for sustainability that attempt to influence firms¿ ESG behaviour. Through a discussion of multi-stakeholder initiatives in healthcare we will reflect on how in the absence of sanctioning power, soft governance schemes such as ESG labels, ratings and rankings influence companies.
In the final part of the course, we will discuss the institutional structure of the investments field, identifying different types of actors including both asset owners and asset managers and how they engage with ESG matters. We will then detail how investors use their capital to pressure their investees for adjustments in their ESG behaviour through diverse practices framed as ¿shareholder engagement¿.
Student Learning Experience:
Use of practical, hands-on cases, audio-visual material, but also class interactions and discussions are central elements in the pedagogical approach for this course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Block 5 (Sem 2) and beyond |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 24,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
74 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
40% Coursework (Individual) - assesses course Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
60% Presentation (Group) - assesses all course Learning Outcomes
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| Feedback |
Formative: TBC
Summative: TBC |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Develop a deeper understanding of complex managerial decisions and their ethical implications.
- Leverage knowledge on corporate governance to analyse its different components and their role in business conduct.
- Assess the contemporary trends in transnational governance of sustainability with specific focus on multi-stakeholder initiatives in healthcare.
- Assess investors¿ approach to sustainability .
- Evaluate annual general meetings and their politics with focus on ESG shareholder proxy voting and shareholder resolutions.
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Reading List
Core
- Painter-Morland, M., & Ten Bos, R. (2011). Business ethics and continental philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
- Louche C. and Lydenberg S. Responsible Investment Dilemmas. Greenleaf Publishing. London. 2011.
Recommended
- Chains of Finance: How Investment Management is Shaped; Diane-Laure Arjaliès, Philip Grant, Iain Hardie, Donald Mackenzie, Ekaterina Svetlova; Oxford University Press, London, UK.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Knowledge and Understanding
After completing this course, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a thorough knowledge and understanding of contemporary organisational disciplines; comprehend the role of business within the contemporary world; and critically evaluate and synthesise primary and secondary research and sources of evidence in order to make, and present, well informed and transparent organisation-related decisions, which have a positive global impact.
- Identify, define and analyse theoretical and applied business and management problems, and develop approaches, informed by an understanding of appropriate quantitative and/or qualitative techniques, to explore
and solve them responsibly.
Practice: Applied Knowledge, Skills and Understanding
After completing this course, students should be able to:
- Apply creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, sustainable and responsible business solutions to address social, economic and environmental global challenges.
- Work with a variety of organisations, their stakeholders, and the communities they serve - learning from them, and aiding them to achieve responsible, sustainable and enterprising solutions to complex problems.
Cognitive Skills
After completing this course, students should be able to:
- Be self-motivated; curious; show initiative; set, achieve and surpass goals; as well as demonstrating adaptability, capable of handling complexity and ambiguity, with a willingness to learn; as well as being able to demonstrate the use digital and other tools to carry out tasks effectively, productively, and with attention to
quality.
- Understand how to manage and sustain successful individual and group relationships in order to achieve positive and responsible outcomes, in a range of virtual and face-to-face environments.
Communication, ICT, and Numeracy Skills
After completing this course, students should be able to:
- Convey meaning and message through a wide range of communication tools, including digital technology and social media; to understand how to use these tools to communicate in ways that sustain positive and responsible relationships. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Afshin Mehrpouya
Tel:
Email: Afshin.Mehrpouya@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Alana Borthwick
Tel:
Email: Alana.Borthwick@ed.ac.uk |
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