GBUS 8448: Responsible Management: Ultimate Questions and Creating Value in Business

This course provides a unique opportunity: to not just think about spread sheets and data points, but to focus on matters of the heart and soul, topics which transcend business, yet which may have everything to do with the kind of leader you want to be. This course offers a forum for students to think about ultimate questions (e.g. “Who are we? Why are we here? What does it mean to live a good life? How should we treat others?”) in conversation with your peers, and to talk about how our answers to these questions inform how we live (and lead) in business.

This course will push us to think about ultimate questions and connect them to how we live, and in particular, how we operate in business. A central part of the course is your own exploration of these questions to deepen your own understanding of how you best answer them – and how those answers shape your views of work, leading others, leading an enterprise, and tackling an array of ethically challenging topics. A second critical part of the course is focusing on how you get along with others who have different answers to ultimate questions. Everyone has answers to ultimate questions – people who are part of formal religions, those who claim “spirituality”, atheists, agnostics, etc. How do different answers to ultimate questions either set us up for building strong relationships and opportunities for creating value together – or create conflict, misunderstanding, and barriers to effective partnerships?

Course Objectives:

1. Help students think through their answers to ultimate questions and how those answers inform a view of what it means to be a good person and a responsible manager.

2. Learn about other ways of answering ultimate questions, including two prominent religions and their influence on doing business in other parts of the world, and their views of ethics and responsible conduct in business.

3. Discuss a range of ethical challenges that arise from dealing with people who have different answers to ultimate questions operating in a business context.

4. Provide students with the opportunity to explore their own answers to ultimate questions in conversation with their peers, to learn about other views, and deepen their ability to be thoughtful and reflective on these matters.

Students will be evaluated on classroom contributions, response papers, a term paper and a presentation in class.