Teacher(s)
Language
English
Prerequisites
None
Main themes
Throughout the course, students will engage with a diverse set of themes that reflect the complexity, urgency, and strategic relevance of sustainability challenges in business:
- Systems Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making: Tools to understand complexity, identify leverage points, anticipate unintended consequences, and design interventions that address root causes.
- Strategic Sustainability and Business Model Innovation: From incremental to radical change, students explore how businesses can evolve from shareholder primacy to stakeholder-centric and purpose-driven strategies. Frameworks include Shared Value, Triple Bottom Line, and models focused on the common good.
- Organizational Transformation and Leadership for Change: How leaders can drive systemic change by shifting mindsets, redesigning structures, and fostering cultures of sustainability. Topics include change management, change agency, and transformations in complex systems.
- Sustainable Business Models: Exploration of models such as B Corps, social enterprises, regenerative organizations, and enterprising NGOs. Emphasis on innovation, ethical governance, and long-term impact.
- Global South Perspectives on Sustainability: Insights into sustainability challenges and innovations in the Global South.
- Governance and Accountability: Critical assessment of business legitimacy, accountability, and purpose. Focus on governance mechanisms in hybrid organizations, and how they balance profit, purpose, and stakeholder interests in pursuit of long-term societal impact.
- Stakeholder Engagement and Multi-Actor Collaboration: Skills to engage diverse actors—customers, employees, investors, NGOs, governments—and navigate tensions and trade-offs in collaborative sustainability efforts.
- Impact Communication and Performance Evaluation: Communicating sustainability strategies and outcomes effectively to diverse stakeholders. Designing KPIs aligned with planetary boundaries, integrating social and environmental metrics, and navigating reputational dynamics.
Learning outcomes
At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to : | |
1. Corporate Citizenship
|
|
Content
Through systems thinking, students learn to analyze organizational complexity, identify leverage points for change, and design interventions that address root causes rather than symptoms. Building on this foundation, the course explores how businesses can move from incremental to radical change — evolving from shareholder primacy toward stakeholder-centric, purpose-driven strategies through frameworks such as Shared Value, the Triple Bottom Line, and the common good. It integrates both mainstream corporate strategies and alternative hybrid models — B Corps, cooperatives, social enterprises, enterprising NGOs, and regenerative organizations — showing how sustainability can be embedded across diverse organizational forms and how these models challenge conventional assumptions about business legitimacy.
The course also examines the leadership, governance, and collaboration needed to drive systemic change: how leaders shift mindsets and redesign structures to foster cultures of sustainability, how hybrid organizations balance profit, purpose, and stakeholder interests, and how to engage diverse actors — customers, employees, investors, NGOs, governments — while navigating the trade-offs of collaborative sustainability efforts. Special attention is given to global perspectives, including sustainability challenges in the Global South, and to how sustainability strategies and outcomes can be communicated effectively through KPIs aligned with planetary boundaries and integrated social and environmental metrics.
The course also examines the leadership, governance, and collaboration needed to drive systemic change: how leaders shift mindsets and redesign structures to foster cultures of sustainability, how hybrid organizations balance profit, purpose, and stakeholder interests, and how to engage diverse actors — customers, employees, investors, NGOs, governments — while navigating the trade-offs of collaborative sustainability efforts. Special attention is given to global perspectives, including sustainability challenges in the Global South, and to how sustainability strategies and outcomes can be communicated effectively through KPIs aligned with planetary boundaries and integrated social and environmental metrics.
Teaching methods
The course combines
- interactive lectures,
- readings and videos,
- hands-on practical sessions,
- case studies,
- and group coaching.
Evaluation methods
The final grade for this course is composed of two components:
- 30% – Continuous group assessment (6 weekly deliverables, 5% each). Each week, groups produce one deliverable directly linked to that week's course theme. The format and content of the deliverable vary from week to week (e.g., short analysis, case application, model, presentation extract, etc., depending on the topic covered). Preparatory work for each week's deliverable begins during the in-class session and is completed/finalized between sessions. Because each deliverable is tied to that specific week's content and is assessed as it is produced, this component reflects continuous, week-by-week engagement rather than a single cumulative project.
- 70% – Individual written examination. The exam consists of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and open question(s), and assesses individual mastery of the course content.
- The individual written examination (70%) can be retaken and is the only component that can be re-assessed in the second session.
- The continuous group assessment (30%) cannot be retaken, repeated, or otherwise represented in the second session, as it is by nature a cumulative, in-progress evaluation built week after week and cannot be reconstructed outside the course timeline. This underscores the importance of active, continuous participation throughout the semester, as the group component cannot be compensated for at a later stage.
Other information
Use of Gen AI tools
Students are encouraged to use generative AI (Gen AI) tools to enhance their assignments—such as for brainstorming, structuring work, improving language, or exploring new ideas—provided that the final submission reflects individual understanding and meets academic standards. All use of Gen AI tools must be clearly acknowledged: for every assignment where these tools were used, include a brief statement specifying which tool was used, how it was used, and for what purpose. Undisclosed or unauthorized use—such as submitting AI-generated content as original work without acknowledgment—will be treated as an academic integrity violation.
Students remain responsible for critically evaluating any AI-provided output, ensuring accuracy, and complying with privacy guidelines by not submitting confidential data to AI platforms. If you are unsure about the acceptable use of AI in a specific assessment, please consult with the instructor first.
Students are encouraged to use generative AI (Gen AI) tools to enhance their assignments—such as for brainstorming, structuring work, improving language, or exploring new ideas—provided that the final submission reflects individual understanding and meets academic standards. All use of Gen AI tools must be clearly acknowledged: for every assignment where these tools were used, include a brief statement specifying which tool was used, how it was used, and for what purpose. Undisclosed or unauthorized use—such as submitting AI-generated content as original work without acknowledgment—will be treated as an academic integrity violation.
Students remain responsible for critically evaluating any AI-provided output, ensuring accuracy, and complying with privacy guidelines by not submitting confidential data to AI platforms. If you are unsure about the acceptable use of AI in a specific assessment, please consult with the instructor first.
Online resources
All resources (video, texts, readings, slides, cases) will be available on Moodle.
Bibliography
All resources (video, texts, readings, slides, cases) will be available on Moodle.
Faculty or entity
Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)
Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Learning outcomes
Master [120] in Management
