Sustainable Organization and Management Practices

Catalog description

This course is designed to explore alternative approaches to management in the 21st century. The major goal of the course is to educate and engage students on the concept and practice of sustainable management, an emerging discipline that addresses management functions based on the growing evidence and perceived threats to the earth. Given unprecedented developments in global demographics, climate change, pollution and questionable resource use patterns, there is a compelling need to rethink some of the basic principles and traditional management practices in business and other organizations. After addressing the available data on these environmental challenges, students will proceed to examine the basic tenets of orthodox management approaches and practices and their impact on society, including assumptions underlying management decisions, resource use, and production. The course will explore alternative approaches to control or eliminate the deficiencies of current management practices in solving environmental problems. Specific topics to be addressed in the course include traditional principles of management, emerging principles of sustainable management, best practices in sustainability, new policies, institutions and markets created to support the concept and practice of sustainability, among others. Case studies from a variety of organizations and industries around the world will supplement the text in presenting the content of this course.