Business & Society (BSPA-GB)

To be successful, businesses must adapt to a landscape with fewer resources, greater demands for transparency, a warmer climate, and societal challenges. This course will help you develop the knowledge, skills, and perspective you need to understand and address environmental and social challenges in business. You will learn how to manage risk, create competitive advantage, and develop innovative services, products, and processes while building value for society and delivering returns to shareholders.

The course is designed to foster a better understanding of corporate sustainability with a particular focus on Costa Rica, a country with a history of exceptional social and environmental leadership. During the course, we will review the latest trends in corporate sustainability, learn about Costa Rica and its unique role in sustainable development, and undertake a deep dive into the sustainability of two important sources of income for Costa Rica, coffee and tourism. We will have several guest speakers including experts in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, with a large middle class. Business is focused on high-tech manufacturing and services: electronics, medical devices, automotive, aeronautic/aerospace, and film/broadcasting devices. (altogether representing 60% of exports). Agricultural exports such as bananas, pineapples, coffee, etc. play an important role in the economy, as do services such as tourism. Costa Rica accounts for only 0.03 percent of the earths surface, however it contains nearly 6 percent of the worlds biodiversity. Situated between the North and South America continents, Costa Rica has served as a bridge of countless species of animals and plants for thousands of years. Students will work together during the week to create a briefing book (in the form or a powerpoint, NOT a narrative) on sustainable development in Costa Rica. Ten groups will be given 10 different topics to research on the first day of class and will be provided 10 minutes (plus 3 minutes Q&A from students) to present their ppt on January 21st. Groups will work on their own time during the week, but will also have January 19th class time to work together and get feedback from the professor.

After four generations of explosive global trade growth, a growing awareness of social and environmental externalities has triggered a global movement toward sustainable supply chains. ESG pressure from investors as well as international protocols are driving operations and supply management to become more sustainable. However, getting there requires a change in mindset and a new toolbox. This class teaches frameworks and methods for integrating sustainability principles with supply chain management practices, leveraging the expertise from two pioneers in their fields, one in environmental impacts and decarbonization, and the other in social impact and the complex nuances of decentralized supply chains. Real-life case studies and current events are used to equip students to successfully lead their companies’ supply chains into the next generation.

In this course, students will develop an understanding of how leading companies in many sectors are embedding sustainability in their core business strategy and using it to drive innovation; operational efficiency; employee, supplier and customer loyalty; competitive advantage and value to society. They will 1) become familiar with the key environmental and social issues affecting business today, 2) explore the innovations developed by corporate leaders in pursuit of sustainability, 3) become familiar with the latest consumer insight research on sustainability and 4) begin to develop some of the skills required for leading in this new social and political environment (e.g. multi-stakeholder management). This course is multi-disciplinary, and seeks to integrate across the functions of the firm to arrive at an effective firm-wide leadership sensibility.

The objective of this course, taught by a practicing cybersecurity attorney who served for more than a decade as a U.S. federal prosecutor, is to discuss practical, legal, regulatory and ethical considerations for understanding and managing cyber and data privacy risk and responsibility. We take a practical approach to exploring cyber and data privacy risk management from a legal, regulatory, technical, and business perspective. The course will examine cybercrime, cybersecurity, and data privacy principles through a series of case studies. Guest speakers who are experts from government and industry, working on the front lines of cybersecurity regulation, enforcement and defense, will join us during the course. We also will engage in an interactive tabletop scenario of a cybersecurity and privacy crisis, to work together in applying best practices and lessons learned.

Corporate Governance has evolved to be one of the more compelling and challenging subjects in business, law and society. Governance is a multi-faceted topic that has economic, ethical, legal, regulatory, and sociological dimensions. Its impact has increased with the ever-growing power and scope of modern business corporations and of institutional shareholders who own an increasing proportion of public companies’ equity securities. The imperfections of many companies’ corporate governance have been demonstrated by a distressingly long list of spectacular business and governance failures. These failures - accounting frauds, excessive executive compensation packages, value-destroying market strategies, bankruptcies, and still evolving aspects of the 2008-2009 financial crisis - have imposed substantial costs on shareholders, other stakeholders, and society at large.

The purpose of this course is to explore the presence, function, purpose, and power of corporations in our society - in history, today, and in the future. And the best way to understand where we are, and what the future might bring, is to develop a firm grasp on the economic and political evolution of the business firm in America.

This course examines the legal issues arising in each phase of commercial real estate transaction from the acquisition through the disposition of the property including all aspects of real estate development and real estate financing. The main topics covered will include property acquisition; entity selection and structure; tax considerations; construction and permanent financing; development; mortgage securitization leasing; workouts and other exit strategies; as well as current legal issues. This course will prepare the student to become sensitive to the wide variety of legal issues and topics encountered in commercial real estate transactions from the perspective of a business professional.

"Social entrepreneurs play the role of change agents in the social sector, by adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value), recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission, engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning, acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created." (Honoring the late Greg Dees dubbed the father of social entrepreneurship education) What is the way that societies improve and solve problems? What is the purpose of business in society? Is there a role for markets and business in issues of civic good, justice, equality, education, environment, health or collective action? Current economic principles, which underpin our trust in markets are not value neutral. Therefore, how we design “market solutions” to problems should be the focus of vigorous and open debate. Social entrepreneurship is a concept that has re-focused us on the meaning of the goods and social practices we value as citizens in a global society. The purpose of this course is to provide students with the essential conceptual frameworks and tools for creating successful social entrepreneurial ventures, initiatives, programs or partnerships that seek to tackle global poverty and collective action problems. Social Entrepreneurship, loosely defined as entrepreneurial activities with an embedded social purpose, is about using entrepreneurial skills to craft innovative responses to address social problems. It aims at social impact, but does not exclude economic wealth creation. Thus, it is not limited to the non-profit or social sectors but seeks to mobilize and align interests of diverse stakeholders in the social, public and private sectors by creating non-financial incentives for collective action. Social Entrepreneurship involves recognizing that social problems are potential opportunities for collaboration, building on existing social networks, harnessing market forces that combine and mobilize resources, inciting positive change in various domains, and designing solutions for sustainable development. Social enterprise, an organizational subset of social entrepreneurship, is a hybrid model for social value creation that is multidimensional and dynamic, moving across various intersection points in the society. A social enterprise is created to achieve a stated vision and mission aiming to solve a state or market failure, where success is measured by both financial sustainability and social impact. Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise represent a paradigm shift in our thinking about sustainable economic development, one that is beginning to have a profound impact on how products are designed and services delivered to poor and marginalized populations at home and abroad. The course will cover a broad range of cutting-edge social enterprise and social entrepreneurship strategies from around the world. Students will interact with guest social entrepreneurs, policy makers, thought leaders and investors to ensure they gain a comprehensive understanding of this dynamic field, and challenge themselves as agents of social change working in development. Through individual and group exercises, using case studies and mixed media, students will explore the common strategies and pitfalls in creating community-driven, scalable social ventures. Students will collaborate and share their learning in the classroom and online using a new social platform, L2O, within a closed community for this course and an open community on social innovation. The course looks at social entrepreneurship and social ventures through their entire life cycle – from ideation, through start-up to scaling and exit to policy-making – with an emphasis on how market considerations and financial instruments are critical to achieving social and financial goals. The materials we will cover place a strong emphasis on the need for a deeper understanding of the range of human motivations, moving from material self-interest to altruism and gift to duty and obligation to strong reciprocity and cooperation. Students will complete a team project, either their own venture or a project for a social enterprise client, over the term of the course. They will receive constant constructive feedback from their peers and instructor throughout the semester in the classroom and on L2O.

In this course, students will develop a effective leadership perspective through pursuit of the following learning objectives: 1) to become familiar with the key environmental and social issues effecting business today, 2) to understand the evolution of corporate response - from compliance to engagement to innovation, 3) to begin to develop some of the skills required for leading in this new social and political environment (e.g. multi-stakeholder management), 4) to explore the efficiencies and innovations being developed by corporate leaders in pursuit of sustainability, 5) to explore innovations in finance (true cost accounting, net positive value, social impact bonds), and 6) to become familiar with the latest consumer insight research on sustainability. In short, this course is multi-disciplinary, and seeks to integrate across the functions of the firm to arrive at an effective firm-wide leadership sensibility.

Today, a poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. The food industry is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The food and agricultural sector is the largest employer on the planet. The food system is broken, and its cracks became more visible than ever during the pandemic of 2020, with produce rotting on farms and livestock being put to death prematurely, while millions go hungry. Food is vital to our survival and happiness, but has also become the cause of vast negative externalities with disastrous outcomes. This course is designed to put the idea of teaching social entrepreneurship to its ultimate test, with a focus on identifying and solving problems in the food industry through the vehicle of entrepreneurship. The objective of this course is to incubate a food venture that has the potential to be a viable business and positively impact public health and/or environmental outcomes. Once the semester begins, “start-up” teams of four to five students each will be formed. Teams will be tasked with identifying problems in the food sector they wish to solve, generating ideas and prototypes, and building business models using a variety of frameworks and tools including Human Centered Design and the Business Model Canvas. Teams will have the liberty to study the food industry in very broad terms, and may have solutions across a variety of verticals such as technology, farming, manufacturing, distribution, and more. Teams will also be encouraged to evaluate problems from multiple lenses, including nutrition, climate change, animal welfare, and inequality.

Four teams of 3 to 5 students each will research and write case studies about companies facing specific, vital environmental and social sustainability challenge. The companies and the challenges we study will represent a range of industries and functional roles in their respective organizations, including finance, strategy, marketing, supply chain, and operations. The resulting case studies are intended for publication and for use by CSB with an audience of the students’ peers – primarily graduate students in business. Publication is not guaranteed, but those case studies that are published will credit the students as authors (working under the supervision of the faculty instructor).

This course is designed to provide students with a rich understanding of the economy-wide energy transitions that are needed in the United States to help curb climate change, with an emphasis on how the private sector can drive such changes. As relevant background, the course will cover energy-related macroeconomic concepts and trends, and provide environmental and international context. It will draw on the instructor’s diverse experiences, readings and other media, classroom discussions, case studies, visiting speakers, and group projects, to explore and debate how such ambitious but necessary transformations may be brought about.

After generations of global trade growth, an increasing awareness of climate change and other environmental externalities has triggered a global movement toward decarbonization, and in many cases, localization or re-shoring, of supply chains. Operations and supply management professionals that continue to operate dirty global supply chains do so at the risk of sanctions from governments, investors and employees. However, lowering the carbon profile of global supply chains will be a massive undertaking. This class presents a sequence of two dozen techniques for decarbonizing supply chains, including management decision-making and optimization tools that reconcile carbon objectives with cost, service level, and other conventional supply chain management objectives. Real life case studies allow students to implement each of the techniques in the context of a real-life situation and study the opportunities and challenges of decarbonizing global supply chains.

The objective of this course is to help develop an ability to recognize and understand legal issues in business. This course focuses on the body of law governing the types of issues that students can expect to encounter in their roles as managers of public and private companies consultants and entrepreneurs. Topics for discussion include but are not limited to contract and cyber laws; the various forms of business structures.partnerships corporations and limited liability companies business torts; product liability; and specific issues regarding entrepreneurs and employment law.

Increasingly businesses are confronted with human rights challenges whether in managing global manufacturing supply chains dressing privacy issues in the Information technology industry security issues in the extractive industries or confronting child and forced labor in agriculture. Over 14 sessions this course will examine these and other issues divided into three segments The first segment will examine the origins and substantive content of international human rights standards. It will examine the implementation of these standards at a national and international level and the range of remedies when governments fail to comply with these standards.The second segment will explore the effects of globalization and the increasing imperative for global businesses to address human rights challenges in their core business operations. These issues become especially relevant in states with a weak rule of law and a lack of willingness or capacity to protect the rights of their own people. In addressing the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights we will apply a framework similar to that which we discussed in the first segment standard-setting implementation and the provision of appropriate remedies. the third segment we will take a case study approach examining how business and human rights issues manifest themselves in global manufacturing the extractive industries information and communication technology companies and in agriculture. We also will explore how the investment community is addressing these issues. Finally we will look ahead and anticipate where the field of business and human rights is headed and how corporate leaders and lawyers can help develop models of sustainability for businesses in the human rights realm.

Corporations in Society

More than ever, corporations are engaging the larger community with policies and procedures in pursuit of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). What was once a differentiation strategy for niche marketers has become a central concern of the Fortune 500. The importance of CSR to corporate branding is evident in the efforts and promotions of global extractive firms (BP, Shell), manufacturers (GE), apparel marketers (Eileen Fisher, GAP, Nike), pharmaceutical firms (Merck, Pfizer), food marketers (Chiquita, Stonyfield Farms, Pete and Gerry’s), automobile manufacturers (hybrids by Toyota, Honda) and retailers (Walmart, IKEA, Tiffany). Such firms recognize both the

This seminar is designed to be a provocative exploration of normative differences. Its premise is that the aspiring leader of a global enterprise whether business or political or educational must confront understand and where possible reconcile the ethical and cultural complexities and tensions at work in the world. Its objective is to bring students to a heightened more nuanced understanding of the interplay of global forces and local norms. This seminar draws upon academic research trade books press readings and case studies. To bring these issues to life the course will also present an array of guest speakers all of whom have been actors in this global process each with a particular expertise. In class discussion and lectures and through questions and answers with the visitors students will develop an appreciation for the intricacies of operating in the heterogeneous global environment recognizing the unique elements of national character government structures and local normative frameworks. This seminar will benefit from the insights of Maria Bartiromo CNBC Anchor and author and Michael Posner who will be present in each session to share insights with seminar visitors. The seminar will be comprised of evening sessions from 6:30-8:30 spread across the entire Fall Term with exact dates determined in part by the constraints of guest speakers. To encourage a diverse set of viewpoints and permit intensive engagement with guest speakers target enrollment is roughly 20 students drawn from across the graduate schools of NYU.

For centuries, work was regarded as nothing but toil – a requirement for earning one's daily bread. But in recent decades, expectations about work have been transformed as has its very nature. While it still provides one’s daily bread, it is also regarded as a major opportunity for people to find purpose, meaning, and happiness in their lives. In this course, students study the latest research on what makes people happy at work, on how happiness at work improves the quality of work, on how people and organizations develop wisdom, and on what makes a career not just successful but meaningful. We will also discuss some of the impediments – both individual and organizational to doing meaningful and satisfying work. Students will develop their own visions of their ideal career, and of the ideal company they’d like to lead or work for.

Independent Study

This course will explore some of the choices global businesses face in addressing human rights challenges in their core business operations. The course will include a series of case studies from different industries where accelerating globalization and advancing technology have made these challenges more acute in recent years. The course will focus on the evolving public face of these issues driven in part by rapid developments in the global media and advances in information technology.

This course will explore some of the choices global businesses face in addressing human rights challenges in their core business operations. The course will include a series of case studies from different industries where accelerating globalization and advancing technology have made these challenges more acute in recent years. The course will focus on the evolving public face of these issues driven in part by rapid developments in the global media and advances in information technology. Today consumers and investors in Manhattan or London are linked almost instantaneously to garment workers in China or Bangladesh, cobalt miners in the Congo or construction workers in Qatar. Consumers of food and beverages know that the cocoa in their food and candy is harvested by young children on West African farms. In these and other industries the news media and social networks are focusing even greater attention on the role of global companies who have become major economic actors on the global stage. The brand reputation of global companies is being tested as media attention to these subjects expands. In addressing these issues, this course will draw upon academic research, case studies and a series of guest speakers from industry and the media to bring these issues to life. The course will start with a broad human rights framework for examining these issues and then present the guest speakers, each with a particular expertise and point of view. Students will be encouraged to participate actively in class discussions which will help develop an appreciation for decisions facing business leaders today as they confront these human rights challenges in their global operations.

This course focuses primarily on for-profit, publicly traded corporations. Students are challenged to understand the system and structure in which corporations function and to think critically about the framework for effective corporate governance. This will include an understanding of the structural relationships determining authority and responsibility for the corporation and their associated complexities. Students will be assigned foundational readings and cases associated with each topic and will be asked to examine issues from both legal and business perspectives.

Fashion law is the emerging business law specialty that provides legal counsel to fashion executives and entrepreneurs as they make strategic decisions and confront problems in design manufacturing distribution and retail. Fashion is not only a global trillion industry as narrowly defined in terms of apparel footwear jewelry and cosmetics but it has also become a driving force in the greater business world as the concept of fashion branding has spread to enhance such other product areas as eyewear, home products, hotels, automobiles and electronics. This course will teach students to develop effective synergies between strategic and legal perspectives in the growth of a fashion company. Students will practice analyzing business issues from a legal perspective and legal issues from a business perspective throughout the life cycle of a fashion company. The course will address the key challenges faced by companies as they move from entrepreneurship through domestic growth brand extension through licensing and international expansion via sourcing and distribution. This course uses a combination of business and legal materials Via practical exercises case studies and simulations students will learn to devise effective strategies for intellectual property protection including design protection and counterfeits commercial operations and expansion of a brand including fashion and apparel licensing commercial agreements including distribution agreements contractual compliance with human rights standards retail leasing and shop in shop strategies and professional responsibility and practice pitfalls This course aims to provide an arena for stimulating educational interaction between business and law students Students will analyze fashion law cases not only from the legal perspective but also as a window on actual fashion business practices Likewise students will read business school case studies not only from the perspective of strategic management but also from the viewpoint of inhouse counsel and legally astute executives

This course examines the opportunity for transformational change emanating from a corporate crisis. We explore the following question: how does senior level management effectively change an organization in response to dramatic changes in circumstances? All too often managers and corporate boards fail to recognize factors that threaten the firm's business until its very survival is in doubt. In such cases the board of directors and management may need to implement drastic and sudden changes in several aspects of the firm. The course draws on several of the core disciplines in the MBA program and provides an opportunity to apply them to organizations in the midst of major transitions. Students should come into this course ready to integrate various business disciplines- applying both quantitative and qualitative tools drawn from accounting corporate finance cash flow modeling debt restructuring negotiation marketing management leadership and communication. An important aspect of the course is the role of leadership in creating a transformational opportunity resulting from a crisis. Financial market and organizational aspects of transformation will be explored through case studies articles texts and class discussion.The course is relevant for students who anticipate working in any operating company or in a firm advising and/or interacting with such a company- including consultants turnaround specialists venture capital and private equity professionals activist fund managers and bankers. The skills developed in this course should be applicable to professionals throughout their careers. Specific attention is paid to cultivating skills appropriate to early stage career assignments.

Independent Study