The version you’re consulting is not final. This course description may change. The final version will be published on 1st June.
5.00 credits
22.5 h + 15.0 h
Q2
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
This course explores how businesses can become agents of systemic change by rethinking their strategic purpose, engaging stakeholders meaningfully, and innovating business models for sustainability. It addresses the urgent need for organizations to move beyond incremental improvements and embrace transformative approaches that align performance with societal and ecological well-being.
Students will examine how sustainability challenges require not only technical solutions but also shifts in leadership, governance, and organizational paradigms. The course emphasizes strategic decision-making, organizational transformation, and stakeholder engagement in complex and uncertain environments.
Through systems thinking, students will learn to analyze organizational complexity, identify leverage points for change, and understand how feedback loops, institutional inertia, and cultural lock-ins influence transformation efforts. This lens helps future managers design interventions that address root causes rather than symptoms.
The course integrates both mainstream corporate strategies and alternative hybrid organizational models—such as B Corps, cooperatives, social enterprises, and regenerative organizations—highlighting how sustainability can be embedded across diverse organizational forms. Students will explore how these models challenge conventional assumptions about business legitimacy and offer new ways to align purpose with performance. Special attention is given to global perspectives, including sustainability practices and challenges in the Global South.
Students will engage with real-world cases, including classical companies seeking to embed sustainability into their core strategy, and will work in teams to develop strategic interventions for these organizations. They will practice leadership for change through stakeholder negotiation simulations, impact communication exercises, and reflective work on their own agency as future leaders.
Students will examine how sustainability challenges require not only technical solutions but also shifts in leadership, governance, and organizational paradigms. The course emphasizes strategic decision-making, organizational transformation, and stakeholder engagement in complex and uncertain environments.
Through systems thinking, students will learn to analyze organizational complexity, identify leverage points for change, and understand how feedback loops, institutional inertia, and cultural lock-ins influence transformation efforts. This lens helps future managers design interventions that address root causes rather than symptoms.
The course integrates both mainstream corporate strategies and alternative hybrid organizational models—such as B Corps, cooperatives, social enterprises, and regenerative organizations—highlighting how sustainability can be embedded across diverse organizational forms. Students will explore how these models challenge conventional assumptions about business legitimacy and offer new ways to align purpose with performance. Special attention is given to global perspectives, including sustainability practices and challenges in the Global South.
Students will engage with real-world cases, including classical companies seeking to embed sustainability into their core strategy, and will work in teams to develop strategic interventions for these organizations. They will practice leadership for change through stakeholder negotiation simulations, impact communication exercises, and reflective work on their own agency as future leaders.
Teaching methods
Teaching methods include:
- Interactive Lectures
- Case Study Analysis, role-Play and simulation exercises
Evaluation methods
- Continuous evaluation (35%): Short Assessments or Quizzes about key concepts (e.g., stakeholder theory, governance models, sustainability paradigms) and class participation.
- Written report by group (65%)
- Design a sustainability strategy for a company or sector.
- Include stakeholder engagement plan, governance recommendations, and KPIs aligned with planetary boundaries.
- Document the rationale, stakeholder analysis, and strategic choices.
- Include impact communication plan and evaluation framework.
- Present to a multi-stakeholder jury (corporate, financial, societal, environmental, academic relevance).
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
