The course does not assume the student has any prior knowledge in corporate governance or corporate social responsibility.

At the end of the course, students should be able to: ¿ Describe, classify, structure, and combine the concepts, theories and methods involved with Corporate Social Responsibility. ¿ Be able to apply the concepts, theories, methods of the course to concrete cases and examples and develop them into an original research framework. ¿ Critically analyze and synthesize concrete problems through academic research within current management theories and be able to make a constructive critic of them. This involves learn how to review academic research papers and how to present and defend your research. Generally speaking, this course works to develop the reflexive capabilities of students, working to help develop the students¿ 1) connective thinking 2) critical thinking and 3) awareness utilizing the theories associated with Corporate Social Responsibility as the basis.

SHORT COURSE DESCRIPTION Governance is an issue that has come to the fore recently as a direct cause of problems associated with the financial and economic crisis. Financial arbitrage, short selling¿s, toxic assets, management excessive bonus, golden parachutes and corruption populate our discussions as signs of malfunctions of the market and lack of corporate social responsibility. Some economists tend to justify these as moral hazard, but others argue that the overall significance of it is largely understated by the mere observation of managerial misbehavior, which forms the tip of the iceberg. The submerged part of the iceberg is the institutional settings in terms of corporate governance and the consequences of economic liberalization and deregulation of industry and business in an increasing globalized world. At the same time, management and corporations are increasing facing public demand for new corporate ethos, a stricter compliance with both public and private/civil regulation and the assumption of responsibilities related to emerging social and environmental issues such climate change, labor exploitation, health security, etc. This course is aimed at enhancing doctoral students¿ knowledge of the foundations of corporate social responsibility research. In this course we will be confronted to questions such: how corporations deal with conflicts of interests amongst different value systems (e.g. financial and social)? What mechanism of corporate control can be used to ensure ethical behavior in shareholders and management? Which business models are better prepared to deal with social and environmental issues such obesity, diabetes 2, HIV-AIDS? What are managers¿ responsibilities in these social issues? We will explore how corporate governance based on social responsibilities is becoming both a condition for business survival and a potential competitive advantage and how is currently researched in the academia. Our course will include the explanation and problematization of some theories central to corporate social responsibility such business ethics, stakeholder view of the firm, theory of social contract, political view of the firm, institutional theory, etc. This is primarily a discussion based course, where academic articles are posed to students on complex topics in which students engage first hand in the discussion and debate. We do expect a lively debate in the classroom and learning by confrontation. Some of the themes that will be analyzed in the course are: - Global governance and the political view of the firm - Legitimacy as an organizational outcome: institutional theory and CSR - Stakeholder theory and stakeholder engagement - Value creation and the social media - CSR, ethics, epistemology and research frontiers

This is primarily a discussion based course, where academic paper will be provided and in which students engage first hand in the discussion and debate. Class time will include lectures and discussions, in which participants will explore theoretical perspectives and apply them to specific case studies through the academic papers. This is a reading- and discussion-intensive course, and we expect students to show up for class prepared to discuss and analyze the assigned materials. The syllabus contains articles and instructions that students will have to prepare for each session. The course contains 14 modules. Students will be requested to work individually and in teams. Most of the material will be uploaded in Aula Global (AG). The rest of the material will be the students¿ responsibility to collect it in the library (please check also articles online) or the internet. Aula Global will be used also for announcements and syllabus.