Syllabus

Title
0254 Business and Society
Instructors
Univ.Prof. Dipl.Math.Dr. Gerhard Speckbacher, Univ.Prof. Michael Müller-Camen, Ph.D.
Type
PI
Weekly hours
2
Language of instruction
Englisch
Registration
10/03/19 to 10/07/19
Registration via LPIS
Notes to the course
This class is only offered in winter semesters.
Subject(s) Bachelor Programs
Dates
Day Date Time Room
Tuesday 10/15/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Thursday 10/17/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Tuesday 10/22/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Thursday 10/24/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Tuesday 10/29/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Thursday 10/31/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Tuesday 11/05/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Thursday 11/07/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Tuesday 11/12/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Thursday 11/14/19 10:30 AM - 01:00 PM TC.0.10 Audimax
Contents

Students are exposed to various perspectives of business thinking with a focus on integrating various stakeholder perspectives and critical thinking about business issues.

Part 1 focuses on key business concepts and business decisions in Entrepreneurship, Finance/Accounting, Marketing, Management/HR, and Operations Management.

Part 2 focuses on contemporary challenges in business and management such as ageing populations, climate change, poverty and migration.

Learning outcomes

Part 1 (Speckbacher):

Students understand key business concepts, major types of business decisions and how these decisions affect a firm’s value as well as the firm’s various stakeholders. More specifically:

  • Students understand entrepreneurship and innovation as a dynamic perspective on doing business.
  • Students understand the importance of “measuring financial performance/income/firm value” as a main challenge of doing business. They understand basic financial concepts such as income and cash flow statement, balance sheet, financial ratios, break-even analysis, capital budgeting/investment decisions and are able to apply such concepts to very simple cases. Students also get a first introduction into the functioning and roles of capital markets.
  • Students understand the relevance of business strategies as well as the link between competitive advantage and firm performance.
  • Students understand the links between customer-related decisions (such as distribution or pricing decisions), strategic decisions and finance.
  • Students understand the importance of employee management and leadership perspectives and how behavioral and sociological perspectives relate to perspectives of operations management and production processes.

Part 2 (Müller-Camen):

Students get an understanding about grand challenges facing business and how management can deal with them. More specifically:

  • Students understand relevant terms and theories such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics and Stakeholder Theory.
  • Students understand how strong legal pressure explain the importance of diversity management in the US and industrial relations in Austria. The will get an understanding of how this affects management and gives the stakeholders employees and unions a special role.
  • Students understand the strategic importance of CSR and Sustainability for business. They will learn how this is expressed in sustainability reporting and how this differs according to country and industry.
  • Students learn about alternative business models that focus on the grand challenges.
Attendance requirements

In order to successfully pass this course, your absence is limited to 20% of our appointments.

Teaching/learning method(s)

We use a problem-based learning approach in the sense that new topics are introduced by confronting students with stories or cases to motivate a fundamental problem from the business world. As far as possible, students use their own resources to understand and solve the problem. Theory is presented as a structured way to understand and solve problems.

Assessment
  • Written exam on part 1 (focus on Multiple Choice and simple calculations) (50%)
  • Take-home team based exam on part 2 (essay) (30%)
  • Mini quiz (20%)
Last edited: 2019-09-25



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