Overview of Course

This course explores the social, ethical, and regulatory challenges businesses face across the world. We will focus on the interplay of law and competitive markets insofar as that interplay affects the actual working responsibilities of managers and business professionals. We will explore how laws and regulations influence business behavior and, simultaneously, how businesses influence legislation and regulation. In so doing, we will study numerous writings in the field of legal reasoning and the law. We will focus on the social, ethical and regulatory issues that drive businesses to comply with laws, not comply with laws, go beyond compliance, or sometimes even shape the meaning of compliance. These theories will be explored in the context of a wide range of countries in which businesses face social, ethical and regulatory challenges. The object of this course is to develop students’ analytical skills when dealing with interdisciplinary perspectives of business issues. The course will emphasize a practical approach to the examination of business as a fundamental institution in all societies and its relationship to the turn toward globalization. We will analyze various legislative, regulatory and judicial actions aimed at dealing with perceived inadequacies. In doing so, this course will introduce students to a broad range of interdisciplinary issues encountered by managers and business professionals, challenge students to think critically about corporate social responsibility, and help students develop a set of analytical perspectives for making judgments when such issues arise.