The world of business has been, is and still will be dominant for moving forward the entire economic system. However, the traditional business influenced by the classical economic postulate of profit maximization is unsustainable from a stakeholder approach. On the other side, charity as an opposite form is just a short-term justification of help, but cannot be consistent in solving social, economic and environmental problems in a global perspective. Therefore, an emergent business paradigm defined as Social Business is coming on the surface as a solution for social causes. First, coined and promoted by the Nobel Laureate Professor Muhamad Yunus, actually is offered also in this course. Because the Social Business, according to its mission and principles, is by default a sustainable business, the present course will consider also research and perspectives of Corporate Sustainability and especially the Triple Bottom Line Approach as well as sustainability reporting. Thus, the course offers a global, comprehensive, and well-formed knowledge infrastructure for understanding the dynamics of social business and social entrepreneurship through sustainability lens.
The main aim of the course is to create a deep awareness among students and practitioners about the social business principles, cases, and best practices with the hope that they become the source of future social innovations and social entrepreneurial activities. Furthermore, the course intends to give the state of the art of sustainable-corporations-related topics under a number of perspectives, which include: economy, finance, measurement and reporting, organizing for sustainability, green products, green buildings and IT. The topics provides good insights to address future research and define a proper research agenda for the coming years.
| Week | Topics |
|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to Social Business: background and theory |
| 2 | Designing the Social business: social business planning |
| 3 | Social Business: Belgian Cases and videos |
| 4 | Social Business: International Cases and videos |
| 5 | What Capitalism Can Learn from Innovation and Social Business? Toward the Social Capitalism (part 1) |
| 6 | What Capitalism Can Learn from Innovation and Social Business? Toward the Social Capitalism (part 2) |
| 7 | Reducing Labor Migration by Increasing Local Employment and Talent Engagement through Social Businesses |
| 8 | Introduction to sustainability |
| 9 | Corporate Sustainability: the triple bottom line |
| 10 | Managing and engaging stakeholders |
| 11 | Managing sustainability risk |
| 12 | Sustainability Reporting |
| 13 | Social business as a sustainable business: Cases and videos |
| 14 | Yunus Social Business in Europe: looking forward |
| Method | Qty | % Each |
|---|---|---|
| Project | 1 | 100 |
Grove, A., Berg, A. G. (2014). Social Business: Theory, Practice, and Critical Perspectives. Berlin: Springer.