OLS 520: Comparative Perspectives on Business & Society
Fall Semester, 2013
Professor:
Spencer L. Cowles, Ph.D.
Professor of Business
Office Phone:
E-mail:
Office Hours:
Office Location:
Texts:
432-4153
cowless@emu.edu
Prior to class or by appointment
Department of Business & Economics
Campus Center, Room#206d
Kidder, R. (2009). How Good People Make Tough Choices.
New York: Quill
Pomfret, R. (2011). The Age of Equality
Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press
The following cases and readings from Harvard Business School, and
other readings, will be distributed in class. The cost of $75.00 will be
charged to your EMU account.
Accounting Fraud at WorldCom
Ghana: National Economic Strategy
Japan: The Miracle Years
Karl Marx: The Manifesto; Alienated Labor; Private Property
Karl Marx and Scientific Socialism
Kathryn McNeil (A)
Leadership–Warts and All
Martha McCaskey
Premier, Inc. (A)
The 2007-2008 Financial Crisis
The Challenge of Global Capitalism: A Christian Perspective
The Economic Gains from Trade: Comparative Advantage
The Economic Problem/The Premarket Economy
The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism
The Normative Foundations of Business
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
The Wonderful World of Adam Smith
What’s a Business For?
1
MBA 600 Syllabus 2012
Course Description
Comparative Perspectives on Business & Society is designed to engage you in the development
of a comprehensive understanding of the role of business in society. The course is offered out of
the conviction that business is an institution that is critical to the common good and that those
who engage in it effectively are persons who have thought deeply about the purpose of business
in society and about their own roles within the business world.
We cannot accurately analyze the role of business in society without first understanding the
economic context within which it operates and so this will be our starting point. We will examine
our existing free market system: What it is, how it evolved, and its connection with the ongoing
global financial crisis. We will also examine alternative economic systems, many of which have
either failed or appear to be in the process of failing. We will discuss why these have failed and
why the free market system has, in the last two decades, become the single compelling economic
model worldwide.
We will also examine business from the point of view of its various stakeholders or
constituencies, their conflicting interests, and the extent to which business and the free market
economic system do or do not meet these interests. This will lead us to ask the question: Why
does business exist? What is its purpose? What is the purpose of the business or organization that
each of us works for? Does business and the free market economic system foster economic
justice or subvert it?
And finally, we will ask what implications this analysis has for the way we manage. What ethical
commitments and values should we bring into the workplace? The implications of this discussion
are most definitely felt in the daily experience of our work. Issues such as management style,
employee involvement, marketing, product development, ownership, and profit objectives are all
profoundly affected by one’s views of what role business plays in society.
Course Schedule
Section I: The Environment of Business in the 21st Century
2
Aug. 29
Social, Economic, Legal, and Competitive Forces that Shape Business
Course Introduction & Overview
Discussion of the major forces that affect business
Four Views of Free Market Capitalism
Sept. 5
The Purpose of Business: Its Stakeholders and their Claims
Reading due:
“What’s a Business For?”
“The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”
MBA 600 Syllabus 2012
Section II: The Evolution of the Global Free Market Economic System
Sept. 12
A Brief Economic History–I: The Economic Problem/The
Premarket Economy
Reading due:
“The Economic Problem” and “The Premarket Economy”
The Age of Equality (Preface & Introduction)
Discussion of written assignments & expectations
Sept. 19
A Brief Economic History–II: Adam Smith and the Emergence of Market
Economics
Guest Speaker: Chris Gingrich, Ph.D.
Professor of Business & Economics
Eastern Mennonite University
Reading due:
“The Wonderful World of Adam Smith”
“The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism”
The Age of Equality (Ch#1,2)
Sept. 26
A Brief Economic History–III: The (Re)Turn to the Market
Reading due:
The Age of Equality (Ch#4,6,7)
Oct. 3
The Global Economic System & The Growth of Financial Risk
Reading due:
“The Economic Gains from Trade: Comparative Advantage”
The Age of Equality (Ch#6, pp.140-146; 9)
“The 2007-2008 Financial Crisis”
Section III: Assessing the Global Free Market Economic System
3
Oct. 10
Christian Perspectives on the Economic/Social Contract
Reading due:
From the Old Testament, Leviticus 25:8-34
“The Challenge of Global Capitalism: A Christian Perspective”
Essay #1 due
Oct. 17
Varieties of Capitalism: The East Asian Economic/Social Contract
Reading due:
The Age of Equality (Ch#8, pp.173-177)
“Japan: The Miracle Years”
MBA 600 Syllabus 2012
Oct. 24
The Marxist Critique of Capitalism
Guest Speaker: Bill Hawk, Ph.D.
Department of Philosophy & Religion
James Madison University
Reading due:
Selected writings of Karl Marx
Karl Marx and Scientific Socialism
The Age of Equality (Ch#3)
Oct. 31
Some Underlying Assumptions of Free Market Economics
Reading due:
“The Normative Foundations of Business”
Nov. 7
Poverty, Development, and the Growth Illusion
Reading due:
The Age of Equality (Ch#5,8 pp.179-184)
“Ghana: National Economic Strategy”
Section IV: Trust: The Core Value of the Free Market System
4
Nov. 14
The Employee and Ethical Dilemmas
Reading due:
How Good People Make Tough Choices (Ch#1,3)
“Martha McCaskey” case study
Essay #2 due
Nov. 21
The Manager and Ethical Dilemmas
Reading due:
How Good People Make Tough Choices (Ch#5,6,8–pp.175-186)
“Kathryn McNeil (A)” case study
Nov. 28
No Class: Thanksgiving Day
Dec. 5
The Organization and Ethical Dilemmas
Reading due:
How Good People Make Tough Choices (Ch#4)
“Accounting Fraud at WorldCom” case study
“Leadership–Warts and All”
Dec. 12
Ethical Dilemmas and the Three Resolution Principles
Reading due:
How Good People Make Tough Choices (Ch#7)
“Premier, Inc. (A)” case study
Essay #3 due
MBA 600 Syllabus 2012
Course Projects & Assignments
This course involves a considerable amount of reading, written work, and class discussion. These
are offered out of the conviction that through exposure to the views of others–including the
authors we will read, members of the class, guest speakers and the instructor–and through
laboring to develop and express one’s own views in both a verbal and a written format, that you
will be aided in the development of your own views.
Class discussion and analysis, in order to be successful, requires extensive participation by the
student since the instructor's role is not to lecture, but rather to guide the class discussion through
rigorous analysis of the assigned reading material. Therefore, class attendance, preparation and
involvement will be an important part of your grade for the course.
Written work will include three 5 to 6 page essays on an assigned topic. Guidelines for writing
the essays will be distributed in class. There will also be a weekly electronic discussion board to
which members of the class will post reactions, thoughts, and questions related to the reading for
that week. The suggested length for these postings is 200 words. There will be no discussion
board for those classes at which an essay is due.
Student Evaluation
Description
% of Final Grade
Class preparation & participation
15%
Participation in electronic discussion board
25%
Essays & other short writing assignments
.
60%
Grading Scale
95 -100
90 - 94
87 - 89
84 - 86
80 - 83
A
AB+
B
B-
77 - 79
74 - 76
70 - 73
Below 70
C+
C
CF
Academic Integrity
Academic Integrity Policy (AIP): EMU faculty and staff care about the integrity of their own
work and the work of their students. They create assignments that promote interpretative
thinking and work intentionally with students during the learning process. Honesty, trust,
fairness, respect, and responsibility are characteristics of a community that is active in loving
5
MBA 600 Syllabus 2012
mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly before God. EMU defines plagiarism as occurring
when a person presents as one’s own someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not
common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source. (Adapted from the Council of
Writing Program Administrators). [Taken from “Academic Integrity,” 2011-12 Undergraduate
Catalog.] This course will apply EMU’s AIP (see catalog, pp. 16-19) to any events of academic
dishonesty. When there is evidence of cheating or plagiarism, the student will receive a “0”
grade for the assignment and may receive an "F" for the class
Writing Tutors
Please take advantage of the free individual tutoring from our writing tutors. Writing tutors are
strong writers who hold scheduled one-on-one sessions with students and are an excellent
resource for writers at any level or at any stage in the writing process. Please remember that
writing tutors do not provide an editing or proofreading service. They will help you put what you
learn into practice and will work with you to improve your own proofreading and editing skills.
To make an appointment, please access WCOnline through myEMU.
Cell phones, mp3 players, and other personal electronic devices
Turn these off and put them away prior to the beginning of class, please.
6
MBA 600 Syllabus 2012