1. Renewal of the commitment to PRME, signed by the highest executive of
the organization;
Leonard Cheng, Dean of HKUST Business School, is still fully committed to
PRME as previously signed, and has electronically approved this information
sharing update.
2. Major Achievements in relation to the implementation of one or more
Principles during the last 18 months
2.1 Principle 1
Purpose: We will develop the capabilities of students to be future
generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to
work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.
The HKUST Business School is committed to a vision of transformation through the
co-development of knowledge and accountability. As a School uniquely placed in an
East-meets-West environment,
Our vision for the Postgraduate program is to:
Advance the frontiers of global business knowledge within a China context
Develop responsible business leaders in Asia for the entire world
Contribute to the social and economic transformation of the region
Our Goals and Objectives for the UG Program are:
By graduation, business students are expected to achieve the following 9
learning outcomes:
1. Graduates will be critical and creative thinkers who make effective decisions
supported by analytical and quantitative techniques.
2. Graduates will be effective communicators in oral and written English and
Chinese for general business applications.
3. Graduates will have broad understanding of the core business functions and
integrate these functions to solve business problems.
4. Graduates will have in-depth grasp of their area of business concentration or
5.
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major.
Graduates will be effective team members and leaders.
Graduates will be effective in multi-cultural and international settings.
Graduates will be effective users of information technology and sources of
information in business applications.
Graduates will understand their professional and ethical responsibility.
Graduates will be life-long learners who have an inquiring mind characterized
by a love for learning, curiosity, a critical spirit and self-monitoring of their own
learning.
Currently, all business undergraduates need to complete a compulsory 2-credit
ethics course in their 1st year of study, namely Business Ethics and Individual. The
course focuses on issues and cases on interactions between business, society,
and the individual. It addresses potential conflict areas in various disciplines, and
shows how competing goals of various stakeholders may be resolved. The
HKUST wants all graduates to have:

Respect for others and high standards of personal integrity;

Compassion and a readiness to contribute to the community;
The HKUST Business School wants graduates to understand their professional
and ethical responsibility. The intended Learning Outcomes of the course,
Business Ethics and Individual, have therefore been aligned with the ethical goals
of the Department and the University. Thus, upon completion of this course,
students will understand their professional and ethical responsibility.
A pilot 2-credit course on “Responsible Leadership and Ethics” was offered to the
full-time MBA students in Spring 2010. Starting from 2011, all MBA students need
to complete a compulsory 2-credit course on “Responsible Leadership and
Ethics”.
HKUST EMBA for Chinese executive offers “Legal Environment and Corporate
Responsibility for Business” course.
A new elective course “Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philanthropy” will be
offered to both undergraduates and post-graduates in Spring 2013. The course
aim is to develop student skills in identifying and evaluating exiting HK for-profit
or non-profit enterprises with a social mission that are suitable for a venture
philanthropy investment.
Learning Outcomes:

Understanding of Social Entrepreneurship and Venture philanthropy as
innovative methods of creating social impact by applying business processes
and practices;

Knowledge and understanding of how to define, address and solve social
issues by using business and investment skills;

Ability to conduct market research and networking to source potential deals
and investment opportunities;

Ability to conduct non-profit organizational due diligence and analyze an
organization against a set of business, social and other related objectives;

Ability to research, write and present a professional, credible and convincing
investment pitch;

Ability to evaluate an investment’s success against predetermined criteria
using various evaluation tools (Note: this outcome will only be possible from
Year 2 of the elective);

Ability to structure, plan and implement funding projects, working with a
variety of stakeholders (from investors to company officers);

Ability to work in a culturally diverse team with cross-functional skills;

Ability to develop leadership and creative approaches in an innovative
business/finance sector.
HKUST Business School also offer undergraduate students the option of taking
any of three elective credit bearing courses in Social Service Learning (social
responsibility, social service learning and social enterprise internship) Programs.
The programs aim to create responsible business leaders who contribute to the
design of sustainable and inclusive markets by providing a framework for
understanding the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Service Learning Program: The service learning helps in serving others,
especially offering resources to meet the needs of the Hong Kong Community
and beyond. Acting to fulfill our vision of responding to the need of the society,
students are able to connect classroom theory with practical experience in the
community. Service learning allows students to use service to make a difference
in their communities and in their lives as well. Each semester students can
choose from a variety of service learning-based courses across a wide range of
disciplines at the university. At the end of these courses, students will be able to
work in teams with a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) on a project that
applies concepts, knowledge, skills and methodologies learned from business
courses to specific, real-world business problems and issue
Learning objectives:
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Graduates can analyze basic organizational and NGO issues from both
internal and external perspectives
Graduates can give and receive feedback on project performance from
peers and project supervisors
Graduates can participate interactively and responsibly in team discussions
and decision-making
Graduates can present essential findings in both written and oral form to a
variety of stakeholders in the project
Department of Management is also offering an elective course namely Business
Ethics and Policy. It is a four-credit course in one semester which addresses
problems and challenges in managing businesses ethically. The course also
introduces social responsibility, ethics of consumer production and marketing,
gender and race, pollution, health and safety, information and communication,
politics, trans-national considerations and ethical policy.
Principle 2: Values
We will incorporate into our academic activities and curricula the values of
global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as
the United Nations Global Compact.
HKUST has set expectation on the attributes of our education, and each of the
School is offering a comprehensive curriculum in the observance of the
University’s guidelines:
Academic excellence
An in-depth grasp of at least one area of specialist or professional study, based
on a forward-looking and inquiry-driven curriculum.
Broad-based education
Intellectual breadth, flexibility, and curiosity, including an understanding of the
role of rational, balanced inquiry and discussion, and a grasp of basic values
across the disciplines of science, social science, engineering and the humanities.
Competency and capacity building
High-end, transferable competencies, including analytical, critical, quantitative
and communications skills.
Leadership and Teamwork
A capacity for leadership and teamwork, including the ability to motivate others,
to be responsible and reliable, and to give and take direction and constructive
criticism.
International Outlook
An international outlook, and an appreciation of cultural diversity.
Vision and an orientation to the future
Adaptability and flexibility, a passion for learning, and the ability to develop clear,
forward-looking goals, and self-direction and self-discipline.
Ethical standards and compassion
Respect for others, high standards of integrity, compassion, and a readiness to
contribute to the community.
2.2 Principle 3: Method
We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and
environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible
Leadership.
The Business Ethics Task Force (established in July 2010) aims to improve
student objectives and outcomes with the business ethics courses; devise
strategies to make the business ethics courses complement to the student-led
societies; explore possible ways to facilitate the implementation of the business
ethics course and construct the management structure of the business ethics
course.
2.3 Principle 4: Research
We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our
understanding about the role, dynamics, and impact of corporations in the
creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.
Mr. Pak To Chan in Department of Finance, HKUST cooperated with Prof. Terry
Walter from University Technology Sydney. They have done some work on the
economic value of Green investments and environmentally-friendly firms. Their
empirical paper will be submitted to a finance journal for publication.
Prof. Entela Benz in Department of Finance, HKUST is interested in the Impact
Investment Measurement and Investment Sustainability. The last two years, Prof.
Entela Benz has carried out some quantitative and qualitative analysis on
different projects, ranging from Charities to Venture Philanthropy Investment.
For example, impact measurement of a very successful charity in the Philippines.
The objective of research is to measure not just change in the community, but
also a statistically meaningful impact in the absence of any other community
development not related to the charity work. The work is three dimensional, as it
measures values, Health and Livelihood. Prof. Entela Benz and her team are
also looking at redefining a more comprehensive Poverty Score for that purpose.
Next step is to analyze the factors that lead to the household income increase,
such as demographics, education, household size etc.
In addition, Prof. Entela Benz is also advising and consulting a HK social
enterprise that directs venture philanthropic capital into social businesses that
are likely to have positive social change. More specifically, she has complied a
comprehensive score card to screen, rate, monitor and progressively improve
the various projects they invest into. The score card aims at measuring the social
and environmental impact in addition to the economic value of the business. For
one of the business, Prof. Entela Benz and her team have developed a filtering
card that enables the firm to hire the most promising candidates, i.e., the ones
that are less likely to relapse into drugs. They also come up with surveys that
measure life and work satisfaction.
2.4. Principle 5: Partnership and Dialogue
We will interact with managers of business corporations to extend our
knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental
responsibilities and to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting
these challenges.
For each undergraduate and postgraduate course, we invite different guest
speakers from companies to give our students more deep views and practical
examples. The students are also required to apply what they leaned inside class
to the real world business in course projects.
In Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philanthropy course, industry experts
came in to give 4 seminars/workshops covered topics in:

Social Enterprise/organizations: Building and managing non-profits and
organizations focused on social development

Venture Philanthropy: Context, aims, key developments & how it works

Venture Philanthropy: How do to it (process, mechanics), case studies,
building and measure social impact

Private Equity: Conducting due diligence

Venture Capital: Structuring funding and deliverables
There also are mentors from business corporations to provide support for the
real life study and case projects (such as Market Sector Research Report, Due
Diligence Report, Investment Proposal, Implementation Plan, and End-of-project
Evaluation Report):

1-2 mentors from Hong Kong Family Foundations involved in Venture
Philanthropy;

1-2 mentors drawn from the HK social entrepreneurship community e.g. SOW
Asia, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, Social Ventures Hong Kong,
Avantage Ventures;

1-2 mentors drawn from SVPI network or senior members/contributors
[Social Venture Partners International (SVPI) provided support to this elective
and shared their best practice methodology and templates for evaluation, due
diligence, criteria setting, measurement etc.)
Prof. Entela Benz in Department of Finance, HKUST let her postgraduate and
undergraduate students involved in her research projects. For example, one of
the undergraduate students is in regular contact with the project manager, the full
time workers as well as the work candidates that come from drug rehabilitations
centers, has increased his understanding of the challenges of the social business
face daily and the need for sustainability.
Principle 6: Dialogue
We will facilitate and support dialogue and debate among educators,
business, government, consumers, media, civil society organizations and
other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to
global social responsibility and sustainability.
In March, 2013, Prof. Mark Mihorean in Department of Management, HKUST
organized a mini-conference on Teaching Business Ethics. A group of Instructors
who teach related Business Ethics courses from the local universities came
together and shared their insights and ideas about teaching Business Ethics
courses.
3. Key objectives for the next 18-month period with regard to the
implementation of the Principles
The university education moved forward from 3-year undergraduate program to
4-year programs in 2012, HKUST Business School is taking this once in a life
time opportunity to revamp the Business and Ethics education by increasing the
current one-credit compulsory course under the 3-year curriculum to two 2-credit
compulsory courses under the 4-year curriculum. Starting from the Fall of 2012,
students under the 4-year curriculum take the first 2-credit business ethics course
in their first year of study. And students will complete the second, senior level
2-credit course in their third year of study, namely, Business Ethics and Social
Responsibility, will offer to our students in the coming year.
4. Desired support (meetings, tools, best example, implementation
guidelines…) from the PRME community which could help most in
achieving your objectives for the next 18 months.
Provide potential international Service Learning programs for HKUST students to
participate and contribute.
5. Sustainability on campus
HKUST School of Business and Management’s educational programs targeted at
“Responsible Management” will be sustained by the commitments from all
members in the Business School as well as the University through our formal
curriculum.