Business Ethics and Governance
How organizations decide well and are held to account in the United States: ethics, law and the expected cost of misconduct, ethical theories for managers, moral psychology and speaking up, stakeholders, CSR, corporate purpose and benefit corporations, boards and independence under exchange listing standards, controlling stockholders, dual-class shares and the choice of state of incorporation, executive pay, pay ratios, say on pay and clawbacks, ESG, materiality and emissions with California's climate disclosure laws and the ESG debate, compliance programs and corporate liability, fraud and the FCPA, whistleblowing and the SEC reward program, ethics of data and AI, and human rights due diligence and tribal consultation, ending in a governance and ethics review.
BUS-310 Year 3 3 credits 12 lessons · 5 h 16 min
Offered by HSM University · Business Foundations
This is the American version of this course. See the Canadian version.
What you'll learn
- Distinguish ethics from law, morality and custom, analyze ethical problems at the individual, organizational and systemic levels, and estimate the expected cost of misconduct.
- Apply consequentialist, duty, rights, justice, virtue, care, relational and contractualist lenses to business decisions and identify where they converge and conflict.
- Explain why good people do wrong at work using Rest's model, moral intensity, ethical fading, moral disengagement and goal pressure, and use structured tools to decide and speak up.
- Evaluate shareholder primacy and stakeholder theory, map stakeholder salience, and assess corporate social responsibility, corporate purpose and hybrid corporate forms.
- Assess board composition, independence, committees, leadership and skills under US exchange listing standards and SEC rules, and analyze the risks of controlling stockholders, dual-class shares and the choice of state of incorporation.
- Analyze executive pay design, calculate incentive payouts and pay ratios, and evaluate say on pay, clawbacks, majority voting and other shareholder rights.
- Explain ESG integration and materiality, calculate Scope 1 and 2 emissions, compare sustainability reporting standards and their status, and critically evaluate ESG ratings and the ESG debate.
- Design and evaluate compliance and ethics programs, including risk assessment, codes of conduct, conflicts of interest, training, investigations and measures of effectiveness.
- Explain why fraud and corruption occur, apply red-flag and data analytics techniques, and compare the FCPA with foreign anti-bribery laws and Sarbanes-Oxley certification and internal control rules.
- Evaluate the ethics of whistleblowing, design speak-up systems, and explain legal protections and reward programs for whistleblowers.
- Apply data ethics, fairness testing and AI governance frameworks to technology decisions, and describe the board's oversight role.
- Apply the UN Guiding Principles and human rights due diligence, explain business obligations regarding Indigenous peoples, and conduct a prioritized governance and ethics review of a company.
Course content
12 lessons · 5 h 16 min total · final exam
- 1 Why business ethics matters 26 min · quiz
- 2 Ethical theories for managers 29 min · quiz
- 3 Ethical decision making and moral psychology at work 26 min · quiz
- 4 Stakeholders, corporate social responsibility and the purpose of the corporation 26 min · quiz
- 5 Corporate governance structures and boards 25 min · quiz
- 6 Executive compensation and shareholder rights 25 min · quiz
- 7 ESG, sustainability reporting and accountability 28 min · quiz
- 8 Compliance, codes and ethics programs 25 min · quiz
- 9 Fraud, corruption and financial misconduct 25 min · quiz
- 10 Whistleblowing and speaking up 27 min · quiz
- 11 Ethics in technology, data and artificial intelligence 26 min · quiz
- 12 Global business, human rights and Indigenous relations, and capstone: a governance and ethics review 28 min · quiz
- E Final exam 20 questions
Requirements
Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.
Description
How organizations decide well and are held to account in the United States: ethics, law and the expected cost of misconduct, ethical theories for managers, moral psychology and speaking up, stakeholders, CSR, corporate purpose and benefit corporations, boards and independence under exchange listing standards, controlling stockholders, dual-class shares and the choice of state of incorporation, executive pay, pay ratios, say on pay and clawbacks, ESG, materiality and emissions with California's climate disclosure laws and the ESG debate, compliance programs and corporate liability, fraud and the FCPA, whistleblowing and the SEC reward program, ethics of data and AI, and human rights due diligence and tribal consultation, ending in a governance and ethics review.
Part of the Business stream, typically taken in year 3.