21832 Managing for Sustainability

Subject level: Postgraduate

Handbook description

This subject provides a framework for incorporating corporate social responsibility and sustainability into business strategies and practices. It provides an opportunity to systematically understand business-environment and business-society relationships and integrate concepts and techniques from disciplines ranging from operations management to sociology. It provides a unique set of skills for future managers to transform sustainability challenges into business opportunities.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Identify contributing factors to the sustainability problems faced by society and the planet
2. Analyse the key elements of human and environmental sustainability which have implications for organisational decision-makers, including corporate managers
3. Recognise the cultural and strategic challenges faced by organisations in adopting sustainability strategies and practices in relation to stakeholders
4. Evaluate the relationship between environmental and social risk and corporate performance
5. Apply key concepts and techniques of voluntary reporting, management and certification systems that could progress organisations towards social and environmental sustainability
6. Critically analyse the implications of organisational decision-making for sustainability outcomes
7. Critically compare stakeholder theory and practice with other perspectives on the management of organisations.

Contribution to graduate profile

Understanding stakeholder relationships for sustainability is fundamental to the development of lasting, high-performance organisations in the rapidly changing business, ecological and social environment of today. Managing for Sustainability provides participants with the skills, concepts and systematic body of knowledge required to incorporate sustainability issues into organisational strategies and practices. The subject develops students' ability to critically assess their existing frames of reference when it comes to analysing organisational sustainability. It aims to develop the necessary skills in stakeholder dialogue and management for participants to work in an innovative fashion towards making organisations more sustainable, while sustaining the natural environment and society. The subject integrates concepts and techniques from disciplinary areas ranging from operations and human resource management to the sociology of risk, emphasising their practical application in the workplace through the use of case studies, role plays, stakeholder dialogue activities, scenario planning and video analysis.

Teaching and learning strategies

Classes will involve a combination of lectures, video analysis, role-plays, case studies, scenario modelling, stakeholder dialogue and simulation exercises. The UTS web-based communication tool (UTS Online) will be used to share information and encourage interaction between staff and students.

Content

• Concepts of sustainability
• Overview of sustainable organisations
• Globalisation and sustainability
• Values and paradigms: framing risk
• Evaluating and managing risk
• Relationships between human and ecological organisational sustainability
• The quadruple and triple bottom lines
• Efficiency and sustainability
• Strategic sustainability
• Organisational identity and image
• Stakeholder relations, reflexivity and adaptive management
• Critical analysis: stakeholder management theory and practice
• Course overview.

Assessment

Recommended text(s)

Book of Readings

Indicative references

Alsop, R. (2001) 'Career Journal: Corporations Still Put Profits First, But Social Concerns Gain Ground, The Wall Street Journal, 30 October B12.

Beck, U., (2000), The Brave New World of Work, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Bendell, J, (2002) Lifeworth Annual Review of Corporate Responsibility at http://www.futureconsiderations.com/lw2002/ accessed 15 July 2003.

Carbon Disclosure Project, http://cdproject.net accessed 24 April 2003.

Dunphy, D. Griffiths, A. and Benn, S., (2003) ,Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability, Routledge, London.

Ehrenfeld, J. (2000), 'Industrial Ecology' American Behavioral Scientist, Vol 44 Issue 2, pp. 229-245.

Hubbard, G., Samuel, D., Heap, S. and Cocks, G., (2002), The First XI: Winning Organizations in Australia, Wrightbooks, Milton, Qld.

Jenkins, B. 'Organization for Sustainability', (2002), Australian Journal of Environmental Management, Vol 9, pp. 243- 251

Mol, A. and Sonnenfeld, D. (eds). (2000), Ecological Modernisation Around the World: Perspectives and Critical Debates, Frank Cass, London.

Newton ,T. ' Creating the New Ecological Order? Elias and Actor-Network Theory' (2002), Academy of Management Review, Vol 27, 2002, pp. 523-53

Post, J. Preston, L. and Sachs, S. (2002) , ' Managing the Extended Enterprise: The New Stakeholder View' California Management Review, Vol 45, Issue 1, pp. 6-29.

Wilkinson, A., Hill, M. and Gollan, P., (2001), 'The sustainability debate', International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 21, No 12, pp. 1492-1502.

Zuboff, Shoshana and Maxmin, James, (2002), The Support Economy: Why Corporations are Failing Individuals and the Next Decade of Capitalism, Viking, New York.