COURSE NUMBER: MBA 292C.1

COURSE TITLE: Strategic and Sustainable Business Solutions

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Robert Strand

E-MAIL ADDRESS: rstrand@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: http://responsiblebusiness.haas.berkeley.edu/students/courses.html

PREREQUISITE(S): None

CLASS FORMAT: Mixture of lecture, cases, student presentations, corporate speakers, and company consulting engagement.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Mixture of all.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

This course offers a survey of the topics of corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the opportunity to practically apply these concepts through live consulting projects with leading corporations and organizations.   Within the classroom, this is fundamentally a discussion-based course where the instructor offers lectures to provoke discussions and debates about the role of business in society, how corporate sustainability and CSR may fit within these conversations, and how corporations are putting these concepts into practice.  Expert practitioners will also come to share their insight and provoke discussions.  Students will also publicly engage in the associated conversations through the publication of Tweets and LinkedIn blog posts.  Outside of the classroom, students will be actively engaged with leading corporations and organizations through live projects in which students assume the role of an external consultant or an internal project manager for sustainability and CSR focused initiatives.  While the corporations and organizations associated with the live consulting projects are always subject to change by semester, previous projects have been sourced with Goldman Sachs, Cisco, Pepsi Co, Kimberly –Clark, Method, Avaya, and Closed Loop Fund.  Projects topics might include, but are not limited to, sustainable supply chain, sustainable consumption, corporate governance for sustainability, sustainable investment, social entrepreneurship, carbon footprint measurement, establishing impact measurements, sustainable branding, communication strategies, stakeholder engagement, sustainability reporting, and public/private partnerships.  Students will bid on the available consulting projects and will work in teams on the projects that will be ultimately presented to the partner corporations and organizations.  Additionally, this course is a Haas applied innovation course. We will leverage Teams@Haas component of the Applied Innovation Experiential curriculum (BILD). 

CAREER FIELD:  “Mainstream” business practitioners (marketers, financiers, operations, accountants, etc) who desire to incorporate social impact considerations within their daily practice; sustainability/CSR practitioners; project managers, consultants

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Dr. Robert Strand is the Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Business at the University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business.  He also maintains formal affiliation with the Copenhagen Business School as Assistant Professor of Leadership & Sustainability.   His research and teaching focuses on the strategic aspects of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) that includes the role of the Chief Sustainability Officer, corporate governance of CSR and sustainability, comparing global approaches to CSR and sustainability with particular focus on U.S. and Scandinavia, and theory of the firm with a focus on ethics of the corporation in society. He is a frequent contributor to popular and academic venues including the Financial Times and the Journal of Business Ethics.  Robert completed a Ph.D. from the Copenhagen Business School focused in CSR, an MBA from the University of Minnesota focused in international business and completed at HEC-Paris, and a B.S. in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin.  He was a U.S. Fulbright scholar to Norway during which time he explored CSR and sustainability across Scandinavia.  Prior to joining academia, Robert spent a decade in industry with IBM and Boston Scientific in a range of roles including manufacturing engineer, supply chain engineer, marketing, strategy, and investor relations.