Course Offerings
Mendoza College of Business offers various undergraduate and graduate courses at the intersection of business and our duty to society. Each course is subject to different prerequisites, so please visit Class Search for more information.
Undergraduate Course Offerings:
ACCT 30160: Sustainable Accounting, Reporting, and Impact Investing
This course unfolds in two interrelated parts: sustainability accounting and reporting and impact investing. Sustainability accounting and reporting is an emerging field of accounting that provides a framework for developing corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance metrics, assessing their reliability, reporting to external stakeholders, evaluating and compensating managers and executives, and assisting managers in strategic and operational decisions that affect environmental costs and risks. The first half of the course provides a comprehensive overview of existing multidisciplinary knowledge and current practices in standard-setting and corporate sustainability accounting and reporting frameworks, for both mandatory (e.g., SEC and EPA filings) and voluntary disclosures (e.g., free-standing sustainability or integrated reports). Impact Investing is a discipline which seeks to generate social benefits as well as financial returns. Learn how capital markets and investment strategies can deliver societal and environmental impact and generate market returns. From boutique beginnings, impact investing has surged into the mainstream of global money management, capital markets and philanthropy now affecting trillions of dollars of assets under management. The greatest demand is for strategies and products that promote social good while having expected returns competitive with non-impact options. Impact investing also permeates the agendas of policymakers, wealthy and public-spirited individuals, academia, philanthropic foundations and institution asset owners. This part of the course provides a conceptual understanding of impact investing and how it manifests in real-world settings. Toward that end, not only will we review a number of dominant "classical" models in investments across asset classes, but we will also examine and analyze how impact investing exists (or does not exist) within those contexts and how proponents and critics have responded. This course will focus on the real world via case studies, live examples, and guest speakers. Students will organize into groups to discover, research, analyze and present team research projects, some or all of which may be published.
FIN 40470: Corporate Governance and Catholic Social Teaching
In this course, we will critically consider, in light of Catholic Social Teaching, three normative questions regarding the purpose, priorities, and practices of corporations. First, what does the dignity of the human person, as made in the image and likeness of God, mean for people working in business? Second, what do businesses owe to their own workers and the society writ-large, and how do we foster solidarity among those working in business? Third, how can businesses promote authentic human flourishing and integral human development? To answer these questions, we explore certain foundational concepts of Catholic Social Teaching - the dignity of the human person, solidarity and subsidiarity, the virtues of charity and justice, and the common good - and ask how these concepts can be integrated into business practices and corporate governance. To accomplish this end, student wills engage in a close reading of selections from central papal encyclicals on the "social question," including Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Laborem Exercens, Centesimus Annus, Caritas in Veritate, and Laudato Si', as well as contemporary scholarship in business ethics that discusses different models of corporate governance.
MGTO 30515: Social Entreprenuership
Social Entrepreneurship has sparked dialogue and debate for two decades. Its very definition is much debated, as well as its capacity to create sustainable, scalable, systems-changing impact. This course explores the theoretical concepts, practices and strategies associated with the dynamic discipline of social enterprise and innovation. For our purposes, social entrepreneurship is the landscape, of which paradigm-shifting solutions like microfinance, MSME (Micro-Small-Medium Enterprise) development, bottom of the pyramid, fair trade, impact investing, and the like, are components. This course will study many of these concepts, focusing on their opportunity for social impact, and as a vehicle for wealth creation in vulnerable and disenfranchised communities across the globe. Further, the course covers examples of various social enterprise models (for-profit, non-profit, hybrid), requiring students to analyze and devise strategies to improve the efficacy of these ventures. Finally, the course engages students in research seeking to advance the field of social entrepreneurship at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Notre Dame.
MGTO 30730: Sustainable Development: Role of Business
In today's interconnected global economy, there is a growing realization that we must restore public trust in business. Integrating environmental, social, and governance issues into corporate management is the overriding purpose of the United Nations Global Compact and its ten principles. This is the heart of the corporate sustainability movement. The objectives of this course are as follows:
1) To introduce the student to the United Nations Global Compact and why its focus on human rights, labor rights, environmental issues, and corruption is so attractive to the many stakeholders of business:
2) To develop the ability to think clearly about how one integrates environmental, social, and governance issues into corporate management:
3) To develop a sensitivity to the moral and ethical values that enable companies to restore public trust in business:
4) To understand how a number of companies are implementing the principles of the Global Compact by examining case studies:
5) To examine and understand the changing role of business in society
MGTO 30715: Sustainable Communities and Global Business
Effective, ethical business leadership in a global context requires the ability to understand and synthesize inputs from a variety of sources, to discern information from multiple, often conflicting perspectives, and to communicate complex data and information clearly and persuasively to diverse stakeholders. Through reading and writing, discussion, and engagement with classmates and outside experts including international faculty, students will examine the intersections of sustainability and global business, with a focus on the role of business decision making and action in the interrelated areas of sustainable environmental and social impact. The topic is more salient than ever, as communities around the globe ask whether the pandemic and related economic crisis will prompt a new vision for society that focuses on justice and sustainability, or will simply continue to exacerbate existing inequities. The course operates from the perspectives that 1) corporate activities should reflect a commitment to sustainable, inclusive growth characterized by meaningful stakeholder engagement, and 2) environmental sustainability challenges reach around the world, and are directly connected to human dignity, well-being, and global prosperity. Through written work and exploration of key concepts, the students will work toward their culminating assignment, a research paper that presents an informed, thoughtful perspective on a specific topic of their choosing within the course theme.
MGTO 30795: Why Business?
What is the role of business in a just and humane society? Many of you are about to dedicate your lives to business, and the rest of you will work, in one way or another, with business. Yet many people believe that business is a morally suspicious activity, a suspicion evident in the common belief that business people need to "give back" to society. Is business an activity for which one must atone? Are people right to be suspicious of business? This course is designed to engage ideas from the Catholic tradition with perspectives drawn from moral philosophy, business, and economics. We will engage issues of faith and normativity both critically and constructively. Students will consider competing positions on faith and normative questions, will reflect on (or discover elements of) their own faith or non-faith, and will describe the extent to which they believe various claims are supported by faith or reason. This course responds to Pope John Paul II's Centesimus Annus (1991) and Pope Francis's Laudato Si (2015), which called on Catholic education to "safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic 'human ecology'" (Centesimus Annus, 38).
Graduate Course Offerings:
MGTO 70705: United Nations Global Compact
In today's interconnected global economy, there is a growing realization that we must restore public trust in business. Integrating environmental, social and governance issues into corporate management is the overriding purpose of the United Nations Global Compact and its ten principles. This is the heart of the corporate sustainability movement and an effective way to restore trust in business. Take one look at the smog that hangs over the former Olympic host city Beijing and it becomes abundantly clear¿globalization and economic expansion come at a price. Resource depletion, worker exploitation, pollution and corruption¿this is the dark underbelly of globalization that has raised alarm bells around the world. Thankfully, more and more individuals and organizations are waking up to the social, environmental and ethical costs of a global marketplace and are making a sound business case for a new era of moral capitalism. Leading the way in this regard is the United Nations with its groundbreaking Global Compact initiative. Launched in 2000, the Global Compact now has more than 10,000 participants¿including 7,000 businesses in 140 countries around the world making it the world's largest voluntary corporate social responsibility project.
MGTO: Ways of Rebuilding Community (WROC) - (South Bend or Chicago)
Ways of Rebuilding Community was designed for students who have both a desire to serve those in need as well as an interest in exploring more deeply the themes of prejudice, poverty, and violence facing many in our local area. Students will meet once weekly in the classroom while also visiting partner communities each week to develop together the impactful business solutions needed to address these challenges so that more people may have the dignity of work.
MGTO 70550: Social Innovation: Business Solutions to Global, Societal, and Environmental Inequities
Social innovation is defined as "a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than current solutions." This course will ground students in the theory and practice of social innovation while also developing skills through field work with South Bend partners on issues related to economic insecurity. The in-class portion of the course will utilize cases, guest speakers, articles, self-assessments, and discussion. For the field work portion, teams of students will (1) examine and strengthen processes within an organization that affect its ability to engage in social innovation and (2) assist in building organizations' capacities to leverage relationships with other entities, particularly businesses, to generate and implement innovative solutions to problems related to economic insecurity. Students will be taught to approach their work through the lens of appreciative inquiry, which is an approach to organizational development that emphasizes discovery of and capitalization upon the strengths of an organization or organizational ecosystem.
MGTO 70710: Sustainable Business: Strategies & Solutions
This course will explore how you can create extraordinary business value through ethical leadership. Previously, ethics has been typically viewed as the right thing to do; however, ethics can also be a strategy that helps business create a competitive advantage. Furthermore, ethics - specifically helping society and the environment - can be a way that you can live out your personal values while also doing good business. The course will be structured such that more than half of the time will be experiential including team-based learning, interviews of leaders in the field, and personal exercises. The primary topics explored in this course will be those related to (a) how human behavior (motivation, creativity, relationships) of key stakeholders is positively influenced when working for/with a sustainable enterprise and (b) how you can become a leader that uses sustainable enterprise strategies to create business value.