Handbook

This course provides an overview of the evolution of business organisations and the political economy of capitalism, focusing on the interplay among large corporations, governments, investors, consumers, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as they intersect with the climate, environment, and civil society. You will focus on large multi-national corporations and on emerging alternative forms of business organisation, such as social enterprises, cooperatives, and B corporations. You will examine the purpose of the contemporary corporation and issues of how society should best assess business performance and how alternative models of corporate governance offer pathways to better account for and acknowledge environmental and social concerns. You will review the main sustainability reporting frameworks and examine how effective they are in transforming corporations and other organisations into more ethical, environmentally sustainable, and socially just ways of operating. You will consider contributions of capitalism and for-profit multinational corporations to climate crisis and other environmental and social challenges and query whether the existing neoliberal paradigm is best placed to respond to and address such anthropogenic disruptions. In examining the role of state regulation, civil society, and more local democratic options, you will also consider the effectiveness of historic and more recent major political, social, and protest movements on government policy and corporate actions.