Sustainability involves understanding the interconnections and dynamics of social, environmental, and economic systems over time and the complexities this brings.  Structured in three parts, the course takes participants through formulating, implementing, and assessing a sustainable strategy in the international context.

This course highlights that strategic management has deep roots in economic models, where economic success and financial health are critical to the success of the firm. However, this course also highlights that sustainability issues are challenging traditional business model approaches, and sustainability issues and challenges can influence the financial success and viability of firms. Sustainability issues provide both risks and opportunities for businesses by profoundly shaping the operating environment of businesses, both now and in the future.

The aim of this course is to enable participants to gain an understanding of integrating sustainability into the strategy formulation and evaluation process. Participants will be introduced to a number of frameworks which enable the assessment of sustainability at the macro-environmental, industry, and firm levels. This course aims to:

1. Create sustainable and responsible mindsets.
2. Enable an understanding of the interaction between social, economic, and environmental issues in dynamic and complex situations.
3. Foster a critical understanding of strategies and approaches to sustainability in the international context.
4. Develop an understanding of global, national, and local forces driving organisational behaviour and how these are incorporated into strategic decision-making and strategy implementation.

Attendance is a firm requirement of this course as many of the learning experiences take place during class and through interactions with peers. The attendance requirement is met if students are present for at least 80% of the scheduled sessions. Students who fail to meet the attendance requirement are de-registered from the course. Missing sessions will affect class participation credits and may also affect other graded components realized during class. In the exceptional case that you cannot attend a session due important reasons ( e.g., sick leave), you should provide proof of this.

Components of Learning

Through the different learning blocks throughout the course, you will study different theories, concepts, and approaches. You will be given various opportunities to apply these in practical settings- both in-class exercises and the course assessment. We will be using different learning activities which will include innovative approaches using video podcasts, storytelling and blogs.

Part 1: Foundations of Sustainable Strategic Management 

• Sustainability mind-sets 
• the roles and responsibilities of sustainable leaders 

Part 2: Formulating Sustainable Strategic Management 

• Sustainability trends- understanding complexity
• Understanding stakeholder expectations
• Sustainability and the resource-based view

Part 3: Implementing and Evaluating Sustainable Strategic Management 

• Implementing Sustainability Strategies
• Evaluating Sustainability Strategies 

Assessment

Assignment 1 (30%): Blog: Leadership and sustainability mindset.

Assignment 2 (30%): Group Video Podcast: Evaluating strategy.

Assignment 3 (30%): Individual Report: Formulating a strategy.

Class Participation 10%.

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I expect that some of you will use AI (ChatGPT and similar tools) in the your studies and potentially also for assignments. There is, per se, nothing bad about that. You will need to learn how to use AI, that is, AI usage is an emerging skill. We will not focus on how to use AI in this class but I would like to highlight a couple of key points:

Be aware of the limits of AI!

• Your prompts and their quality will drive the quality of the output. You will need to refine your prompts in order to get good outcomes.
• Don’t trust anything that the tool is writing. If it gives you some numbers or facts, you should assume that it is wrong unless you can either fact check with other sources, or unless you can be sure that you know that the information is correct. Ultimately, you will be responsible for errors or any other types of limitations that the tool produces.
• AI is a tool and you need to acknowledge the use of it. Please include a paragraph at the end of any assignment that explains if and how you have used AI and what prompts you have used. Failure to do so is violates your pledge of academic honesty and can have serious consequences.
• Note that the use of AI tools can be detected by WU plagiarism software, which I may activate for every assignment. In case that there is indication for undue AI usage, first, an audit interview with the student will be scheduled. Follow-up consequences will be determined afterwards.
• In this context, please note also the official WU guidelines on plagiarism: https://www.wu.ac.at/en/students/my-program/masters-student-guide/course-and-exam-information/plagiarism/"