Enrollment for the Seminar "Managing and Organizing for Sustainability"

Students can now enroll for the seminar "Managing and Organizing for Sustainability" via OPAL. This advanced-level seminar introduces students to organizational perspectives on sustainability. Seen as the grandest societal challenge of our age, sustainability is a key strategic concern for organizations. Established organizations, however, often translate climate change into “business as usual” and approach it with traditional practices and metrics. As a result, many firms struggle to find viable ways of integrating sustainability and market strategies, as well as handle the ensuing goal conflicts and tensions. At the same time, we observe new hybrid forms of organizing that strive to bridge the logics of markets and sustainability from the get-go. On a broader level, sustainability poses the question of how to organize sustainable transformation on a societal level. This seminar will familiarize students with cutting-edge research on organizations and sustainability. Thereby it will critically examine dominant management models and organizational practices that have emerged as barriers to sustainability, including economic short-termism, strategic myopia, and corporate irresponsibility. On a more positive note, the seminar will also examine how (new forms of) organizing can have a positive impact on sustainability. Overall, the seminar seeks to convey to students how to think about organizations as embedded in and interconnected with larger social and ecological systems. This seminar is built upon the premise that management students should learn to combine state-of-the-art scientific knowledge with practical applications and reflections. Instead of regarding the student as a passive memorizer of predefined knowledge, participants will reflect upon theories and become active inquirers themselves.

Enroll here: Enrollment