Ethics and Governance

The module provides students with a knowledge and understanding of: the nature, complexity and importance of ethical considerations in corporate decision making, moral reasoning and approaches to resolving ethical dilemmas. The module initially focuses on enabling students to have an awareness of their own ethical stances and value systems, and it then moves to provide a broad grounding in ethical principles and ethical applications. The module adopts an applied focus on ethical business practice, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility, in local, national and globalised contexts.

1. Examine the importance of ethical contexts, inheritances, frameworks and legacies personal and historic.

2. Apply conceptual reasoning to an analysis and critical evaluation of the relationship between corporations and society and to ethical issues arising in a corporate context.

3. Critically analyse the forces shaping corporate behaviour and governance in a variety of organisational contexts.

4. Assess the business practices, governance, and/or corporate social responsibility policies of diverse business organisations.

5. Evaluate a selection of current issues, practices and future directions in corporate ethics and governance.

6. Apply and integrate perspectives of the evolving corporate ethical environment in Ireland.