These courses focus on using the power of business to create a more inclusive world, with a particular emphasis on the base of the pyramid (BoP) — the four billion people who earn less than $3,000/year.
New business models in health, energy, housing, technology, agriculture and other impact areas offer the tantalizing promise of ‘doing well by doing good.’ Using a carefully crafted set of case studies, simulations, videos, and readings, we will apply these learnings to better understand successful BoP venture development by companies, social entrepreneurs, and non-profit organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Weaving together concepts of strategic management, international business, cross-sector collaboration, and poverty alleviation, a key deliverable of the course is to provide students with the strategies, skills, tools, and processes necessary to develop and lead sustainable, scalable enterprises that deliver positive social impacts to the world’s most impoverished citizens.
Living Business Leadership Experience (LBLE) is a 3.0 credit-hour, full semester, Ross elective course where graduate and upper-level undergraduate students from across the University collaborate to shape, implement, and lead high-impact business initiatives alongside company founders and senior leaders of actual businesses. Whether you’re interested in learning business by doing business, working in a cross-functional team, or navigating complex and ambiguous business environments, this course will give you the chance to develop your leadership skills and dive headfirst into the challenges of real business.
The topic of corporate sustainability remains controversial. Some argue that sustainability is a property of whole systems, such as an ecosystem or the Earth as a whole, not of individual organizations. What, if anything, does it mean to say that a company is sustainable? Academic research on the topic of corporations and sustainability has seen rapid growth since the first Rio Earth Summit. This course will explore that body of knowledge, placing it within the larger context of environmental economics, and the economics of sustainability more broadly. The goals of the course are three-fold: (1) To give students a solid foundation in the economics of the environment and sustainability; (2) to apply economic fundamentals to crucial sustainability issues of climate change and energy policy; and (3) to examine critically the business case for sustainability, and the place of sustainability within corporate strategy.
This course is a series of immersive retreat experiences designed to help you look deep inside yourself to discern your calling, moving away from the simple pursuit of a career for private personal gain and towards a vocation that is based on a higher and more internally derived purpose about leading commerce and serving society. The structure of this program includes two remote retreats for guided self-examination and discernment based on four components: (1) readings, (2) guided lectures and exercises, (3) peer mentoring and feedback, and (4) periods of self-reflection. This course is capped at 40 slots and requires an application to be accepted. It is available to business students in their final year of study
These courses focus on creating frameworks for assessing legal issues in common situations involving human capital. We will discuss practical implications for hiring, firing and giving performance reviews as well as common workplace issues like harassment, discrimination, and privacy. As diversity, equity, and inclusion become increasingly important in the management and development of human capital, that has become a throughline in all workplace interactions. We will discuss how the law both limits and facilitates formal and informal DEI efforts. The goal of this course is to enable you to better evaluate future employment issues, understand your rights as an employee or independent contractor, and be a more effective manager. The course will focus heavily on the application of the law in actual and hypothetical situations. As a result, many of the class discussions will concentrate on course opinions and litigated situations. BL 514 fulfills the MBA Law/Ethics Requirement.
The world faces many large problems such as climate change, environmental degradation, global poverty, and inequality. This has led many people to argue that business should take the lead in addressing these problems and fulfill its corporate social responsibility (CSR). At the same time, business is under increasing pressure from activist shareholders to maximize shareholder value. The primary goal of this course is to prepare you to deal with this challenge as a top executive in private or public organization by giving you an opportunity to explore competing views in depth and to work out your own position on them.
Professor: Ravi Anupindi
Credits: 1.5 | Fall 2024(A)
New business models built around operational efficiency offer tremendous potential to improve people’s health worldwide. This course will examine how innovations in business models, operations, financing and supply chains are allowing far more people to access better quality healthcare. The course draws extensively on real-world case studies and latest research in this field. Class sessions will feature thought leaders from the field of global health delivery and involve lively debates on important topics. Concepts and approaches from strategy, operations, finance, and supply chain management will be used to understand what determines success and failure of businesses that seek to provide healthcare to low income populations.
The Urban Entrepreneurship Practicum (ENTR 490.012)
Professor: David Tarver
Credits: 3 | Fall 2024
How can entrepreneurs apply technological innovation to create sustainable, scalable businesses that improve urban quality of life? This is the question that instructor David Tarver will work to answer in the Urban Entrepreneurship Practicum course (ENTR 490.012). The course is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Students who complete the course receive practicum credit that applies toward entrepreneurship minor degree requirements.
Michigan Online Instructors: Shanna Daly, Kathleen Sienko, Charlie Michaels, Steve Skerlos
No Credit/Five Weeks | Fall 2024
Engineering courses often focus on technical skills and processes, leaving students with few examples of how to apply these skills in the real world. With “Introduction to Socially Engaged Design,” you’ll learn about this essential engineering and design framework, strengthening the connection between your work and its impact on individuals, societies, and the environment.
These courses will cover the concepts, frameworks and strategies through which corporations address important sustainability issues and offer content to prepare students for the cutting-edge issues that are on the horizon. In the first course, we will cover issues like the triple bottom line, sustainability reporting, impact investing, the LOHAS consumer, sustainable operations, sustainable sourcing, and competitive strategy. In the second course, we will cover issues like the circular economy, clean technology, business and poverty, sustainable consumption, system change, and the transformation of capitalism.
This course tackles tough realities that human-dominated ecosystems are subjected to a plethora of physical, chemical, and biological stressors – which in part are related to 1) land uses, 2) societal and political norms, 3) economic constraints, and 4) the sensitivity and resilience of the regional ecosystems. These many stressors intertwine with climate change drivers (flooding, drought, wildfires, higher temperatures) and vary in their extent and magnitude depending on their geographic setting (ecoregion), socio-economic conditions, education, and cultural/historical traditions.In general, increased poverty shifts the importance of managing stressors to basic remedies dealing with sewage, erosion, habitat destruction, flashy and intense runoff and plastic litter. The interactions of physical, chemical and biological stressors must be understood in order to design effective and efficient adaptation management strategies.
Energy justice is one of the central global issues of our time, with profound implications for health and welfare, freedom and security, equity and due process, and technology development and implementation. This course explores the intersection of energy and equity issues related to a variety of domestic and global energy dynamics, to include ways for rectifying persistent unequal distributions of energy resources to ensure reliable, clean, and affordable energy access.
Professors: Barbara McQuade (Law) and Florian Schaub (Information)
Credits: 3 | Fall 2024
While Artificial Intelligence is an incredible tool for human advancement, it can also be used as a weapon to exploit others and cause harm. This class will explore some of the ways that AI can be used to manipulate and deceive users online. We will work to develop ways to detect and counter these abusive tactics through technical solutions, platform policies, legal regulations, and public education.
*While hosted by the Law School, PSI courses are cross-listed as EAS 731, ECON 741, EDUC 717, HS 741, PUBHLTH 741, PUBPOL 710, SI 605, SW 741.
The PSI courses are “professor pick,” which involve an application, selection, and waitlist process for registration. Students may go to the PSI website, select Register Now and submit the form. Questions or concerns? Students can email problemsolving@umich.edu.
Professors: Luis deBaca (Law) and Hardy Vieux (Public Policy)
Credits: 3 | Fall 2024
Recently in the US, children have been found in industrial agriculture, service on late-night custodial crews, roof construction, and food preparation; industries that reduce children to another labor input. Students from varied disciplines will apply design thinking principles to confront this wicked problem facing migrant children, US citizens, and children abroad whose exploitation fuels American consumers and business supply chains.
*While hosted by the Law School, PSI courses are cross-listed as EAS 731, ECON 741, EDUC 717, HS 741, PUBHLTH 741, PUBPOL 710, SI 605, SW 741.
The PSI courses are “professor pick,” which involve an application, selection, and waitlist process for registration. Students may go to the PSI website, select Register Now and submit the form. Questions or concerns? Students can email problemsolving@umich.edu.
