Professional Responsibility & Leadership

(2 Credits)

Professional Responsibility and Leadership (PRL) is an interdisciplinary course designed to help students: Become more familiar with the variety of ethical dilemmas that can arise in the course of business practice & in one’s personal life; Understand the different values and principles that can inform and guide decision-making in such ambiguous and difficult situations; Gain experience articulating and defending courses of action as future societal & business leaders; and Begin the process of developing professional ethics in harmony with their own personal values. The format of the course is a discussion seminar. Each class session may include a variety of activities, including: discussion, in-class reading and writing, role-playing, and other participatory exercises. These various activities will be designed and facilitated by the instructor to allow students to engage in a reflective dialogue. These discussions draw from three different sources: 1) the students’ own personal experiences and values; 2) expert insights drawn from a variety of academic disciplines including philosophy, literature, history, and art, as well as the natural and social sciences; and 3) relevant business cases. In each class session, students consider a set of expert accounts identified by the instructor as starting points for discussion, and then they integrate their experiences with business cases that have personal relevance for them. The overarching themes of this dialogue include: 1) the relationship between business and society on a global, national and local basis; 2) the foundations of personal and professional business ethics; and 3) the exercise of leadership in organizations. These themes are developed in reference to a series of cases that have been either drawn from recent news reports on business practice or drafted specifically for this course by NYU Stern faculty. In this way, the PRL classroom is ‘flipped’ – the course focuses primarily on the students’ own interests and refines them both through dialogue and in reference to expert sources. Rather than involving the one-way dispensation of ‘content’ from faculty to student, the course unfolds as a ‘process’ of students and faculty working together in response to open-ended, age-old questions. While there may be no ‘right’ answer to such questions in the way that mathematical problems may be solved, still there are answers that are better or worse for individuals, organizations and societies. In this light, students are encouraged to challenge themselves and each other to make the world a better place, and to discover how they can thrive individually and collectively. Pre-requisits: None. Fulfillment: BUSF Non-Finance; BUSM Non-Marketing elective; IMB Business elective.