The HKUST Business School

The HKUST Business School

Sharing Information on Progress Report (June 2013 – June 2015)

Submitted to

1. Renewal of the commitment to PRME, signed by the highest executive of the organization;

Prof. Jitendra V. Singh, Dean, HKUST Business School, is fully committed to PRME, and is supportive towards thisinformation sharing update.

1. Major Achievements in relation to the implementation of one or more Principles during the last 18 months

Principle 1
We will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.

(A) The HKUST Business School is committed to a vision of transformation through the co-development of knowledge and accountability. As a School uniquely placed in an East-meets-West environment, our achievements are guided by the School’s mission that we strive to:

• Advance the frontiers of global business knowledge
• Develop responsible business leaders in Asia for the entire world
• Contribute to the social and economic transformation of the region

Our faculty, students and graduates also strive to make a positive impact on business and society through knowledge sharing and other forms of contributing to our community and the world at large.

Our goals and objectives for the undergraduate programs are, by graduation, business students are expected to achieve the following 9 learning outcomes:

1)Graduates will be critical and creative thinkers who make effective decisions supported by analytical and quantitative techniques.

2)Graduates will be effective communicators in oral and written English and Chinese for general business applications.

3)Graduates will have broad understandingof the core business functions and integrate these functions to solve business problems.

4)Graduates will have in-depth grasp of their area of business concentration or major.

5)Graduates will be effective team members and leaders.

6)Graduates will be effective in multi-cultural and international settings.

7)Graduates will be effective users of information technology and sources of information in business applications.

8)Graduates will understand their professional and ethical responsibility.

9)Graduates will be life-long learners who have an inquiring mind characterized by a love for learning, curiosity, a critical spirit and self-monitoring of their own learning.

Currently, all business undergraduates need to complete two compulsory 2-credit courses related to responsibility and business ethics, in order to fulfill the degree requirements.

The 1stcompulsory course is known as “Business Ethics and the Individual”. This is a one-semester introductory course, which is a core required course for all year-one business students. Some of the main topics that we address include:

 Ethical theories

 Defining business ethics

 Organizational ethics

 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) / Sustainability

 Corporate governance

 The role of government

 Whistleblowing

 Ethics and technology

 Ethics and Globalization

The course presents and exemplifies three major traditions of ethical thought in East and West moral philosophy - namely utilitarianism, principle-based ethics and virtue-based ethics. Employing guest speakers, lectures, cases, contemporary readings, role-plays, fieldwork, reflective student writing, and discussion groups, the course engages students in a serious consideration of their own ethical standards as applied to their present academic environment and their future careers. Students come to understand through this course that while an ethical dilemma may be viewed in various ways depending on one's guiding assumptions, a decision and course of action nevertheless must be chosen in harmony with one's own moral convictions.

Many of the PRME principles are addressed throughout the course in an integrated approach. Specifically, students will be exposed to sustainability and international initiatives, such as global compact. Moreover, guest speakers who come from the business sectors are invited to initiate dialogues with students and provide practical insights to students.All of our students also are required to complete an Applied Ethics Service Project (ASEP); these are student-initiated projects that link some reality situation in Hong Kong to classroom content. Through some partnerships and dialogue, student groups address very real problems and work towards positively influencing an improvement.

The 2nd compulsory course is known as “Business Ethics and Social Responsibility”. This is anintermediate business ethics course, which is also a core required course for all year-three business students.It takes a discussion-based approach to examining ethical issues in a corporate context, which focus mainly on the ethical issues related to the interaction between business and society. Students will further develop their ethical knowledge, moral reasoning skills, and attitudes towards social responsibility by considering the overarching corporate implications of their decisions. This highly interactive course would draw upon relevant current issues to help students understand (and overcome) some of the real-world challenges that business executives confront.

The HKUST Business School would like to nurture all graduates to have:

• Respect for others and high standards of personal integrity
• Compassion and a readiness to contribute to the community
• Understanding on their professional and ethical responsibility

The intended learning outcomes of the above compulsory courseshave therefore been aligned with the ethical goals of the Department, the School and the University. Thus, upon completion of the courses, students shall understand their professional and ethical responsibility.

The HKUST Business School also offers undergraduate students the option of taking any of the following credit-bearing courses related to social service learning, namely, (1) Social Responsibilities Project, (2) Social Services Project, or (3) Social Enterprise Internship Program. Social service learning is a planned form of service intentionally designed to make connections between students’ educational goals and community services. Students can apply their academic knowledge to serve the community; while community members benefit from students' voluntary and quality services.

The above 3 programs aim to create responsible business leaders who contribute to the design of sustainable and inclusive markets by providing a framework for understanding the challenges and opportunities ahead.

The social service learning helps in serving others, especially offering resources to meet the needs of the Hong Kong Community and beyond. Acting to fulfill our vision of responding to the need of the society, students are able to connect classroom theory with practical experience in the community. Service learning allows students to use service to make a difference in their communities and in their lives as well. Each semester students can choose from a variety of service learning-based courses across a wide range of disciplines at the university. At the end of these courses, students would be able to work in teams with a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) on a project that applies concepts, knowledge, skills and methodologies learned from business courses to specific, real-world business problems and issue.

Learning objectives:

Graduates can analyze basic organizational and NGO issues from both internal and external perspectives

Graduates can give and receive feedback on project performance from peers and project supervisors

Graduates can participate interactively and responsibly in team discussions and decision-making

Graduates can present essential findings in both written and oral form to a variety of stakeholders in the project

The Department of Management also offers a 4-credit elective course known as “Business Ethics and Policy”. It addresses problems and challenges in managing businesses ethically. The course also introduces social responsibility, ethics of consumer production and marketing, gender and race, pollution, health and safety, information and communication, politics, trans-national considerations and ethical policy.

(B) Our goals and objectives for the postgraduate programs are, by graduation, postgraduate students are expected to achieve the following 7 learning outcomes:

1)Graduates will understand and be able to apply the core concepts of business functions required for General Managers

2)Graduates will be able to integrate their functional knowledge for to make decisions commonly faced by general managers

3)Graduates will be able to apply Western management expertise to Greater China

4)Graduates will develop strong verbal and written communication skills

5)Graduates will be an effective member of cross-cultural teams

6)Graduates will be able to identify, analyze and solve complex problems

7)Graduates will be able to lead responsibly

HKUST EMBA for Chinese executive offers a module on Corporate Governance. Drawing on Hong Kong's corporate governance experience, this module illustrates how governance structures lay down rules for decision-making and distribute rights and responsibilities between different stakeholders. It also addresses the governance risks inherent in operating global businesses.

For HKUST MBA program, currently, all MBA students have to complete a compulsory 2-credit course “Responsible Leadership and Ethics”, in order to fulfill the degree requirements.

Learning objectives:

Develop a comprehensive knowledge of the differing perspectives of defining and applying ‘responsible leadership’ and ‘ethics’. This is undertaken by exposure to conceptual frameworks from management science (and philosophy) and from ‘everyday discourses’ from business practitioners.

Form critical judgment gained to apply analytical tools to help understand and apply tools, concepts, and theories to perform analyses of the different approaches to responsible leadership and ethics in practice, motives and inspiration (moral, strategic, shareholder, philanthropic etc.) behind these differences.

Provide space for personal development to consider moral reflections on how a person relate to ethical dilemmas in a business environment

Examine practical case studies relating to the applied nature of responsible leadership and ethics in relation to local and global settings and the issues and controversies that surround them.

Comprehend the frequent linkage between crisis situations and ethical dilemmas

Enact and undertake simulated ‘live’ case studies to understand the ethical dilemmas associated with managerial decision-making.

Develop further skills that contribute to a practical understanding of leadership decision-making especially in a crisis situation that has an ethical dilemma attached to it.

The HKUST Business School also offers new elective courses in the MBA program that are in the field of corporate responsibility and sustainability.

The 1-credit new MBA elective course “Business, Environment and Sustainability” looks at business activities through the lens of sustainability and energy yield from very different views. Students can see how the demand for energy to support lifestyles in developed countries and to support industrialization in developing countries has created dependencies on increasingly expensive extractive technologies and unstable political regimes. While energy is a key input to a business, sustainability goes further and has to do with the relationship between a firm’s activities and the natural environment. As the future of how people conduct business and the natural environment are interdependent, re-inventing the relationship between business and the natural environment would be one of the most transformative events that responsible and leaders shall be aware of.

The 2-creditelective course “Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philanthropy” is offered to both undergraduate students and postgraduate students at HKUST Business School. The learning objective is to provide students the opportunity to develop innovative approaches to businesses that bring economic, social and/or environmental benefit to the society. They would have the unique opportunity to come face to face with leading practitioners in Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philanthropy in Hong Kong and China, and to be part of a multidisciplinary team that helps to solve real life social and business problems.This is a practitioner-driven experiential learning course with a unique Student Directed Venture Philanthropy Fund where grant funding will be awarded to one or more partner businesses that students choose to work with throughout the term. Funding decisions are determined by assessment and scoring from an independent expert judging panel, faculty staff and the students enrolled to the course. The course is targeted at students who are interested in the rapidly growing sustainable and high impact business opportunities in the Greater China region.

Learning Outcomes:

Understanding of Social Entrepreneurship and Venture philanthropy as innovative methods of creating social impact by applying business processes and practices

Knowledge and understanding of how to define, address and solve social issues by using business and investment skills

Ability to conduct market research and networking to source potential deals and investment opportunities

Ability to conduct non-profit organizational due diligence and analyze an organization against a set of business, social and other related objectives

Ability to research, write and present a professional, credible and convincing investment pitch

Ability to evaluate an investment’s success against predetermined criteria using various evaluation tools

Ability to structure, plan and implement funding projects, working with a variety of stakeholders (from investors to company officers);

Ability to work in a culturally diverse team with cross-functional skills

Ability to develop leadership and creative approaches in an innovative business/finance sector

Principle 2: Values
We will incorporate into our academic activities and curricula the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.

HKUST has set expectation on the attributes of our education, and the Business School is offering a comprehensive curriculum in the observance of the University’s guidelines:

Academic excellence

An in-depth grasp of at least one area of specialist or professional study, based on a forward-looking and inquiry-driven curriculum

Broad-based education

Intellectual breadth, flexibility, and curiosity, including an understanding of the role of rational, balanced inquiry and discussion, and a grasp of basic values across the disciplines of science, social science, engineering and the humanities

Competency and capacity building

High-end, transferable competencies, including analytical, critical, quantitative and communications skills

Leadership and Teamwork

A capacity for leadership and teamwork, including the ability to motivate others, to be responsible and reliable, and to give and take direction and constructive criticism

International Outlook

An international outlook and an appreciation of cultural diversity

Vision and an orientation to the future

Adaptability and flexibility, a passion for learning, and the ability to develop clear, forward-looking goals, and self-direction and self-discipline

Ethical standards and compassion

Respect for others, high standards of integrity, compassion, and a readiness to contribute to the community.

Principle 3: Method
We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible leadership.

The Business Ethics Task Force (established in July 2010) aimsto improve student objectives and outcomes with the business ethics courses; devise strategies to make the business ethics courses complement to the student-led societies; explore possible ways to facilitate the implementation of the business ethics course and construct the management structure of the business ethics course.

(A) In the 2-credit elective course “Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philanthropy” mentioned above, it combines lectures, expert experience-sharing sessions and partnership work with social businesses. Following a three-month coaching on social entrepreneurship and impact investing, students are divided into groups, each of which will represent a shortlisted social enterprise to present a business plan and a funding proposal at a pitch competition. After the competition, all student teams will be given a choice to join the funded enterprise to put together the implementation plan or to remain in their original teams to continue working with their partners on alternative financing plans.

In 2014, the team, with members of undergraduates and postgraduates, partnering with a green startup HK Recycles won the pitch competition and a grant of HK$250,000 to expand its recycling logistics business. The funding would be used for marketing and advertising, buying equipment and hiring more socially disadvantaged people to help collect wastes for recycling purposes. Their financial and social impact analysis estimates that by 2015, a further 7,500 people will sign up for the company’s waste collecting service, thus helping alleviate the pressure on the much-debated landfills in the city.

After a two-year pilot, the Business School plans to enrich the content of the course further with more topic-driven interactive discussions. Besides, more pitching practices will be incorporated to help students develop the skills required in identifying and working with businesses with a mission to build a caring community.

(B) In the 1-credit compulsory course “Business Ethics and the Individual”, experiential learning is one of the cornerstones of the course, and one of the key aspects that Prof. Veronique Lafon-Vinais, Associate Professor of Business Education, Department of Finance,has advocated for the Business Ethics Task Force is the Applied Ethics Service Project (AESP) which is designed to connect students with the reality of the outside world. Students are formed in groups that are tasked with identifying a community need preferably outside HKUST and find a solution to improve the situation. This is a very challenging exercise as the course instructors purposefully provide very little guidance, such that students have to identify their own project and deal with all the challenges of designing a solution and implementing it and trying to provide impact. Despite the difficulty encountered, it is an invaluable experience that students cherish the most, because this is probably students’ very first time that they are exposed to team work in reality and have to manage the project on their own. Students benefit greatly from the experience

Principle 4: Research
We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our understanding about the role, dynamics, and impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.

(A) Prof. Christine Chow, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Finance, has been actively engaging in research activities in the field of corporate sustainability and responsible management education, which includes: