2024/25 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue
LUBS5989M Managing and Organising for Corporate Purpose
15 creditsClass Size: 30
Module manager: Prof. Jatinder Sidhu
Email: J.S.Sidhu@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2024/25
This module is not approved as an Elective
Module summary
The conversations of business executives, management consultants, policy makers, and scholars are rich with the talk of corporate purpose these days. With a growing chorus of calls that for-profit companies do more regarding the tackling of society’s grand challenges, the corporate purpose concept is emerging as a new way of thinking about companies and organizing and managing them to create value for all stakeholders. The time is thus ripe for a module on corporate purpose.Objectives
There is ever-growing public and regulatory pressure on companies to channel their attention and resources towards the addressing of complex social problems and grand challenges. In the wake of this, management and organization scholars have started to invoke the concept of corporate purpose to circumscribe the idea of concurrent pursuit of both financial goals and social goals by for-profit organisations. However, becoming a corporate purpose company is not easy for legacy enterprises that were set up and managed to increase the returns to investment to owners/shareholders. In particular, the incorporation of both a profit and a prosocial orientation in a firm is not always easy – it requires the management of intricate, changing tensions and trade-offs between the wishes of different internal and external stakeholders. As such, becoming corporate purpose driven involves a degree of entrepreneurship on the part of the executive team of a company, and a different approach to strategic decision making. With this as the backdrop, the key objectives of the module include the building of knowledge regarding (i) the importance of corporate purpose in today’s business and social context; (ii) the managerial and organisational challenges involved in developing corporate purpose; and (iii) how corporate leaders (viz. executive and non-executive directors) can foster corporate purpose.Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the module, students will be able to:
- Critically evaluate the implications of theories of the firm for decision making around corporate purpose;
- Identify the impediments and opportunities for companies to build a purpose-driven enterprise;
- Assess how corporate purpose affects strategic entrepreneurship, innovation, and firm performance;
- Analyse how corporate leaders’ personalities and values, and the dynamics at the CEO – board interface affect corporate purpose;
- Offer recommendations regarding the composition of executive teams and boards to enable the enactment of corporate purpose.
Skills outcomes
Upon completion of the module, students will be able to:
Transferable skills
• Analyse complex organisational problems and propose solutions.
Syllabus
Teaching methods
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
| Lecture | 10 | 2.00 | 20.00 |
| Seminar | 5 | 2.00 | 10.00 |
| Private study hours | 120.00 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 30.00 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 150.00 | ||
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
Students can expect formative feedback that provides a bridge to the summative assessment. Specifically,(i) in each of the five seminar sessions, students will be presented practice questions (connected to the learning outcomes), have opportunity to discuss these with the instructor, present their written answers, and receive feedback that helps them improve;
(ii) at the end of the fifth and the tenth lecture sessions, students will take a test (multiple-choice questions connected to the learning outcomes) and receive feedback that helps them improve.
Methods of assessment
Exams
| Exam type | Exam duration | % of formal assessment |
| Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc) | 2 hr 00 mins | 100.00 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Exams) | 100.00 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 16/08/2024 11:44:42
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