Business Leadership and Human Values

Business Leadership and Human Values

The Business Leadership and Human Values course is a series of thematic explorations of human values as a critical dimension of business leadership.  Through intellectually challenging readings, conversations, live cases, and exercises, you will explore your ethical responsibilities as an emerging/aspiring business leader.  You will explore and clarify your own moral compass as a tool for responding effectively to the ethical challenges of value creation in a competitive global economy.  Through practice, you will enhance your confidence and skill in leading deliberative, action-oriented conversations about values.

Business Leadership and Human Values is not in a philosophy course, but it does offer an opportunity to acquire a basic understanding and mastery of concepts, vocabulary, tools, and methods for effective thought and discourse about values in a global business context.  The Values Toolkit is a personal guidebook that you may want to keep and continue developing as a resource for building your career as an ethical leader.  The Values Toolkit is entirely your own work and is not considered in your course grade, although some of the exercises may be incorporated into assignments that will be graded.  For example, you will apply the lexicon, models, and frameworks in completing your assignments.  The practice exercises are intended as springboards for posts to the discussion boards and your ethical branding websites.  While you are not required do all of the exercises, the more you do, the more confident and skilled you will become in defining and articulating your perspectives on moral challenges.

Most importantly, this course is about you and your values: You are encouraged to make the most of this space in the Carey curriculum to explore ways that you can anchor value creation in your values.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

0 | Getting Started

1 | The Carey Business Credo

2 | Human Ethology and Personal Integrity

3 | Social Conscience

4 | Conscientious Leadership

0 | GETTING STARTED

Thinking and talking about values

Business does not operate in a vacuum; it is deeply enmeshed in the values and complex dynamics of global multinational business culture.  Global business culture is increasingly based on sophisticated knowledge enterprises created and led by people, like you, with years of formal academic education.  Higher education is itself a knowledge enterprise founded on widely shared values and principles of intrinsic human worth, dignity, and freedom.  The Johns Hopkins University, the first research university in the United States, was founded in 1876 with the mission of discovery and knowledge creation for the benefit of humanity and the world.  The very idea of a research university is anchored in an enduring tradition of values that regards the moral claims of human personhood as inherent, universal, and inalienable.

Academic business extends the human values tradition to business, management, and markets. The Carey Business School Business Leadership and Human Values seminar is designed to examine the complex dynamics of global business through the lens of human values.  

It is important to understand how the global context of human values discourse has evolved, especially in the past century.  This guidebook provides a framework of global business, academic, and global multinational thinking about human values and the role of business as a force for good.  All of these materials are available either on the web or via the Blackboard course website through e-reserves at the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.

WEB RESOURCES AND REFERENCES

There are many excellent reference materials available for expanding your working knowledge of terms and concepts for thinking and talking about values.  Three online reference works are recommended for use throughout the Business Leadership and Human Values course as you build your values lexicon. The New Oxford Dictionary American Dictionary is a basic dictionary for quick reference. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy is a dictionary of philosophical terms with expanded references available. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an open source online encyclopedia.

1. Stevenson, A. & Lindberg, C. (2011). The New Oxford American Dictionary (3 ed). Online Version: Oxford University Press. Log in to JHU to access the Sheridan Libraries at http://www.library.jhu.edu/# or go to http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195392883.001.0001/acref-9780195392883
2. Blackburn, S. (2014). The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2 rev. ed). Online Version: Oxford University Press. Log in to JHU to access the Sheridan Libraries at http://www.library.jhu.edu/# or go to http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199541430.001.0001/acref-9780199541430
3. Zalta, E., Ed. (2016). Table of Contents, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

VALUES LEXICON

A rich vocabulary is a powerful resource for communicating about values.  In this course you will learn and practice using a lexicon of words with designated meanings that philosophically educated people use in conversations about values.  Values discourse includes terms such as axiology, morality, ethics, claims, and duties.  Familiarity with terms and correct usage will enable you to communicate with clarity and precision in reaching a shared understanding of intersubjective values.  Each week you will enrich your vocabulary for values discourse with a few terms that may be new to you or have a different meaning than in ordinary speech.  You are encouraged to develop your values lexicon through your own independent inquiry and reading.