Business Strategies and Solving Social Problems

Business will be a primary contributor to solving the big social problems of the 21st century. While business strategy analyzes competition and markets, firms also pursue non-market strategies to influence politicians, and politicians seek to benefit from firms. Governments pursue not only political goals, but often pro-market strategies. This course takes a realistic variation on these themes to ask: when do firms, markets, and politics work to resolve the big social challenges of this century. These challenges are the consequences of inequality, corruption, climate change, immigration, and inclusion. The course is organized around these major challenges, ranging from income equality to immigration to the quality of work life. Our approach is to set out the argument why firms should be engaged in contributing to social and political solutions and more importantly to identifying what can be done.