Module Note for Instructors: Responsibilities to Society

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:25

Abstract

This note outlines a framework to help managers discern and deliver on their responsibilities to society that has been taught in the “Responsibilities to Society” module in Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA), a semester-long, first-year required course for MBAs at Harvard Business School. The module outlined in this note also can be used as the basis for a short standalone course on the role and responsibilities of business in society. The framework developed in this module centers on managing harms to third parties—i.e., parties with whom companies do not transact commercially or have direct contractual relations. The framework aims to ground the responsibilities of managers in an intuitively plausible standard that is widely recognized—duty not to harm others—and to make tractable the concept of society, which is often seen as amorphous and vaguely defined. The framework aids managers in 1) identifying relevant harms, 2) determining the responsibility for them, 3) developing appropriate responses, and 4) recognizing political limits on what companies ought to do.