Advancing Racial Equity at Work

Courtney McCluney

Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior

Why this course

• Workplaces have the potential to be real agents of social progress and racial equity. Many organizations fall far short of that aspiration and struggle with how to design organizational models and processes that put equity and inclusion at the center. Professor McCluney’s rigorous course gives the practical tools and frameworks needed to meaningfully incorporate equity into a company’s culture and DNA.

• Designed for both undergraduate and graduate students, the course provides a model of how to have productive and informed conversations on race and equity. The curriculum recognizes the importance of history, defining uncomfortable terms, trust-building, and self-reflection for applied learning on organizational management and human resources.

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Course Highlights

Learning Outcomes:

• Adopt a racial equity lens to understand organizational practices, norms, and processes.

• Deepen our understanding of race and relevant concepts in organizational behavior.

• Examine how historical practices and events generated systemic racism in workplaces.

• Assess barriers and solutions to advancing racial diversity, equity, and inclusion at work.

• Apply a racial equity framework to contemporary workplace practices and future of work issues.

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Biography

Dr. Courtney L. McCluney (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior in the ILR School at Cornell University. Dr. McCluney examines how organizations perpetuate and maintain the marginalization of specific groups. Her work has been published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology; Gender, Work and Organization; Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: An International Journal and numerous books including Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience. Dr. McCluney is a regular contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review, and she was recently named a Thinklist Amplify Nominee by the University of Bath’s Centre for Business, Organizations, and Society. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and earned her PhD in Psychology at the University of Michigan and BA in Psychology and Interpersonal/Organizational Communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Beyond Diversity: The Fundamentals of Inclusive Leadership

Nicholas Pearce

Clinical Professor of Management & Organizations

Why this course

• In this leadership course, Professor Pearce’s multi-disciplinary approach uses organizational behavior, social psychology, anthropology, theology and strategy to bring students on a deeply personal journey to develop the capacity for inclusive leadership.

• The course encourages students to examine the implications and impact of bias on society, while giving these future leaders the cross-cultural competencies necessary to harness the power of human difference.

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Course Highlights

Course Format:

In each session, we will focus on a different dimension of the cross-cultural competence and organizational intelligence needed to lead and manage diverse organizations in the multicultural marketplace, starting with your personal diversity journey as an individual, scaling up to the level of teams, organizations, markets, and society. This course is built on the philosophy that we learn from one another – consequently, there will be a strong emphasis on actively engaging in self-reflection, discussing assigned readings and real-world scenarios, sharing experiences, and participating in experiential learning exercises. Discussions regarding sociocultural diversity often address topics that can engender a degree of controversy and disagreement, and challenge group members to stretch beyond their comfort zones. This is normal and should be expected within the context of our course. Your learning and that of your classmates will be enhanced by your willingness to honestly share your perspectives and experiences as you also actively listen to those of others. I respect – and expect everyone else to respect – the diversity of viewpoints that you will have to share on these topics. In the end, the success of the class depends on your willingness to thoughtfully, respectfully, and actively engage in these difficult conversations.

Biography

Nicholas Pearce serves as Clinical Professor of Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Assistant Pastor of Apostolic Church of God–Chicago, and Founder & CEO of The Vocati Group, a boutique management consultancy whose clients span corporations, social impact organizations, governments, and religious institutions around the world. He is the author of the bestselling book, The Purpose Path: A Guide to Pursuing Your Authentic Life’s Work.

Nicholas is consistently spotlighted as one of our nation’s foremost authorities on purpose-driven leadership, values-based organizations, faith & work, and DEI, shaping the public discourse through features in leading outlets including Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, NBC, and NPR.

One of Chicago's 40 Game Changers under 40, Nicholas holds the Ph.D. in Management & Organizations from Northwestern, the M.A. in Theology from Fuller Seminary, and the S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

Big Data, Big Responsibilities: The Law and Ethics of Business Analytics

Kevin Werbach

Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics

Why this course

• As Big Data has become near ubiquitous in corporate strategy and decision making, more business school students are entering data-related roles and the technology sector. With the growth of technology, managers need to better understand the complex and emerging ethical, legal and societal considerations that accompany the use of data and predictive analytics.

• Professor Werbach’s course fulfills this need beautifully with a sophisticated but fun and engaging pedagogy. His curriculum partners the ethical with the technical and practical. The course gives students the skills to use analytics in a responsible way, including the ability to identify flaws and limitations in algorithms, anticipate legal or ethical controversies, and evaluate mechanisms for algorithmic accountability.

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Course Highlights

Illustrative Course Slides:

Course Overview Video:

Mock Trial Video:

Black Mirror Assignment Video:

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Biography

Kevin Werbach is Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, and department chair, at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. A world-renowned expert on emerging technologies, he examines business and policy implications of developments such as AI, gamification, and blockchain. Werbach served on the Obama Administration’s Presidential Transition Team, helped develop the U.S. approach to internet policy during the Clinton Administration, and created one of the most successful massive open online courses, with over 500,000 enrollments. He currently leads the Wharton Blockchain and Digital Asset Project. His books include For the Win (updated edition 2020), The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust (2018), and After the Digital Tornado (2020). Follow him on Twitter @kwerb.

Finance for a Sustainable World

Swasti Gupta-Mukherjee

Associate Professor of Finance

Why this course

• Professor Gupta-Mukherjee has designed a course that not only acknowledges the power of financial markets to address the growing environmental challenges we are facing but has the foresight to understand what will be table-stakes for rapidly adapting financial markets and firms. 

• This course models what a core introduction to finance course could and should look like. It pinpoints where financial reporting currently falls short and addresses these shortcomings through a truly integrated approach to teaching ESG issues with the basic finance toolkit. 

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Course Highlights

Course Philosophy:

Mainstream finance has largely operated separately from environmental and social development. Yet, many sustainability challenges the world faces today will require collaborative and integrated solutions that successfully combine capital market objectives with ethics and sustainability goals. Traditional models in finance describe the roles of the private sector, public sector, and society in a way which does not capture the complexity of how the different stakeholders in an economy are now working, or could work, together to create positive economic, environmental, and social impacts.

Course Objectives:

• Demonstrate a foundational understanding of core topics in finance including time value of money, DCF, capital budgeting, valuation of stocks and bonds, risk-return models, cost of capital, asset allocation, and investment management. 

• Understand how sustainability issues affect decisions made by corporations, institutional investors, and corporate lenders. 

• Evaluate sustainability risks and opportunities from a financial perspective; understand how to manage/mitigate/communicate those risks. 

• Understand how innovative strategies and financial instruments can capitalize on opportunities in a changing world, creating economic, environmental, and social value. 

• Develop a basic understanding of how standard/traditional financial reporting and models are falling short of adequately measuring integrated performance which enhances both shareholder and stakeholder value. 

• Review diverse case studies in different industries (e.g. social media, agriculture, retail) to understand the implications of sustainability in priority areas of the economy and the way they are reshaping capital markets. 

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Biography

Swasti Gupta-Mukherjee is an Associate Professor of Finance at Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business. Her research and teaching focuses on capital markets, particularly investments and portfolio management. She is interested in market-based solutions to global challenges which create economic, environmental, and social value for stakeholders, moving business and society towards a more responsible and sustainable capitalism. Her introductory and advanced finance courses apply an integrated and innovation-focused lens to view mainstream finance in relation to sustainability, technological advancement, and social change. Her research has been published in high-impact academic journals, and her recent commentary on how markets can adapt better to climate risk was included in Stanford Social Innovation Review’s “2021 Guide to Climate Change Solutions” by the journal’s editorial board. She holds a PhD in Finance from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.