Course Description

In today’s incredibly competitive business environment, reputation is more important than ever before. For organizations, trustworthiness and integrity allow your relationship with your partners to grow, and are a powerful driver of new business. For individuals, ethical behavior establishes trust and respect from your peers and managers, while also protecting you from personal liability. And CITT’s Competency Profile of the Logistics Professional identified “Manage with ethics and integrity” as a key pillar of the leadership abilities required in today’s elite industry practitioner.

No businesses operate in a vacuum. The success of a firm depends not only on its own reputation but on the reputation of the stakeholders in its extended supply chain. Scrutiny on ethical and sustainable supply chains is higher than ever. Businesses must create, publish, and live by a set of ethical standards that govern the enterprise and the individuals within it.

This course will focus on the means and methods of business ethics in the supply chain sector, and enable learners to apply approaches to ethical governance and sustainability. Through the examination of real-life case studies from practicing logistics professionals, learners will understand both the theory and practical application of ethics and sustainability issues related to supply chain logistics..

Module topics include:

• Business Ethics, Supply Chain Management, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in Business
  
• Stakeholder Management and Sustainability in Supply Chain
  
• Corporate Governance and Policy in Strategic Supply Chain Management Decisions
  
• Mitigating Risk and Crisis in the Supply Chain
  
• Business Ethics and Leadership in Maintaining Internal Supply Chain Ethics
  
• Technology and Global Ethics
  
• Consumers, Government and Business Regulation
  
• Sustainability, the Supply Chain and the Natural Environment
  
• Health Safety and Sustainability in the Supply Chain
  
  

Course grads will be able to:

• Identify and resolve ethics issues regardless of their seniority level within an organization
   
  
• Make a persuasive business case for ethics and sustainability to internal and external stakeholders
   
  
• Distinguish between the responsibilities of internal and external stakeholders on ethics issues
  
  
• Analyze ethics & sustainability issues in an organization to develop a critical path to avoid larger crises
   
  
• Apply theoretical approaches to ethical governance and sustainability to inform strategically sound business decisions
   
  
• Understand the influence of consumers, government, and other businesses on an ethical supply chain and how to weigh those influences in the decision-making process
   
  
• Integrate concepts of corporate governance and leadership in building and maintaining ethical supply chains

 

 

Course Work and Final Exam:

 

Course work for Ethics & Sustainability in Supply Chain includes:

• Weekly Discussions (20%)
• Multiple Choice Quizzes (25%)
• Capstone Project - Business Report (15%)
• Final Exam (40%)

Weekly Discussions - 20% of course mark

Each of the 10 weekly modules will have a discussion question learners respond to in their own time, during the course of the week. These online discussions engage learners in reflection, dialogue and debate, challenge you to apply the course material in real world business scenarios, and enable you to learn from your classmates and facilitator in addition to the course materials.

Group discussion marks are based on the quality, quantity and timeliness of your responses in the discussions. In general, students are expected to contribute 3-4 high-level comments to each discussion. Full marks are given for comments that offer substantive ideas to the discussion.

Multiple Choice Quizzes - 25% of course mark

Learners will complete 5 multiple choice quizzes online throughout the course of the semester. Each quiz is due at 11:59 pm ET on the published due date. Quizzes can be completed early for learners who need to plan ahead for business travel, vacations or other commitments, but must be completed before their individual deadlines.

You'll automatically receive your grade for each quiz immediately after you submit your responses, so you can see which questions you got correct, learn the correct answer for any questions you got wrong, and assess your learning as you go.

Capstone Project - Business Report - 15% of course mark

Note: Completion of this assignment is required to be eligible to take the exam and successfully complete the course. Learners will be provided with a scenario and will be challenged to apply the skills and knowledge gained throughout the course to draft a report responding to the questions provided.

Final Exam – 40% of course mark

The final exam for Ethics and Sustainability in the Supply Chain is held online, is 2.5 hours long, and is open-book. The exam is made up two parts:

• Long answer questions
• Multiple choice questions

Learning Assessment and Grades

Grades are reported as Honours, Pass, or Fail. To obtain a Pass, learners must earn a minimum grade of 50%. To achieve Honours, learners must earn a total grade of 80% or higher.  
The final grade is assessed based on both term work and the final examination, as follows:

• Weekly Discussions (20%)
• Multiple Choice Quizzes (25%)
• Capstone Project - Business Report (15%)
• Final Exam (40%)

Approximately one month after the final exam, you will receive your course results from CITT.