Moore School of Business - Dr. Spicer

Dr. Andrew Spicer doesn’t particularly care what position his students take on the questions he poses in his new “ Globalization and Corporate Social Responsibility” course -- part of the revamped International MBA (IMBA) core curriculum at the Moore School. “It is not the answers that are really important,” says Spicer, an assistant professor of international business. “ Instead, it is the thought processes behind them.”

The new class, one of the first that incoming first-year IMBA students at Moore now take, examines different perspectives on the future course of the global economy and aims to raise questions about globalization and corporate social responsibility that, it is hoped, students will “ come back to again and again during their careers,” says Spicer, who earned his B.A. degree at Yale and his Ph.D. at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

The issues raised in the course are values issues that “keep upper-level managers up at night,” says Spicer -- issues such as: How do you work in other countries that have different standards on such topics as child labor, environmental protection, workplace safety, minimum wages, and social welfare? Should companies like Nike, Shell, or Starbucks apply global standards around the world, or should they tailor their own activities to meet what are often minimal local rules and regulations? What happens if a child is hurt, a worker goes hungry, or the environment is damaged in a company’s multinational operations? How should a company respond if it holds patents to drugs or products that could improve the lives of millions? For instance, should pharmaceutical companies work to distribute AIDS medicine around the world, even to those who can’t afford it?

CEOs of multinational corporations today spend significant amounts of their time on these kinds of social and political issues, says Spicer, but many managers are ill-prepared to deal with them.

“Issues of values and identity are not topics we usually teach in business school,” says Spicer. “The irony is that we train our students to approach most business problems from a purely economic perspective – that the job of the CEO is the maximization and optimization of profits – but CEOs today spend a lot of their time dealing with the social, political, and environmental impact of their decisions, as well.”

The structure of Spicer’s course, which features freewheeling debates and case studies of real-world issues faced by multinational companies today, “allowed us to see that nothing is black and white,” said Sarah Hutchinson of the IMBA class of 2008. Hutchinson, a 28-year-old from Florida who completed Spicer’s course in mid-August, believes it “will help us as managers in multinational companies by teaching us how to analyze the various factors in complex business situations.”

The cases that she and her classmates studied illustrated the effect globalization is having on issues related not only to business, but also to politics and national security, said Hutchinson. “ Business has always been complex and dynamic, but within the current context of globalization, it’s a whole new ball game.”

Cason Gaither, 25, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, agreed the course was useful. What he learned “will provide me perspective when dealing with potential hot button issues,” he said. “I will be far more cognizant of the potential social repercussions resulting from decisions I make as a global manager.”

Christopher Scheidel, a 28-year-old from Connecticut who formerly worked in the insurance industry, put it this way: “Without this class I would not have taken the time to truly internalize my own values and how they apply to the more operational or clinical aspects of business.

I may have eventually found them in the future as I encounter situations that challenge my values. But this instruction has given me the opportunity to anticipate those challenges ahead of time.”

Jan Collins
August 2006

Faculty News

New globalization/corporate responsibility course introduced