Course objectives

The course aims to provide students with the necessary theoretical background and practical experiences related to positive businesses and innovations. Positive business refers to firms integrating the three pillars of sustainable development in their core business: economic, social and environmental. The course is delivered in co-operation with partners abroad (Paris Nanterre University, University of Potsdam, University of Pécs, University of Cagliari, University of Rennes) to expose students to the international environment. From week to week, students will collaborate with foreign classmates, which will improve their skills to work in a diverse cultural environment. The course will improve group work competencies and co-working IT tools competencies. The course starts with theoretical foundations but moves to very practical aspects.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to choose from a range of possible alternatives, focusing on positive decision-making within a firm and it's market environment. Students will deploy their potential to lead innovation and entrepreneurship in different areas of organizations' operations through the opportunities of positive business management. By learning different scoring methods and developing a new scoring system, students will be able to identify and analyze firms' products/services and their value chain to propose sustainable innovations using a wide range of appropriate techniques and transform these into options and solutions. Project work will enhance both oral and written argumentation. Because of the international learning environment, students will master the effective use of ICT.

Outline

• Introduction on the importance of positive thinking and course outline
• Sustainable policies: global issues, economy and environment
• Stakeholder analysis
• Sustainable HR
• Sustainable Finance
• Ethics and management
• Environmental, social and governance analysis
• Positive business models
• Sustainable Operation
• Sustainable public administration – transparency and accountability
• Sustainable public administration – government as an attractive employer
• Sustainable public administration – administrative burden and citizen friendliness
• EDUC+M tutorial for project presentation
• Project evaluation

Teaching methods

The course is entirely online. Lecturers will present each topic via Microsoft Teams. Lectures will be recorded and available to download. After the presentations, students will be grouped into teams of six. Masaryk University students will form teams with students from Rennes 1. In this phase, students analyze an organization and develop a scoring system to measure the "positivity"* of the organization. The group work will result in the developed scoring system and the organization's analysis, which will be evaluated using the developed scoring system.

The best students (six from each university) will be offered to participate in a so-called Positive Manager Challenge (PMC) in Cagliari. More information about PMC is in the Interactive Syllabus.

* Positivity: Integration of the three pillars of sustainable development in the management fundamentals: economic, social and environmental.