Certificate of Achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility ONLINE GRADUATE-LEVEL CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT

Program availability is dependent on course schedule. Ask an admissions counselor for details.

Management and their teams need the skills and expertise necessary to achieve community impact objectives while delivering value to the company. A clear understanding of corporate social responsibility provides one with enhanced strategic tools for sustainability, philanthropy, and ethics. These strategic tools will help guide an organization in achieving its responsibilities, including corporate citizenship, community involvement and relations, and in being a good corporate citizen.

This program is designed for individuals who are seeking to improve the effectiveness of a company’s corporate social responsibilities and sustainability. Students will learn how to engage effectively with stakeholders that will improve the reputation of the firm.

Students who complete the (3) three-course program have the option to take 7 additional courses to obtain their Master of Science in Business Ethics and Compliance (MBEC).

To request information about any of these options, call 800-997-1673. Or complete the Request Information from now.

Course Curriculum

The Certificate of Achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility includes three graduate level courses that focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of the development and implementation of strategic initiatives in an organization’s sustainability and stakeholder involvement.

Governance, Ethics, and Compliance

This course aims to provide students with a basic understanding of corporate governance as a term and as a practice involving relations between a firm’s executive leadership, its governing board, and its stakeholders. The course explores various governance models practiced in the US including both for-profit and non-profit and looks at the role and responsibilities of each of the parties in these relationships both as set down in the legal code and as suggested by current best practice. The role of various board committees will also be discussed along with their relationships with the regulatory agencies such as the SEC. A fundamental part of the course is a discussion of the ‘purpose of a corporation’ and of the various perspectives held by prominent thought leaders in the US on this subject. The course will also look at changes made in board practices following the Sarbanes Oxley legislation in 2002 and at recent trends in corporate governance.

Choose two (2) from the following:

Strategy, Missions, and Governance

This course explores the relationship between firm strategy and external environmental factors such as societal norms, governance frameworks, consumer expectations, and supra-national guidelines. Specifically, the course introduces students to the concept of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (hereafter CSR) along with firm strategies, governance mechanisms, and implementation approaches that explicitly integrate CSR concerns. Labeled as ‘win-win’ strategies, these approaches treat the externalities of economic activity, such as environmental damage or social displacement, not as costs to the firm, but as opportunities for cooperation and development. They also represent examples of how corporations can contribute to addressing some of the world’s more pressing problems through partnership and innovation.

Corporate Stakeholder Relations and Communications

Approached from a corporate communications perspective, students are provided with techniques for successfully managing and communicating with a firm’s stakeholders. The course looks at the range of communication outlets that require attention in various firm-stakeholder contexts, including negotiations, crisis management, stakeholder protest, etc. Students also explore potential areas of misunderstanding and conflicting priorities that underlie contentious firm-stakeholder relations and study examples of companies that have turned around situations that risked the reputation and legitimacy of the firm.

Measuring and Monitoring ESG Performance

Increasingly firms are being asked to account and report on their performance in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) realms. To be more than simply anecdotal accounts, firms are developing approaches to measure and monitor their performance. This course looks at the recent history of non-financial reporting, explains the nature of investor and stakeholder expectations for ESG reporting systems and at the various systems now in use including the GRI, the ISO standards, as well as voluntary agreements such as the UN Compact for corporations or the PRI for the investment community.