School: Business and Law

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Ethics and Responsibility in Business
  • Unit Code

    SBL1500
  • Year

    2027
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    2
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
    Online
  • Unit Coordinator

    A/Prof Mehran NEJATI AJIBISHEH

Description

Contemporary organisations operate within complex ethical, cultural, and economic systems that profoundly shape how people work, lead, and collaborate. This unit examines the ethical dimensions of modern work by exploring how meaning, identity, power, productivity, and organisational culture influence behaviour in contemporary capitalism. Drawing on influential thinkers and realworld cases, students analyse how work cultures are created and contested, and how organisational systems, including leadership, technology, global supply chains, and corporate practices, shape moral responsibility. The unit investigates both the origins and implications of the modern work ethic, the pressures of productivity systems, the ethical challenges of algorithmic management, and the moral dilemmas faced by managers and leaders. Students will consider how issues such as inequality, global corporate power, exploitation, obedience, and speaking up intersect with the broader legitimacy of business in society.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Identify the ethical context and core values that shape contemporary work and organisational life.
  2. Describe the structures, systems, and practices through which organisations and their members manage ethical issues.
  3. Discuss value-based concerns in professional settings, including those related to responsible and sustainable practice.
  4. Reflect on one’s capacity to contribute to positive social impact.

Unit Content

  1. Foundations of Ethics and Responsible Practice
  2. Work, Productivity, and Contemporary Organisational Systems
  3. Ethics, Work Culture, and Contemporary Practice
  4. Power, Influence, and Ethical Behaviour in Organisations
  5. Ethics, Inequality, and Economic Systems
  6. Technology, Automation, and Moral Responsibility
  7. Corporate Power, Responsibility and Sustainable Practice
  8. Ethical Challenges in Management and Decision Making
  9. Leadership, Integrity, and Organisational Responsibility
  10. Ethical Action and Positive Impact in the Workplace

Assessment

GS2 GRADING SCHEMA 2 Used for Undifferentiated Pass/Fail units inc. practical units or work-integrated learning

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescription
Portfolio ^Learning Portfolio
ONLINE
TypeDescription
Portfolio ^Learning Portfolio

^ Mandatory to Pass


Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

  • Plagiarism: Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).
  • Unauthorised collaboration (collusion): Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).
  • Contract cheating: Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.
  • Cheating in an exam: Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment Procedure - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment Procedure - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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