News

Over the last several decades, energy markets have become some of the most dynamic markets of the world economy. Traditional fossil fuel and electricity markets have seen a partial shift from heavy regulation to market-driven incentives, while rising environmental concerns have led to a wide array of new regulations and “environmental markets”. The growth of renewable energy is another source of rapid change, but brings with it a whole new set of technological and policy challenges. This changing energy landscape requires quick adaptation from energy companies, but also offers opportunities to turn regulations into new business. The objective of this course is to provide the economist’s perspective on a broad range of topics that professionals in the energy industry will encounter. Topics include the effect of competition, market power and scarcity on energy prices, extraction and pricing of oil and gas, geopolitical uncertainty and risk in hydrocarbon investments, the environmental policies related to the energy sector and their effectiveness, and cap-and-trade markets. There is special emphasis on the economics and finance of renewable energy, including an introduction to energy storage.

1 Course Unit

BEPP/OIDD 2630: Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:29 pm
Prof. Arthur van Benthem

BEPP/OIDD 7630: Tuesday/Thursday 10:15-11:44 am
Prof. Arthur van Benthem

This course will cover some fundamental topics in Climate Sciences, while also teaching how to program & work with big data in Python. We will analyze big climate data (output from the newest generation climate models CMIP6 and NASA satellite datasets) remotely on a National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) supercomputer.

1 Course Unit

EESC 3376: Monday 1:45-4:44 pm
Prof. Irina Marinov and Prof. Jake Stanger

EESC 6376: Monday 1:45-4:44 pm
Prof. Irina Marinov and Prof. Jake Stanger

Energy issues are among some of the most important and complex issues facing the modern world. Energy practices are related intimately to climate change, national security, air and water pollution, economic stability of nations, social inequality, and poverty. This seminar-style course takes an in-depth view at the issues surrounding energy, and both the policy approaches used across the world to address such issues and the justice and equity dimensions of energy systems. Of importance to the discussions in this course is not simply a consideration of which policies have been adopted and to what ends, but rather a comprehensive evaluation of the political environment in which policies are designed and implemented, the manner in which governments can redesign their approaches to energy, and how an energy justice approach has the potential to fundamentally redesign our energy systems. This year, we will also focus quite a bit on the intersections between energy inequalities and racial inequalities, with an objective to elucidate such intersections for the energy-curious public.

1 Course Unit

Monday 8:30-11:29 am
Prof. Sanya Carley

This course explores business responsibility from rival theoretical and managerial perspectives. Its focus includes theories of ethics and their application to case studies in business. Topics include moral issues in advertising and sales; hiring and promotion; financial management; corporate pollution; product safety; and decision-making across borders and cultures.

1 Course Unit

Multiple class sections and instructors, see MyWharton for more information

This course is a multidisciplinary, interactive study of business ethics within a global economy. A central aim of the course is to enable students to develop a framework to address ethical challenges as they arise within and across different countries. Alternative theories about acting ethically in global environments are presented, and critical current issues are introduced and analyzed. Examples include bribery, global sourcing, environmental sustainability, social reports, intellectual property, e-commerce, and dealing with conflicting standards and values across cultures. As part of this study, the course considers non-Western ethical traditions and practices as they relate to business.

1 Course Unit

Monday/Wednesday 3:30-4:59 pm
Prof. Brian Berkey

Climate change and environmental degradation pose some of the most complex challenges of our time. Building a sustainable future requires active and creative leadership by individuals, organizations, governments, and business firms. This half-credit (.5 cu) course integrates scholarship in leadership theory, environmental and climate management, public policy, and ethics to explore these issues both in six classroom sessions and a customized Leadership Venture over spring break that includes a high ropes course, camping, hiking, cycling and paddling. LGST 2600 is designated as an SNF Paideia course.

This class is limited to 30 students and admission is by application only.  The application period opens on October 14, 2024, and all applications are due by November 11, 2024 at 11:59 pm.

Class sessions meet on Tuesdays from 8:30-10:00am between January 21-March 4, 2025. In addition to the in-class sessions, the Leadership Venture will begin on the morning of Saturday March 8, 2025 at 7am, and conclude in the evening on Friday, March 14, 2025 by 8pm. Students must attend the entire Venture to participate in this course.

Prof. Sarah E. Light

The financial significance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors and stakeholder opinions of the acceptability of a firm’s operations (i.e., the social license to operate) is mounting yet the data, frameworks and tools informing investors, consultants and corporates is unreliable. The course provides students novel data, frameworks and tools than can guide the alignment of stakeholder opinions on ESG factors, valuation and strategy. This course provides students the latest tools to assess and map stakeholder opinions as well as integrate them into financial valuation. It also offers behavioral skills critical for external stakeholder engagement including trust building and communications as well as for the engagement of stakeholders inside the firm. In short, it prepares students to engage in Corporate Diplomacy (i.e., to influence or assess external stakeholders’ opinions of the acceptability of a company’s operations at a moment in time and to convince internal stakeholders to adapt their behaviors, systems and outputs` when necessary).

1 Course Unit

MGMT 2090: Monday/Wednesday 10:15-11:44 am
Prof. Witold J Henisz

MGMT 7200: Monday/Wednesday 1:45-3:14 pm
Prof. Witold J Henisz

People in the workplace are constantly interacting with peers, managers, and customers with very different backgrounds and experiences. When harnessed effectively, these differences can be the catalyst for creative breakthroughs and the pathway to team and organizational learning and effectiveness; but when misunderstood, these differences can challenge employees’ values, performance, workplace relationships, and team effectiveness. This course is designed to help students navigate diverse organizational settings more effectively and improve their ability to work within and lead diverse teams and organizations. It also offers students the opportunity to develop their critical thinking on topics such as identity, relationships across difference, discrimination and bias, equality, and equity in organizations and society and how they relate to organizational issues of power, privilege, opportunity, inclusion, creativity and innovation and organizational effectiveness. Class sessions will be experiential and discussion-based. Readings, self-reflection, guest speakers from organizations, case studies and a final project will also be emphasized.

By the end of this course, you should be able to:
1) Evaluate the aspects of your identity and personal experiences that shape how you interact and engage with others and how they interact and engage with you in organizations
2) Explain how issues of power, privilege, discrimination, bias, equality, and equity influence opportunity and effectiveness in organizations
3) Propose ways to make relationships across difference in organizations more effective|
4) Describe current perspectives on the relationships among diversity, inclusion, creativity, and innovation in organizations
5) Analyze a company’s current approach to leading diversity and use content from this course to propose ways to enhance learning and effectiveness in that company.

0.5 Course Unit

MGMT 2240: Tuesday/Thursday 3:30-4:59 pm
Prof. Flannery Stevens

MGMT 6240: Tuesday/Thursday 1:45-3:14 pm
Prof. Flannery Stevens

This is a course on creating a business to attack a social problem and thereby accomplish both social impact and financial sustainability. For this course, social entrepreneurship is defined as entrepreneurship used to profitably confront social problems. This definition therefore views social entrepreneurship as a distinct alternative to public sector initiatives. The basic thesis is that many social problems, if looked at through an entrepreneurial lens, create opportunity for someone to launch a venture that generates profits by alleviating that social problem. This sets in motion a virtuous cycle – the entrepreneur is incented to generate more profits and in so doing, the more the profits made, the more the problem is alleviated. Even if it is not possible to eventually create a profit-making enterprise, the process of striving to do so can lead to a resource-lean not-for-profit entity. Creating a profitable social entrepreneurship venture is by no means a simple challenge. Cross-listed with MGMT 212.

0.5 Course Unit

Tuesday/Thursday 3:30-4:49 pm
Prof. Valentina Assenova

Emerging firms are a critical element of economic growth, and a key source of gains in innovation and social welfare. This course is designed to depart from the U.S.-centric conversation on startups – with its outsized focus on Silicon Valley – and train a critical eye on some of the unique innovations emerging from new regional hotspots across the globe, with a particular focus on developing and emerging economies. We will discuss the challenges faced by founders in different global contexts, the components of a robust institutional ecosystem, and the ways in which creative solutions may flourish in response to local problems. Along the way, students will gain a virtual view into global startup communities, and personalized insights from firm founders operating around the world – from Bogota to Nairobi to Jakarta. The course will be structured in three primary parts. The first and longest section will discuss the Key Challenges for emerging firm growth across the globe, such as access to talent and resources, political risk, and legal institutions. The second section will highlight particularly active areas of Context-Driven Innovation that are thriving in various regions, such as financial technology, mobile health products, and clean energy. The final section will train Regional Spotlights on different geographic areas in turn, so that we may focus on the challenges and opportunities specific to various parts of the world. This course is relevant to both U.S. and non-U.S. students, and it is expected that students will bring their own backgrounds and experiences to contribute to lively class discussions. The course will culminate with a group project done in teams of four, in which groups will give short presentations to the class.

1 Course Unit

Tuesday/Thursday 1:45-3:14 pm
Prof. Natalie Carlson