EOS Course Offerings
EOS-241 Business Organizations, Management, and Finance
This course provides an introduction to business and organizational economics and analytics and to broad business organization topics. Solutions to business and organization challenges necessarily include technological, social, environmental, and political components, as well as financial and market components. Profitability, sustainability, and success are not so easily achieved by simple marginal pricing models. We want to learn more about this greatly expanded view of managerial decision-making through a socio-economic lens. This is not a matter of ideology; it is a very practical approach because that is now how businesses operate and function. Using this approach -- models, cases, analysis, problem-solving -- will also strengthen students' capacity for business analytics and consulting.
EOS-249 Ethics in Entrepreneurship and Business
This course uses the traditional approaches of moral philosophy to explore ethical challenges and obligations faced by individuals, businesses, and organizations in an increasingly complex global environment. Through consideration of philosophical theories and particular cases, we explore issues such as the social roles and ethical obligations of businesses or organizations; rights and responsibilities of workers, managers, and owners; ethics in sales and marketing; and ethics in a global business environment.
EOS-253 Social Entrepreneurship and Impact
In this course, students will learn more about opportunity recognition and assessment by being engaged in addressing major global problems as they are manifested locally or regionally. Students will work in teams to identify how these global issues appear locally (each team will select a locality) and how various populations are affected, will learn to assess the issue and situation from those stakeholders' perspectives, will explore and evaluate opportunities to create a project, action, business, social enterprise or organization that positively creates some solution to these problems and delivers a clear benefit to others.
EOS-295 Independent Study
EOS-295P Independent Study with Practicum
EOS-299AR Topic: 'Ethics and Artificial Intelligence'
Artificially intelligent technologies are prominent features of modern life -- as are ethical concerns about their programming and use. In this class we will use the tools of philosophy to explore and critically evaluate ethical issues raised by current and future AI technologies. Topics may include issues of privacy and transparency in online data collection, concerns about social justice in the use of algorithms in areas like hiring and criminal justice, and the goals of developing general versus special purpose AI. We will also look at ethics for AI: the nature of AI 'minds,' the possibility of creating more ethical AI systems, and when and if AIs themselves might deserve moral rights.
EOS-299LA Topic: 'Leadership in the Liberal Arts'
What makes a great leader? Can we identify who should be a leader? Are leaders born or made? How does an education in the liberal arts prepare someone to become a leader? Through reading a mix of the Great Books of Western Civilization (e.g., Homer, Plato, Shakespeare) and contemporary classics in leadership studies, we will explore these and other related questions.
EOS-299ND Topic: 'Individuals and Organizations'
This course focuses on individual and small-group behavior in the organizational setting. The class will focus on: (1) understanding human behavior in an organizational context; (2) understanding of oneself as an individual contributor and/or leader within an organization, and ways to contribute to organizational change; (3) intergroup communication and conflict management; and (4) diversity and organizational climate.
EOS-310 Social Entrepreneurship Capstone
Project-based learning course: students bring ideas, projects, and plans to develop toward implementation. Learn about organization startup in social and environmental context. Students engage in class discussions and attend short lectures and, working individually or in teams, develop projects to an implementation stage. Results include having a well-designed solution that delivers real benefit to identified stakeholder(s).
EOS-341 Advanced Managerial Economics
This course will use an intensive case-study approach mixed with lectures, readings, and discussions. The focus is investigating the economics of management and enterprise (firms, organizations) decision-making in local/regional, national, and global settings, the intersections of economic considerations with social and political considerations, and the frameworks and tools for analyzing the behaviors and decisions of various enterprises. Class participation in the discussions is essential. Students will also develop and provide presentations of case analyses.
EOS-349MV Topic: 'Motivation'
In this course, we will examine multiple theories of motivation and their relevance across a range of organizational settings (including corporations, special programs, and schools or colleges). How do we spark interest in a new subject or inspire people to undertake a challenging project? How do we sustain persistence in ourselves and others? This course is relevant for students interested in motivation, whether for attainment (such as within in human resources, talent development, or management) or for learning (whether for students, teachers, or leaders). Because motivation is closely linked to learning and achievement, in addition to well-being and purpose, we will also consider these topics and more.
EOS-349NQ Topic: 'Organizations and Inequality'
In Organizations and Inequality, we analyze how organizations create, reproduce, and also potentially challenge social inequalities. Drawing on different organizational perspectives, students will engage the challenges of ethical action in a complex world marked by competing rationalities and deep inequalities. Students will also research an organization of which they are a member and develop their own case study.
EOS-395 Independent Study
Courses Counting toward the Minor in Entrepreneurship, Organizations, and Society
A student minoring in EOS must take one course from each subject area, with at least one course at the 300 level.
Area One: Entrepreneurship
Being an entrepreneur in today’s rapidly changing world requires the ability to apply critical, analytical and creative thinking to the global and local problems at hand, process large amounts of information from a range of knowledge areas, work in teams, assess financial resource requirements and feasibility, and communicate effectively. In these courses, students start to develop these capabilities.
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Credits |
| EOS-253 | Social Entrepreneurship and Impact | 4 |
| EOS-310 | Social Entrepreneurship Capstone | 4 |
| EOS-349MV | Topic: 'Motivation' | 4 |
Area Two: Organizations and Power
Organizations are central structures of society. Nonprofits, public institutions, and private businesses are all shaped by the particular histories, legal traditions, and relationships of power in different societies. To function well in organizations and leverage them to affect social needs, students need to understand the roles of different types of organizations, hierarchies of power, regulatory frameworks, social impacts, and ethical decision-making in organizational structures. These courses provide students with such understandings.
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Credits |
| ASIAN-318 | Business and Intercultural Communication In Chinese Society | 4 |
| ECON-307 | Seminar in Industrial Organization | 4 |
| ECON-349DV | Advanced Topics in Economics: 'Development Economics: A Closer Look in Africa' | 4 |
| EDUST-339EP | Seminar in Educational Studies: 'Educational Policy' | 4 |
| EOS-249 | Ethics in Entrepreneurship and Business | 4 |
| EOS-299AR | Topic: 'Ethics and Artificial Intelligence' | 4 |
| EOS-299LA | Topic: 'Leadership in the Liberal Arts' | 4 |
| EOS-299ND | Topic: 'Individuals and Organizations' | 4 |
| EOS-349NQ | Topic: 'Organizations and Inequality' | 4 |
| HIST-357 | History of British Capitalism | 4 |
| PHIL-260AR | Topics in Applied Philosophy: 'Ethics and Artificial Intelligence' | 4 |
| PHIL-260EB | Topics in Applied Philosophy: 'Ethics in Entrepreneurship and Business' | 4 |
| POLIT-248GR | Topics in Politics: 'Grassroots Democracy' | 4 |
| PSYCH-212 | Individuals and Organizations | 4 |
| SOCI-316NQ | Special Topics in Sociology: 'Organizations and Inequality' | 4 |
| SOCI-316RM | Special Topics in Sociology: 'Consumer Culture: Race in the Marketplace' | 4 |
| SOCI-316SY | Special Topics in Sociology: 'The Business of Culture: Marketing and Selling Symbolic Goods' | 4 |
Area Three: Structures of Inequality
To effect positive change, students need to understand the structures of inequality underlying many of the problems they aim to address. In these courses, students learn how systemic forces shape inequality along different axes (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and nationality), and how individual, collective and government actions interact with these dynamics in pursuit of greater social justice.
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Credits |
| DANCE-272FD | Dance and Culture: 'Funk Styles' | 4 |
| DANCE-272HP | Dance and Culture: 'Hip Hop' | 4 |
| ECON-213 | Economic Development | 4 |
| ECON-306 | Political Economy of Inequality | 4 |
| ECON-349DV | Advanced Topics in Economics: 'Development Economics: A Closer Look in Africa' | 4 |
| ECON-349EC | Advanced Topics in Economics: 'Analysis of Empire of Cotton' | 4 |
| ENVST-210 | Political Ecology | 4 |
| ENVST-223 | Development Geography | 4 |
| GEOG-208 | Global Movements: Migrations, Refugees and Diasporas | 4 |
| GNDST-333EC | Advanced Seminar: 'Gender Inequality and Economic Development: Challenges, Contradictions, and Contestations' | 4 |
| HIST-208 | The Consumer Revolution: A History of Shopping | 4 |
| HIST-357 | History of British Capitalism | 4 |
| POLIT-252 | Urban Politics | 4 |
| POLIT-267 | The Politics of Finance and Financial Crises | 4 |
| POLIT-277 | Dislocation: Class and Politics in the U.S. | 4 |
| POLIT-355 | Race and Housing | 4 |
| SOCI-239 | How Capitalism Works: Social Class, Power, and Ideology | 4 |
| SOCI-316DG | Special Topics in Sociology: 'Sociology of Development and Globalization' | 4 |
| SOCI-316FN | Special Topics in Sociology: 'Finance, Globalization, and Inequality' | 4 |
Area Four: Financial Analysis
Assessing, accessing and effectively employing resources to address social needs are important elements of entrepreneurship. In these courses students learn and gain practice in understanding, analyzing and using financial resource information and processes.
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Credits |
| ECON-215 | Economics of Corporate Finance | 4 |
| ECON-218 | International Economics | 4 |
| ECON-270 | Accounting | 4 |
| EOS-241 | Business Organizations, Management, and Finance | 4 |
| EOS-341 | Advanced Managerial Economics | 4 |
