COMM_V 105 - Values, Ethics, and Community (formerly COMM 186E)

Course Description

COMM 105 guides students to uncover their personal values and shape their academic experience, developing a sense of belonging, agency, and responsibility within the school, university, and broader communities. It lays the foundation for their ongoing study of the roles and responsibilities of business at the individual, organizational, and societal levels, and for their active exploration of career paths that fit their goals.
Content is delivered through lectures, discussions, and debates. Students are assessed through values and goal-setting exercises, business ethics and sustainability cases, and a team simulation where students manage trade-offs when running a start-up business. Learning is reinforced with academic and extracurricular opportunities to interact with the wider UBC Sauder community, including business leaders, alumni, faculty and staff mentors, and senior students.

Responsible Business Content

This course addresses responsible business and sustainable development through real-world case studies where students apply analytical frameworks and decision-making techniques. Topics include self-awareness and self-regulation (Good Health and Well-being), the impact of business decisions on the communities and environments where they operate (Sustainable Cities and Communities and Climate Action), and how individuals and organizations make ethical decisions (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).

Learning Objectives

• Describe your personal leadership philosophy, including your values, vision, and goals.
• Analyze complex business cases, defending well-supported recommendations where there's no clear right answer.
• Evaluate business decisions through a long-term ethics and sustainability lens, weighing environmental, social, and economic considerations together.
• Collaborate on a team while holding a coherent set of values under real-time and resource pressure.
• Explore a range of career paths and develop the skills to explore opportunities with curiosity.

Students Will Gain Confidence In

• Have confidence in following your values even when others push you in different directions.
• Make and defend an ethical decision when there's no clear answer and stakeholders want different things.
• Judge business decisions by their environmental, social, and economic consequences, not just the bottom line.
• Turn self-awareness about your values and goals into concrete choices about how you lead, work, and build a career.

Note: This course was formerly numbered as COMM 186E. If you took this course in 2021W, this course will count towards your Commerce elective requirements. If you've successfully completed the course as COMM 186E, you are not permitted to take it again as COMM 105 (you cannot receive credit for the same course twice).