Social Enterprise

Social Enterprise is more than class offerings at Goizueta, it's a multi-faceted approach to address complex challenges facing people, the planet, and business. We achieve this through our course offerings, The Business & Society Institute, and an abundance of student programs that allow for experiential learning.

Sample Courses

Financial reporting and analysis of government and nonprofit organizations. Government topics include fund accounting, general and special-purpose funds, and government-wide financial statements for both Federal and state/local organizations. Nonprofit topics include tax-exempt status, Form 990, unrelated business income, private foundations, contributed vs. earned income, functional expenses, endowments, split-interest agreements, and mergers and acquisitions. Special focus will be given to NGOs operating in the healthcare and higher ed sectors.

This course surveys the complex and evolving relationship between corporations and society. This course adopts a broad theoretical perspective on the challenges and opportunities that corporations confront in their interactions with society, such as struggles to maintain legitimacy, acquire resources, build partnerships, and solve complex global problems.

This course surveys the evolving role that nonprofit organizations and their leaders (both management and board of directors) play in delivering social impact. This course is delivered through a blend of academic content including traditional case examples, emerging business model frameworks, and guest lecturers from nonprofit leaders to provide context on the broader sector. We will also cover the role and importance of key actors in the sector, including foundations/grantmakers, charities, service providers, government entities, and social enterprises.

This course prepares you to design and implement strategic interventions that establish your results-based leadership credentials and provide you with a nuanced understanding of how networks can either aid or constrain your leadership.

Multinational Firms examines strategy and organization of business in the global economy. The course considers international competitive forces and national/regional contexts as determinants of strategic challenges and options for managers. We employ a cross-functional approach, drawing from strategic management, microeconomics, political science, and regional studies.

This course focuses on building corporate advantage -- the problem of how multi-business firms can create value. Accordingly, we first explore sources of complementarities or synergy among businesses and how to manage them. We then examine how firms acquire new capabilities with a special emphasis on M&A, alliances, and internal development. Finally, we examine strategy analysis and formulation in uncertain and turbulent environments. This course may be useful for those who seek careers in consulting, general management, and investment banking where multi-business firms play an especially critical role.

Select Faculty

Wesley Longhofer
Goizueta Foundation Term Associate Professor of Organization & Management; Executive Academic Director, Business & Society Institute
Peter Roberts
Professor of Organization & Management; Academic Director of Specialty Coffee Programs, Business & Society Institute
  • Offered Courses

  • Students Enrolled

The Business & Society Institute

Business and society institute

The institute generates research insights that it employs in its teaching and programmatic work on the critical challenges that businesses and their stakeholders can address together, including climate change and energy systems; inequalities in organizations, markets, and communities, purpose-driven entrepreneurship and innovation, transparent trade, impact investing, and reimagined corporate responsibility.