PACE225-25S1 (C) Semester One 2025

Workplace Skills and Corporate Social Responsibility

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 17 February 2025
End Date: Sunday, 22 June 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 2 March 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 11 May 2025

Description

As a student, you will be given the opportunity to work with a business to formulate a project proposal that furthers its corporate social responsibility objectives through community engagement. Making a difference to a community as well as to your own career and workplace skills development are key objectives of this course. The course is open to students from all disciplines.

The world of work is moving faster than ever before.  While university core subjects are key, so are the practical skills that you will need to solve local and global challenges of the future. This course is designed to simulate a work situation, where in small teams (as in any workplace) you will work together on campus in a supported environment.  Your task will be to assist a business (Hawkins Construction) by creating a project proposal for them that has a positive societal impact upon a particular community.

What does this course cover?
• The essentials of working in a team, how to research and write up a project plan and other workplace skills, like communication and problem-solving and must-have te reo Māori and tikanga for working in Aotearoa New Zealand
•      Learn what corporate social responsibility is and why it matters to everyone in today’s world.
•      Create your own Career Development Portolio which plots the workplace workplace skills you have at the start of the course, those that you develop during the course, finally resulting in a tool for your future career planning purposes.
• Having received tuition in presenting and engaging with “your audience”, present a Project Proposal in person with your team-mates, which seeks to meet organisational CSR objectives and community impact outcomes.
• A consideration of ethical issues associated with community engagement and “social washing”.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to
The learning outcomes for this course are:

1.    Apply the knowledge, skills and attributes acquired from their university studies to the project.
2.    Formulate a comprehensive project plan and professionally communicate recommendations for action.
3.    Have a basic understanding of corporate social responsibility and be able to describe associated ethical issues.
4.    Acquire, articulate and apply a range of transferrable employability skills and attributes such as research, teamwork, problem-solving and showing initiative.
5.    Apply basic understanding of work-related tikanga and te reo Māori.
6.    Reflect on their Career Development Learning including the skills and attributes developed throughout the course, and consider how to use the same for future career planning purposes.

University Graduate Attributes

This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:

Employable, innovative and enterprising

Students will develop key skills and attributes sought by employers that can be used in a range of applications.

Biculturally competent and confident

Students will be aware of and understand the nature of biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, and its relevance to their area of study and/or their degree.

Engaged with the community

Students will have observed and understood a culture within a community by reflecting on their own performance and experiences within that community.

Prerequisites

Any 60 points at any level from any subject.

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 10:00 - 12:00 Ernest Rutherford 225
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Lecture B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Thursday 13:00 - 14:00 Ernest Rutherford 460
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun

Course Coordinator

Clare Dannenberg

Contact Person

Clare Dannenberg

This course includes contributions from guest speakers from national and local businesses, community advocates, project management, social enterprise and stakeholder engagement.

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Project Plan (team) 15%
Project Proposal and Presentation (team) 35%
Career Development Portfolio 40%
Attendance and Participation 10%

Textbooks / Resources

Recommended Reading

Bathurst, Ralph; The good the bad and the downright ugly side of New Zealand business ; New Holland Publishers, 2019.

Kopnina, Helen. , Blewitt, John; Sustainable business : key issues ; Routledge, 2015.

Hart, Stuart L. Capitalism at the crossroads: Next generation business strategies for a post-crisis world. FT Press, 2010.

Notes

For more information about this course please contact paceinternships@canterbury.ac.nz

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $894.00

International fee $4,100.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Work Integrated Learning .

All PACE225 Occurrences

  • PACE225-25S1 (C) Semester One 2025