Admission requirements
This course is open to students enrolled in the Master Law and Society.
Description
This module examines the way legal rules come to shape organizational behavior. It focuses on how the law can best come to regulate damages and risks emanating from corporate and public organizational actors. The course enables students to understand the root causes of organizational harmful behavior and assess how regulatory interventions can address these. Students will learn what types of influences law has on human and organizational conduct. Here they will learn leading theoretical ideas, empirical insights, as well as methodological challenges. Students will also learn how external regulation and internal compliance management have sought to address corporate risk, assessing the theories and empirical findings behind several major interventions and practices. Each week students will apply the insights from the academic literature to case studies of major corporate harm to assess what the organizational root causes of such harm were, what regulatory processes were at play, and how such harm can best be prevented in the future. These will culminate in student papers that assess the root causes of the corporate misconduct, the regulatory and compliance management responses, and the implications from the case study for future reforms and improvement in regulation and compliance.
Course objectives
Objectives of the course
At the end of this course, students are able to
Identify and explain the different ways legal rules shape human and organizational behavior by drawing on academic theoretical and empirical insights;Identify, explain, and critically evaluate how regulatory enforcement and compliance management practices can be improved to address root causes of organizational harm;Analyze case studies of major organizational harm through publicly available sources to understand the root causes of such harm here and the role regulatory enforcement and compliance management has played there;Analyze what the implications from the case studies are for improving regulatory enforcement and compliance management to more effectively address organizational harm;Develop oral and written presentations of these case studies and their implications.
Timetable
Check MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
Lectures
Number of (2 hour) interactive lectures: 5
Names of lecturers: dr. Benjamin van Rooij
Required preparation by students: students will have read and prepared the reading materials.
Seminars
Number of (2 hour) seminars: 5 (mandatory)
Names of instructors: Benjamin van Rooij
Required preparation by students: before each session students must collect materials in relation to their assigned case study and use insights from the lectures to analyse these materials..
All students are required to attend and actively participate during lectures and seminars.
Assessment method
Examination form(s)
The course requires a group presentation (individually marked, 20%) and an essay (80%).Each component has to be completed with a passing result (5,5) in order to complete the course successfully. If this is not the case, the lowest partial grade will be registered as final grade.Students who fail the course can do a retake of the essay. There is no retake for the group presentation.All grades are valid for the academic year they were attained.
Regulation retake passed exams
Reading list
Course materials
Students will have to study one text book and international articles, the titles of which will be distributed via Brightspace, students will have to look up the articles themselves.
Registration
Registration for courses and exams takes place via MyStudymap. If you do not have access to MyStudymap (guest students), look here (under the Law-tab) for more information on the registration procedure in your situation.
Contact
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Benjamin van Rooij
Work address: KOG (Steenschuur 25 Leiden)
Telephone number secretariat: (0)71 – 527 7260
Email: [b.vanrooij@uva.nl]
Institution/division
Institute: Institute for the Inter-disciplinary Study of the Law
Department: Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society
Room number secretary: KOG (Steenschuur 25 Leiden), room B1.14
Opening hours: Monday to Thursday and Fridy morning
Telephone number secretary: 071-527 7260
Email: SecretariatVVI@LAW.leidenuniv.nl