Course description:
This course will serve as an introduction to the interdependence of business and government. Businesses produce the private goods & services that are fundamental to a functioning economy. Government supplies the public goods, regulations, and redistribution that enable business and society to thrive. This course will therefore investigate the different roles and capacities of government and business for solving economic and social problems. It will draw upon on theory and evidence rather than philosophy or political ideology. The realms of fiscal, trade, monetary, and regulatory policy will be explored. In doing so, students will consider the questions: upon what scientific basis might one decide if government action is justified? If so, then what instruments or tools does government have at its disposal; how might we choose amongst them? How do we identify stakeholders; and how should we expect stakeholders to respond? Along the way, students will learn professional communications techniques: the proper use of presentation software, basic data visualization, brief and memo writing. Finally, this course will not dictate judgements about what functions government or business should or should not perform; students will decide for themselves.
Academic honesty/integrity statement:
Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. All work submitted must be original and properly cited. Plagiarism, cheating, or any form of academic dishonesty will result in immediate consequences as outlined in the university's academic integrity policy.
In this course, plagiarism is defined, for the purposes of this class, as: copying, borrowing, or appropriating another person’s work and presenting it as your own in a paper or oral presentation, deliberately or by accident. Acts of plagiarism will be reported in accordance with the Honor Challenge. In particular, if you engage in plagiarism or any other form of academic misconduct, you will fail the assignment in which you have engaged in academic misconduct and be referred to the Office of
Student Integrity, as required by Georgia Tech policy. In order to avoid being charged with plagiarism, if you use the words, ideas, phrasing, charts, graphs, or data of another person or from published material, then you must either: 1) use quotation marks around the words and cite the source, or 2) paraphrase or summarize acceptably using your own words and cite the source. The plagiarism policy is not restricted to books, but also applies to video & audio content, websites, blogs, wiki’s, and podcasts.
Another serious type of academic misconduct is the improper use of Artificial Intelligence. In this course:
- Students may not use AI when conducting research because one goal of this course is to learn how to identify, find, digest, and interpret expert sources.
- Students may not use AI when writing because one goal of this course is to build skills and experience in critical thinking, communication, and original thought (i.e., avoid plagiarism).
- Students may use AI when creating graphics and data visualizations because, while one goal of this course is to learn how to identify high v. low quality visualizations, students need not become skilled graphic designers.
Students are also expected to read and abide by the Georgia Tech Student Code of Conduct and the Academic Honor Code. All violations will be reported. The complete text of these two Codes may be found at:
- https://policylibrary.gatech.edu/student-life/student-code-conduct
- https://policylibrary.gatech.edu/student-life/academic-honor-code
Students are also strongly urged to be familiar with these Georgia Tech sites:
- Honor Challenge — https://osi.gatech.edu/students/honor-code
- Office of Student Integrity — http://www.osi.gatech.edu/index.php/Core
Core IMPACTS statement(s) (if applicable):
This is a Core IMPACTS course that is part of the Social Sciences area. Core IMPACTS refers to the core curriculum, which provides students with essential knowledge in foundational academic areas. This course will help master course content, and support students’ broad academic and career goals.
This course should direct students toward a broad Orienting Question:
• How do I understand human experiences and connections?
Completion of this course should enable students to meet the following Learning Outcomes:
• Students will effectively analyze the complexity of human behavior, and how historical, economic,
political, social or geographic relationships develop, persist or change.
Course content, activities and exercises in this course should help students develop the following Career-Ready Competencies:
• Intercultural Competence
• Perspective-Taking
• Persuasion
