Social Power and Social Change

• Wednesday, March 27th, 2024 16h15 to 18h30 (CET)
• Lecture: The Modern Corporation: The Problem of Purpose
• Professor Andrej RUS, Andrej RUS, University of Ljubljana, Faculty for Social Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia Corporations are fantastic beasts. They exist only on paper and yet they employ hundreds of thousands of people, they build factories, skyscrapers, and business campuses. They produce goods and services, market and sell them, make money and use it to expand and buy other companies. They own diverse assets from land, buildings, machinery to art. They can borrow huge amounts of money, own any number of other companies, get sued and go bankrupt. They are everywhere on the streets, shopping centers, homes and in human neural systems where corporate brands can induce pleasure comparable to satisfaction of basic human needs.  Discussion and Q&A: The Modern Corporation: Hope for the Future ? Calin GOINA, Associate professor of sociology at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania,  Andrej RUS, Professor of management at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty for Social Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia  Brian T. SCHMITT, Associate professor of American studies at CY Cergy Paris University, Cergy-Pontoise, France  A discussion and Q&A on the power of corporations to make social change, either positive or negative. What makes corporations so powerful? How effective can governments – at the national, regional, and municipal levels – be at reigning in corporations? Are new legal structures needed to counter-balance corporate power? What might they look like?

The EUTOPIA University Learning Community (“LC”) Social Power and Social Change is excited to announce two Learning Activities for the .

The lectures will be delivered at CY Cergy Paris Université and also be available via Zoom. They are open to students, faculty, and staff from all ten members of the EUTOPIA University.
The goal of the LC Social Power and Social Change is to engage students in a debate about what is social change and how it takes place. These lectures will provide an overview of two of the most significant agents of social change – complex organizations and corporations. As both lectures are intended for a general audience, no previous knowledge of the topics is necessary.


Lecture 1. An Introduction to Complex Organizations

Who: Brian T. SCHMITT, Associate professor, CY Cergy Paris Université and Agora Laboratoire

Summary: One of the most distinguishing characteristics of modern life is the ubiquity of large, formal organizations. From governmental entities to universities, from hospitals to arms manufacturers, complex organizations are everywhere. Yet the basics of how organizations function – their purposes, their capacities, and their tensions – are rarely included in the typical university curricula. This lecture aims to fill that gap. After a brief review of how simple organizations are structured, the lecture will
present a framework that identifies the key actors in complex organizations: leaders, sub-leaders, rank-and-file, boards, and members. Knowing the capacities and responsibilities of each of these actors can help us understand how they can be changed for the better.

When: Thursday, March 9th, 2023 from 16h15 to 17h45 (Central European Time)


Lecture 2. Are corporations evil or good? The neglected question of corporate purpose

Who: Andrej RUS, Professor at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences and the Research Center for Strategy and Governance

Summary: What are corporations? Where did they come from? From their beginnings in the 17th century as joint stock companies, the purpose of the corporation has been contested. We will examine different conceptions of the purposes of corporation. One prevalent view is that corporations have one and only one purpose and that is to make profits for shareholders. We will look at other perspectives. To promote in class debate, the lecture will present two short case studies exploring the sudden departure of two CEOs in spite of their sustainability credentials.
When: Thursday, April 6th, 2023 from 16h15 to 17h45 (Central European Time)

You can download the document here

November 24th, 2022 — Katarzyna WOJNICKA, professor of sociology at the University of Gothenburg, delivered a Zoom talk entitled the European Fathers’ Rights Movements. There were ten students from CY and approximately eight students from the University of Gothenburg participating online. The talk was followed by a question-&-answer period.

April 14th, 2022, Azrini WAHIDIN, professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, delivered an in-person lecture at CY Cergy Paris Université for the course with approximately 40 students from CY.  The title of the talk was Green Criminology.

Guest Speaker EXIT UK followed by a question-and-answer with the students (December 2nd, 2021).(LC Social Power and Social Change). Exit UK works with individuals who want to leave extreme right-wing and white supremacist organisations but may not know how to do it on their own. The Zoom presentation was open to all students associated with the members of the Learning Community, giving them the opportunity to come in contact with each other and discuss an important social issue facing Europe, particularly Europe’s youth. 

           Modality: Zoom presentation, hybrid CY in-person and UoW online 

First edition of EUTOPIA LU EUTOPIA LU ‘Social Power and Change’, led by Brian Schmitt (CY) – When? Autumn 2021