Gerard Farias, Nancy E. Landrum, Christine Farias and Isabella Krysa
Since the Brundtland report’s call for sustainability, planetary conditions have deteriorated. This paper suggests that corporate hypocrisy is a major barrier toward the adoption…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the Brundtland report’s call for sustainability, planetary conditions have deteriorated. This paper suggests that corporate hypocrisy is a major barrier toward the adoption of sustainability and offers a typology of business behavior that can move closer toward the adoption of true and strong sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This article uses a normative lens to build upon prior literature and anecdotal evidence from the field to present a typology of business archetypes that represent a variety of responses toward sustainability.
Findings
The authors propose five typologies of business behavior that represent responses toward sustainability: business-as-usual, hypocritical pretender, hypocritical co-opter, responsible enterprise and purposeful enterprise. The first three typologies represent existing hypocritical approaches using weak sustainability. The last two typologies decrease corporate hypocrisy; improve alignment of talk, decisions and action; and help an organization adopt true and strong sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
This is a normative paper that critiques existing literature and practices in corporate sustainability and proposes new directions. It necessitates further research in the form of case studies and empirical cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. It implies assessing firm impact in non-traditional ways and will call for the development of new measures and indicators of firm performance from a social and environmental perspective.
Practical implications
The typology can provide practitioners and researchers with one possible solution to eliminate or decrease corporate hypocrisy in relation to sustainability, reporting and communications.
Social implications
Planetary conditions have worsened, and business activity continues to contribute to deteriorating conditions. This research attempts to help businesses move away from hypocritical and destructive practices and to adopt true and strong sustainability practices for a flourishing planet. Furthermore, the authors articulate policy and practice recommendations in this context.
Originality/value
After decades of failure to make progress in achieving planetary sustainability, this research offers a model for practitioners and researchers to use in defining the actions necessary to achieve the elusive concept of sustainability.
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Christine Farias and Fabian Balardini
Teaching complex economic theories can be made relevant through everyday life experiences and current economic, social, and environmental crises can be used as vehicles for…
Abstract
Purpose
Teaching complex economic theories can be made relevant through everyday life experiences and current economic, social, and environmental crises can be used as vehicles for student learning. The purpose of this paper is to help students understand that the economy should be seen as a social system that evolves over time driven by conflictive and contradictory forces and enable them to develop the critical thinking skills needed to make better choices for a more equitable and sustainable future.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the historical role played by neoliberalism on education in general and on the teaching of economics in particular. A historical/critical/action-learning approach discusses five pedagogical teaching methods that have been implemented in undergraduate economics courses and demonstrates how teaching social economics can be made possible by bringing the real world into the classroom and taking the classroom into the real world.
Findings
There is an urgent need to rethink the teaching of economics and the economics curriculum from one that stresses self-interest, profit maximization and cost minimization, to one that stresses cooperation, collaboration, fairness, and ethical values rather than economic value, as ways of satisfying society’s needs and addressing systemic issues of inequality, power and greed. Bringing teachers and students together in collaborative learning environments, thereby learning from the mistakes of the past and minimizing the impacts of the present so that future generations can also participate, is the much-needed change in how social economics can be taught post-financial crisis.
Originality/value
This paper is a response to the special issue on the theme teaching social economics during the global financial crisis. The authors have provided insights into their teaching pedgagogy in the context of this topic.
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Daniella Bendo, Christine Goodwin-De Faria and Stefania Maggi
In 2020, UNICEF Canada released Report Card 16 revealing that Canada ranks in the bottom tier compared to other wealthy countries in terms of child and youth well-being. The…
Abstract
In 2020, UNICEF Canada released Report Card 16 revealing that Canada ranks in the bottom tier compared to other wealthy countries in terms of child and youth well-being. The Report Card highlights that promoting participation is required to improve this ranking. Recognising the connection between child well-being and participation, this chapter explores youth-serving institutions in Canada to understand how participation materialises in these settings. Through interviews with provincial and territorial Canadian child and youth advocates, this chapter first explores advocate offices that serve young people facing challenges. These are the only group of child and youth advocates in Canada that have formal legal mandates to implement children's rights at the provincial and territorial level. Comparatively, through interviews with justice-involved youth we analyse the youth justice system. By adjusting the setup of the court space and attempting to minimise power imbalances, we discuss how Canada's first and only Aboriginal Youth Court (AYC), promotes participation and engagement. Through a comparative case analysis, this chapter explores where barriers exist in terms of conceptualising and implementing participation rights, and where opportunities and best practices may be leveraged across child and youth serving institutions in Canada.
Christine Farias and Gerard Farias
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the dilemma of global sustainable economic development and poverty alleviation in the context of the environmental concerns.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the dilemma of global sustainable economic development and poverty alleviation in the context of the environmental concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
A range of recently published literature focusing on the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) is reviewed. The arguments that are in favor and against the notion of poor being a “market” are examined. The implications of increased consumption by the poor even while the developed countries maintain their levels of consumption are discussed.
Findings
This paper argues that current levels of consumption by the developed world is not sustainable even as the world's poor begin to consume more to maintain a reasonable standard of living. New business models and models for sustainable development are called for.
Research limitations/implications
Sustainable development is an extremely complex issue and it is impossible to address this complexity in a single article.
Practical implications
The paper challenges businesses to develop new business models that have more stringent constraints imposed on them.
Originality/value
This paper challenges the current norm of unbridled growth. The paper calls for academicians and practitioners to develop new models.
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This article discusses the methodological implications of a recent study on Luxembourg's offshore financial center. Insight from actor-network theory was essential in undertaking…
Abstract
This article discusses the methodological implications of a recent study on Luxembourg's offshore financial center. Insight from actor-network theory was essential in undertaking its ethnographic research with elites from the country's state and financial institutions. My intention in documenting this approach is to provide a template for ethnographers studying other localized contexts of global politico-economic significance, in which elite actors usually seek to curtail the enquiries of investigators. With this actor-network from Luxembourg as an example, I demonstrate how elite and difficult-to-access milieus can be entered via “networking” coupled with outreach via interviews and email correspondence. As I show, by initiating various modalities of entry into the context in question, ethnographers can establish themselves within an actor-network for the purposes of conducting interviews and participant observation with elite interlocutors.
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Lyndsay M.C. Hayhurst, Holly Thorpe and Megan Chawansky
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and…
Abstract
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.