Christoper Marquis has a follow-up to his book on the B Corp movement, see here. This has many of the same qualities I admired in the earlier book. The best bits explain how business can be better. He has some excellent examples where businesses are making a positive contribution to the world. That said, the…
Category: Management Theory
The UN SDGS And Consumer Research
The UN SDGs (sustainable development goals) are 17 goals members of the United Nations suggest that we need to achieve to deliver a better planet. These goals are not just environmental; they reflect the fact that to have a sustainable planet we need to make it better for all people. We need peace and prosperity…
Can There Be Sustainable Marketing?
Sustainable Marketing is a goal for many in the field nowadays. Michelle Carvill, Gemma Butler, and Geraint Evans, in their 2021 book, Sustainable Marketing, aim to help this become a reality and not the oxymoron that some might assume the term to be. Can there be sustainable marketing? Yes, but it won’t just happen. We…
A New Type Of MBA
The people at LIFT Economy offer a new type of MBA. (Lift Economy includes Ryan Honeyman who co-wrote the B Corp handbook, see here). This Next Economy MBA aims to provide a different/better type of business education. MBA Advice The team covers some standard issues like pricing. The book rightly points out the problem that…
Denial, Doom, Or Informed Optimism
Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World In Data, has a new book on the world’s environmental problems. It is a great read packed full of lots of interesting information. There are a few things I wouldn’t have done but the book is impressive and has a clear theme. Ritchie wants us to know that…
Helping Experts Perform Consistently
I have recently read Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. It is a few years old now (2009) but it still has a lot to say about the way the world works as well as Gawande’s aim of helping experts perform consistently. Do Experts Really Need Checklists? Gawande is a doctor and his main area of…
Corporate Social Responsibility
Managers at firms have a long history of seeing their role as more than just making money for their owners. Indeed, many business owners don’t just see business as only a source of profits. One way of discussing the obligations of firms is to discuss Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Today I’m looking at a history…
Getting Beyond Text In Unstructured Data
Unstructured data has massive potential in marketing that is already somewhat being fulfilled. Text analysis has proved a fruitful resource. Using text mining, marketers can seek to uncover messages hidden in massive amounts of words. A typical usage would be attempting to uncover the themes in online reviews written about a product. Yet, unstructured data…
Roots Of Unsustainability
A major paper in the history of sustainability is Lynn White Jr’s The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. This sought to describe the roots of unsustainability. His conclusion zeroed in on religion — specifically Western Christianity — as the culprit. Start By Putting Off The Reader Academic writing has changed a lot in the…
Measuring Impact On Climate
Mike Berners-Lee just over a decade ago wrote a book measuring the impact on climate of various goods, activities, and spending. (Mike is the brother of Tim Berners-Lee — who invented the World Wide Web. I feel a bit sorry for Mike, it would be really hard not to feel like a failure in that…
