Blog

Category: Sustainability

  • Regulation And Business Responsibility

    What can business history tell us about regulation and business responsibility? The Purpose Of Business Looking at business history gives an interesting perspective. The idea that businesses are only there for the benefit of shareholders (see here) is not the only view that exists by a long way. One set of people who had a…

  • Using A Pie-Growing Mindset

    Alex Edmans’ Grow The Piece is a useful book trying to refocus business on being beneficial for society. I have noted the key points on this before, see here. Here I’ll tackle a grab bag of points related to Edmans’ book and using a pie-growing mindset. Maximizing Shareholder Value Is Nebulous Often people like the…

  • Three Principles To Guide Decision-Making

    Alex Edmans, a finance professor, is having a bit of a moment at the moment. His book Grow The Pie that I’m discussing in two posts is a very useful addition to the field. This post will outline the core points of Edmans’ work. The other post will get into a few more finicky points…

  • The Three Purposes Of A Purpose

    One of the big excitements of business at the moment involves discussions of a company’s purpose. Lots of firms think they should have one but where do you find a purpose? How do you know if you have a good one? What if no one believes you when you say you have a purpose? Jonathan…

  • Certification And Better Business

    One challenge with stakeholder/better business ideas is that there are so many things to be good (and bad) at. Is it enough to be good for the environment if you are awful to your employees? If you give money to your local community does that absolve other sins? Opinions might reasonably differ. As such we…

  • The Marketing Of Better Business

    How is the marketing of better business going? The Marketing Of Better Business In his book, Better Business, Christopher Marquis makes a fascinating claim. The B Corp movement is the most important social movement you’ve never hear of. Marquis, 2020, preface Assuming this is true it is both exciting and a bit of a concern.…

  • Strategic Change And Stakeholders

    A recent article in the MIT Sloan Management Review looks at how we can analyze strategic change. The model by Tom Hunsaker and Jonathan Knowles (a coauthor of mine) looks at the nature of change needed by firms. The model helps us focus on strategic change and how this fits with stakeholders. Specifically, the authors…

  • Improving Stakeholder Involvement In Government Decision Making

    In this blog post I discuss our work on improving stakeholder involvement in government decision making. The Journal of Business Ethics published this in July 2020. Understanding The Views of Stakeholders A major problem in government is understanding the views of its stakeholders. A stakeholder is those who are impacted by, or can impact, the…

  • Governing The Commons

    Elinor Ostrom had a profound impact on research about institutions. She got the Nobel Prize in Economics. This was for her work thinking about how social affairs could be governed: Governing The Commons. Common Pool Resoruces This goes much wider than corporate governance. It speaks to how communities deal with the control of their valuable…

  • Evolutionary Psychology And Sustainability

    Academic research isn’t always immediately applicable. This is not a bad thing, part of the aim of academic research is to wander into new territory. It is not surprising if often this isn’t directly applicable today. It is interesting, however, when academics try and bring their perspectives to more practical problems. Vladas Griskevicius, Stephanie M.…

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