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The need for a “big picture” understanding

10/11/2020

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A holistic term like sustainability defies piecemeal understanding. In other words, in order to understand deeply what sustainability means for business, one must understand how business fits with larger systems and problems in ecology (e.g., the carbon cycle), sociology (e.g., meaning of community) and economics (e.g., varieties of capitalism). It requires understanding how sustainability at an organizational level is related to the larger issues facing humankind, such as economic inequality, climate change, and the growing power of multinational corporations. This demands understanding basic ecosystems and fundamentals about human nature and the social order. 

Question. Do you agree that it is important for managers to learn about eco-systems and basic fundamentals of human nature? Or is it tough enough for managers to learn about accounting and finance and marketing, and we should leave it to others to learn about and care for the ‘big picture’? What are the dangers if the titans of industry, or even everyday managers, are not trained to think about these larger ‘big picture’ issues?​
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interview with shaun loney, aki energy

8/29/2020

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We are happy to share another interview from the same research project that we have profiled in our past few posts. In this interview Shaun Loney, co-founder of Aki Energy, explains how Aki is an Indigenous owned and operated organization that hires Indigenous people to install geothermal heating systems. Aki Energy saves taxpayers money while it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, supports the local multiplier effect, creates on-going employment in remote communities, and provides a more secure source of energy. 

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interview with laura tait and chad wiens, Heart acres farm

8/9/2020

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This is the final part in our series of interviews with enterprise managers who follow principles consistent with Social and Ecological Thought. This interview is with Laura Tait and Chad Wiens who operate Heart Acres Farm, a small farm near Winnipeg that grows vegetables in environmentally-friendly ways. Their vegetables are sold in farmer’s markets, and they supply 70 households who have purchased a share in its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). In addition to caring for the earth, Chad and Laura are passionate about enhancing social well-being in the larger community, including working with inner-city organizations. ​

​All interviews in this series were conducted by Savanna Vagianos for a research project at the University of Manitoba. We are grateful for this research, the permission of all parties to post these recordings, and for Jonathan and Paul Dyck who provided audio editing and background music, respectively. Again, these interviews were originally for a research project, so the sound quality is not ideal. However, we believe these are still worth sharing.

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interview with sarah mClachlin, sarah sue design

8/1/2020

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We continue our series of series of interviews of enterprise managers who follow principles consistent with Social and Ecological Thought. This interview is with Sarah McLachlin, the founder and manager of Sarah Sue Design, a place-based women’s clothing designer and manufacturer in Winnipeg that seeks to operate in sustainable and ethical ways. Sarah has a life-long interest in fashion design and many life lessons in how to operate a business in this industry, and in Slow Fashion more generally. ​

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interview with sherry sobey, generation green

7/24/2020

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This is the second in a series of interviews with enterprise managers who follow principles consistent with Social and Ecological Thought. This interview is with Sherry Sobey, founder and manager of Generation Green, a retail store which sells environmentally-friendly products ranging from cosmetics to household cleaners to bulk food, and of Acorn Café, a vegan café that is attached to Generation Green.  ​

All interviews were conducted by Savanna Vagianos for a research project at the University of Manitoba. We are grateful for this research, the permission of all parties to post these recordings, and for Jonathan and Paul Dyck who provided audio editing and background music, respectively. Again, these interviews were originally for a research project, so the sound quality is not ideal. However, we believe these are still worth sharing.

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interview with kalen taylor, purpose construction

6/28/2020

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This week we begin a series of interviews with enterprise managers who follow principles consistent with Social and Ecological Thought. All interviews were conducted by Savanna Vagianos for a research project at the University of Manitoba. We are grateful for this research, the permission of all parties to post these recordings, and for Jonathan and Paul Dyck who provided audio editing and background music, respectively. Again, these interviews were originally for a research project, so the sound quality is not ideal. However, we believe these are still worth sharing. 

The first interview is with Kalen Taylor, the Executive Director of Purpose Construction. Purpose is a construction company in Winnipeg that hires people facing multiple barriers to employment. It was initially started to hire people who had finished a 6-month training program called BUILD Inc, an acronym that stands for "Building Urban Industries for Local Development." Today 60 percent of Purpose Construction’s employees are refugees and newcomers to the country. 

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SET management and the common good

6/20/2020

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​The idea of the “common good” has a history going back as far as Aristotle. Usually this phrase refers to a specific community of people (e.g., an organization, a city) or to all of humanity. The idea of the “integral common good” suggests that we are also members of a larger ecological community (e.g., we depend on plants for food and oxygen), which COVID-19 has reminded us of recently. As members of this socio-ecological community, we also have moral obligations to other members. For a description of the integral common good and its implications for management practice, see my recent paper "The integral common good: Implications for Mele’s seven key practices of humanistic management” in Humanistic Management Journal. It can be downloaded at https://brunodyck.weebly.com/managing-sustainably.html.
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SET businesses and COVID-19

5/19/2020

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Tall Grass Prairie Bakery is a place-based SET firm that has been around for 30 years. It has inspired the start-up of many other SET firms and is featured in chapter 7 of our book. Here is a short video that describes its response to COVID-19, in part by going back to its roots.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBQN5XcbbvY

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Reimagining capitalism

5/9/2020

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Rebecca Henderson, a professor at the Harvard School of Business, believes that the time is ripe to usher in a reimagined capitalism, where profits are not seen as the end goal of business, but rather as a means to produce goods and services in ways that both respect the environment and treat one another with dignity. She notes that business people’s support for ecological well-being came earlier than their support for social well-being, but is optimistic that social inequalities laid bare by COVID-19 may hasten manager's commitment to social justice issues as well. She argues that: “embracing a pro-social purpose beyond profit maximization and taking responsibility for the health of the natural and social systems on which we all rely not only makes good business sense but is also morally required” (Henderson, 2020: 11).

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Henderson, R. (2020). Reimagining capitalism in a world on fire. New York, NY: Hachette Book Group Inc.

Peters, A. (2020, May 4). How businesses can make positive change during the pandemic. Fast Company.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90499677/how-businesses-can-make-positive-change-during-the-pandemic

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Flattening the climate change curve

4/11/2020

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During this time of uncertainty and stress, my heart goes out to those who are suffering physically, financially, and emotionally due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My wife and I are self-isolating, but we look forward to our daily afternoon walks. We know it may take months before we get back to anything resembling normal, and I can’t help but wonder what that new “normal” might look like.
 
Others in the field of sustainability are asking themselves similar questions. Joel Makower, Chairman and Executive Editor of GreenBiz, lists several important lessons we are all learning from our collective experience with self-isolation, which can be applied to climate change, including:
 
“How to think about the common good while protecting our own well-being and self-interest. How to view a problem simultaneously at the personal, community, national and global scales. What it’s like to be part of a problem that none of us can control, including government at the highest level, but which can’t be remedied without everyone playing their part.”

Then he goes on to describe pros and cons of applying to climate change a variation of the COVID-19 “flatten the curve” meme:
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To read this article in full, go to  https://www.greenbiz.com/article/can-we-flatten-curve-climate.
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    Bruno Dyck

    Bruno is an organizational theorist at the University of Manitoba. He loves being a management professor, scholar and teacher.

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​EMAIL BRUNO
​BRUNO DYCK
Bruno Dyck enjoys collaborating with managers, scholars, and students to promote SET management principles and practices. He is a Full Professor in the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba, and has published several prize-winning books and articles, and won awards for research and teaching, including the 2019 Expanded Reason Award. Bruno enjoys cycling to work year-round, becoming a vegetarian, buying local goods and services, hiking, and spending time with family and friends.

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EMAIL DAVID
DAVID HOLCOMB
​David Holcomb has assisted in the launch of this website -- developing ideas in conversation with Bruno and turning those ideas into reality. For the past 35 years, business for the common good has been one of David's vocational anchors. He has completed graduate work in both business and theological studies and has worked in both fields. Currently David resides with his family in Milwaukie, Oregon, where he serves as the Director of Finance and Operations with a local non-profit. 
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