The sustainable business movement is likely the most important environmental movement in the world today. Therefore, universities must create an education system that does not destroy the biosphere. More specifically, given that businesses are powerful institutions, leadership and sustainable development (SD) should be an integral part of the business curriculum. The current lack of educational content on SD is linked to several issues. First, we need to approach leadership education from a sustaincentric paradigm, thereby moving away from emphasizing profitability at the expense of a healthy ecological, social, and economic context. Second, there remains a paucity of theoretical and practical tools for educating leaders to take on the SD challenge. Indeed, there is confusion regarding how leadership relates to successful implementation of environmental sustainability. In this paper, we outline some guidelines for leadership and SD. Accordingly, we acknowledge the fundamental complexity of SD and question the potential for contributions from biomimicry. We join the call for combining voices from multidisciplinary perspectives, including the physical and social sciences, as a necessary first step in our quest to take on the SD challenge and conclude that leaders must integrate a form of "shared leadership" where followers are empowered to improve ecological innovation and find "green" alternatives.
Despite multiple decades' worth of credible data confirming the extent of sustainability problems, our society has subsequently shown very limited progress with finding viable solutions on such critical subjects. Indeed, there is growing evidence of a general misunderstanding regarding the challenges related to the climate change issue. More specifically, we point to evidence outlining sustainable development (SD) and climate change as complex meta-problems. This explains why current global environmental policies are inefficient in addressing the causes of SD and climate change and why they fail to induce sustainable practices in consumers and organizations. In this paper, we argue that the primary obstacles businesses face in adopting proper sustainable practices are found in their neoclassical business worldview and in the increased competition levels resulting from internationalization and market deregulation. To counter these obstacles, we suggest solutions that have the potential to bring true SD. First, we believe the use of specific economic tools such as sovereign funds, green investments and ethical financial indexes, can have significant effects on neoclassical businesses in stewarding them towards sustainable practices. Finally, we call for increased interdisciplinary interactions between the scientific community, policymakers and business leaders in order to better manage meta-problems related to climate change.
Résumé Au Canada comme à l’étranger, les gestionnaires travaillent avec des personnes issues d’horizons culturels divers, soit en face à face, soit par l’intermédiaire de la technologie. Dans un tel contexte de gestion multiculturelle, il est important que les cadres acquièrent des compétences basées sur l’établissement et le maintien de relations de confiance. Cet article décrit des compétences liées à la gestion multiculturelle et présente de nombreux exemples de comportements à cet égard. Enfin, des recommandations sont formulées pour le développement de ces compétences multiculturelles.
Communities are grappling with unanswered questions regarding how to best manage and deliver e-services both within City Hall and with their citizen-clients. Moreover, researchers have raised concerns about the relevance of information systems research for both the academic realm and for real-world practitioners. Accordingly, the goals of this study are twofold. First, we seek to understand the internal and external concerns that result from municipal governments offering online services. We do so by involving practitioners in the research process in order to generate research that will prove useful to them while helping researchers fill gaps between phenomena as they exist in practice and in the current state of academic knowledge. Second, we propose an extension to Rosemann and Vessey's (2008) applicability check approach by offering an example of research focused on problems faced by practitioners who provide egovernment services.Keywords: Practical Relevance, Rigor, Academic Research, Research Process, Applicability Check, Government e-Services Providing Government e-Services: An Extension of Applicability Check for PractitionersThis paper responds to concerns regarding the relevance and rigor of information systems (IS) research for both academics and real-world practitioners. More specifically, we argue that a strategy to obtain relevance is to involve practitioners in the research process (i.e., Benbasat and Zmud 1999;Lee 1999;Thomas and Tymon 1982;Baldridge, Floyd and Markoczy 2004;Tushman and O'Reilly 2007; Rosemann and Vessey 2008). Accordingly, we propose an extension to Rosemann and Vessey's (2008) applicability check approach by offering an example of research focused on problems faced by practitioners who provide online government services. By identifying 'fundamental issues', this research perspective has the potential to decrease knowledge deficiencies and focus on the interests of key stakeholders.It has been argued that relevant research requires two-way interaction between researchers as knowledge producers, and practitioners as knowledge users (Thomas and Tymon 1982). Accordingly, the academic community needs to take a more proactive role and involve practitioners in topic selection (Benbasat and Zmud 1999). In short, we can increase the quality and relevance of results by 1) studying questions that challenge both existing scientific theory and conventional management practice early in the research process, and 2) understanding the practitioners' perspective and let methodological choices be guided by the parameters of practitioner experience (i.e., Baldridge, Floyd, and Markoczy 2004).In order to meet this goal, we propose an extension to Rosemann and Vessey's (2008) applicability check approach where the first step in improving research relevance is to conduct applicability checks with practitioners.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.