Please join us for a good conversation at AOM on Changing Course: Reimagining and Innovating Business in a Human- and Eco-Centric Future, Sunday, August 11, 12:00-1:30 pm, Chicago Marriott, Belmont (4th floor).
Please consider joining Jim Walsh (Michigan U), Phil Mirvis (Babson College), Chris Laszlo (Case Western Reserve U), Wren Montgomery (Western W), and me (Sandra Waddock, Boston College) for a panel symposium at AOM titled: Changing Course: Reimagining and Innovating in Business in a Human- and Eco-Centric Future. The symposium, sponsored by SIM, raises the question of how the purposes and social-ecological behaviors of firms - and indeed whole economies - may need to change (or, in the words of the call for papers, innovate) if humanity is to build a future that decenters business and economics and re-centers humans in the natural world. The time is now. After all, we are in a polycrisis, an intersecting, entangled set of existential crises that pose global systemic risks (Henig and Knight, 2023; Homer-Dixon et al., 2021). This polycrisis is the legacy of a past that, in both conscious and unconscious ways, leaves us on the precipice of unimaginable loss (Ord, 2020). While the future is not ours to wholly design, we do have an opportunity to shape its evolutionary contours.
We will have a conversation about how we as business scholars might change the path of history, one that leaves us so vulnerable to crisis and even the possibility of human extinction. Do we need to reconsider the purpose, responsibility and accountability of business to society and to nature at this moment of crisis? We think the answer to that question is "Yes." And so, we convene a symposium in Chicago that both considers the need for paradigmatic change and the nature of that change itself. The following scholars will participate in this symposium: Sandra Waddock will describe the symposium, define the context of polycrisis, explore the implications of three cultural myths in fostering that crisis, and issue a call for catalyzing transformative and innovative action. James P. Walsh will examine accountability in a world of responsibility management, exploring the motivation for the symposium and a need for innovation in business paradigms. Phil Mirvis will address the evolution of purpose over the past 20 years, along with the issues that have arisen for companies in designing purposes. Chris Laszlo will present the science of prospection, in which the acts of reimagining and innovating in business can be seen as calling forth solutions to polycrisis, rather than as exercises in extending knowledge about the past or present. Wren Montgomery will examine whether corporate sustainability promises that do not align with and impact science-based targets and planetary boundaries are "not credible" or "future washing", and are simply new forms of greenwash.
Please join for what we hope will be a stimulating, provocative, and hopeful conversation about the future. Again, Sunday, August 11 at AOM, 12:00-1:30 in the Chicago Marriott, Belmont Room (4th floor).
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Sandra Waddock
Galligan Chair of Strategy
Boston College
Carroll School of Management]
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA
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