Browsing by Subject "corporations"

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    Leadership for Thriving: A Framework to Lead the Business Community to Sustainable Behaviors
    (2023-04-25) Olivares, Magdalena
    Climate change is a complex problem whose solution is still far from being on track. Although we have advanced a lot in terms of knowledge and awareness of the problem, we are struggling to transition to sustainable actions. Corporations have the key to unleash a substantial potential contribution to facing this challenge moving forward. Developing new business models that move their operations away from current environmental damage is needed. Their potential to leverage their connections with consumers and other stakeholders, educating and influencing them to be part of the solution, and joining efforts to adjust lifestyles and preferences for sustainable consumption also presents a huge opportunity. For these challenges, corporations need to face the transition from a technical to an adaptative approach. But corporations are not prepared to run this challenge on their own; integrating the environmental impact in the business model requires the support of environmental experts. This research is based on the hypothesis that there is an opportunity to enhance sustainable behavior transformation by improving communication and collaboration between business and environmental professionals. With this purpose, the research was done through a qualitative comparative analysis that looks to contrast the perspective and resources those professionals have with respect to climate change, looking for the interconnection of joint possibilities that can be approached in a more collaborative manner. The ecological self maturity, nature experience, and knowledge of environmental professionals make them the best candidates to support corporate change. But there is a learning challenge for environmental professionals as well, since technical acumen is not enough to lead such large and complex adaptative changes in human systems in the corporate world. This framework aims at providing a tool for environmental professionals to effectively hone their skills to lead and communicate with corporate audiences and guide them towards effective actions to tackle environmental change. Leadership for Thriving combines this perspective of leadership and inspiring storytelling with the optimistic approach of the breakthrough movement of thriving, which inspires the examples and reflections of this proposal.
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    The Game of Giving Back: Re-thinking Corporate Capitalism and the Trend of Corporate Social Responsibility
    (2010-05-12T11:15:00Z) Gloss, Nadine
    Should corporations take on responsibilities towards society beyond the production of goods and services? Can there be a motive beyond the profit motive? The following thesis will be an overview and a critique of corporate social responsibility (CSR), a trend that has gained greater visibility in the corporate business world for the last twenty years. The idea of CSR will be presented as an agent for modern multinational corporations to connect with the greater society, against the background of its free market capitalist foundation. A focused case study of CSR in the Bayer Healthcare Corporation will take place. The fieldwork for this thesis took place in the cities of Berlin, Germany and Durham, North Carolina, examining personal accounts and perceptions of western corporate culture in the twentieth century, and its influence on people within as well as outside of the corporate setting. The concept of corporate personhood in the legal and social sense will be challenged, in favor of the view that corporations are ultimately profit-seeking machines that are incapable of responding as real humans. In view of the modern corporation's purpose and relationship with society, I will argue that CSR is not a sustainable part of the corporate agenda and should not be seen as an indication that corporations are capable of operating for ends beyond profit. The CSR discourse raises critical questions about western people's relationship with the modern corporation and the functionality of the current free market capitalist system in America.