Activity: Book presentation
Responsible: Samuel Petros Sebhatu
Description: This book is being published a year after the world was first impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which became a reality in spring 2020, creating a complex global challenge. Although the chapters were begun before it struck, they were finalized as it progressed. This book focuses on business transformation meeting global challenges. The aim is to understand how sustainable societal practices can contribute to a broader view of business transformation, and vice versa, in a globalized world. A global transformation agenda that is already in place today is the UN’s Agenda 2030, with its widely known Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs),[1] a plan of action for “people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership,”[2] in which nations, cities, companies, and civil society are encouraged to make the transformation to sustainability. Many businesses have already started to outline their own transformation agendas to meet the SDGs. Sustainability and the SDGs are complex and dynamic phenomena, however. Our focus is on transformation, based on proactive and innovative thinking, that results in both a societal and an environmental impact (Rockström & Klum, 2015). We look at transformation processes, presenting innovative and sustainable business practices and describing how to implement these practices in the real world. In a globalized world, businesses are going to need to transform from a strict firm-centric and economic perspective to embrace new societal practices (Laczniak & Murphy, 2012) in order to forge a sustainable future.
The book also discusses the impact that PRME has made in the last decade with its ongoing fostering of the business transformation process. PRME – “Principles for Responsible Management Education” – is an initiative for business schools which, as part of the UN Global Compact, seeks to establish a process for continuous improvement among institutions of management education to develop a new generation of business leaders capable of managing the complex challenges facing business and society in the 21st century. PRME is helping business schools to focus on “a new era for responsible business.” This book is where research meets real-world business and societal practice. The chapters are grounded in business research, specifically the interdependencies between sustainability, innovation, and transformation, which makes for a robust basis for describing, explaining, and understanding the complex challenges faced by business and society in the 21st century.
[1] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/
[2] https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/the-sustainable-development-goals-in-2019-people-planet-prosperity-in-focus/
