scholarly journals Strategic transformation to sustilience: learning from COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Grant ◽  
Thomas Wunder
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Damage ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Corporate Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Corporate Leaders ◽  
Stable Conditions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Financial Survival ◽  
Strategic Transformation

PurposeThe authors seek to stimulate and strengthen learning for both institutional and corporate leadership to transform society toward sustainability and resilience. The authors use sustainability in the broader socioecological sense, rather than meaning merely financial survival. Based upon experiences by various parties in dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) or (C-19) during 2020 and into 2021, we are all driven to ask, “Which lessons shall we learn?”Design/methodology/approachBased upon a brief review of environmental and management literature, the authors compare experiences with C-19 and those of socio-ecological sustainability to-date and distill both sources for optimism as well as pessimism in the face of technical and socio-political challenges.FindingsHistorical experiences are not particularly encouraging, but there are many opportunities for great improvements if institutional and corporate leaders choose to learn from both C-19 experiences and earlier efforts toward sustainability.Practical implicationsProcrastination by major industrialized economies in not taking major positive actions to control and reduce carbon pollution and other environmental damage is leading to human crises–hunger and thirst followed by migration, conflicts and healthcare system collapses. Organizational executives need to develop flexibility and embrace precautionary principles regarding many stakeholders if humanity is going to have a good chance of flourishing in the future.Originality/valueThe authors adapt the “wedding cake” model of Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) and their relationships to the concept of “dynamic materiality” in both an organizational as well as a macro perspective. In addition, the authors introduce the word sustilience to describe an organization's combined ability to achieve “sustainability” through relatively stable conditions as well as the “resilience” to rebound after major external shocks.

S Group’s vision for strategic transformation: “Your Own Store”

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Neilimo ◽  
Hannu Kuusela ◽  
Elina Närvänen ◽  
Hannu Saarijärvi
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Change ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Face ◽  
Practical Guidelines ◽  
Strategic Transformation ◽  
A Company ◽  
Case Organization

Purpose – The vision should ignite and facilitate strategic change as well as help a company to transform and reinvent itself in the face of competition. Too often executives use vision as a mere slogan without real relevance. The purpose of this study is to show how the vision guides strategic change. Design/methodology/approach – A case study from a successful multi-format, multi-industry service business is used to illustrate the role of vision in strategic change management. Findings – The article illustrates how the vision was used in practice in guiding the strategic transformation process of the case organization. The study presents four focal tasks of the vision and concludes with five practical guidelines for executives. Originality/value – The article highlights the role of vision as an important tool for managing strategic change.

Securing well-being with the advent of climate hazards

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Loh Chia ◽  
Anne Marie Tiani ◽  
Denis Jean Sonwa ◽  
Alba Saray Perez-Teran ◽  
Berenger Tchatchou
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Forest Ecosystems ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
The Face ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Resource Systems

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the contribution of forests resource systems to the different aspects of community well-being, the implications of climate variability on the different sources of well-being and further identifies direct and indirect social and policy opportunities relevant for communities to enhance their capabilities in the face of climate variability and change in the Tri-National de la Sangha landscape of Cameroon. Design/methodology/approach – It illustrates on data collected from focus group discussions and from 151 households randomly selected in three villages to operationalize the conceptual links between community well-being and vulnerability. Findings – The study shows that vulnerability to climate change interferes with community strategies to achieve well-being, in addition to non-climatic processes which are both internal and external to communities. The study further indicates that healthy forest ecosystems provide opportunities for the local folks to build assets, improve food security, improve health and reduce risks. However, this requires capacity building and the channeling of resources to the local level, in addition to win–win sectoral policy amendments. Research limitations/implications – Biophysical methods required to complement community perceptions on the suitability of forest resource systems to climate variability. Practical implications – This paper argues that appropriate strategies which aim at improving well-being needs to capture the role of forest ecosystems, climate change risks and uncertainty and macroeconomic and social processes. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between climate risk and the well-being of forest communities. This is relevant for practitioners and policy makers to reflect on the risk of climate change and the rationale for conserving forest resources for community well-being in the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals conclusions.

Two strategies for innovating in the face of market disruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Leavy
Keyword(s):  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Growth Potential ◽  
Incremental Innovation ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Corporate Leaders ◽  
Dual Transformation ◽  
High Reward ◽  
Market Disruption ◽  
The Face

Purpose This Masterclass considers the lessons of two recent important books have contrasting but complementary insights to offer to company leaders and strategists on how to improve the odds for developing successful innovations in response to game changes in markets.” Design/methodology/approach In Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today’s Business While Creating the Future (2017), disruptive innovation experts, Scott Anthony, Clark Gilbert and Mark Johnson offer corporate leaders a “dual transformation” template for simultaneously repositioning the traditional core business in the face of disruptive change, while also creating new businesses to harness the growth potential typically unlocked by such disruption. In The Power of Little Ideas: A Low-Risk, High-Reward Approach to Innovation (2017), innovation guru, David Robertson, and his collaborator, Kent Lineback, offer companies a “third way” for coping with historic market inflections by innovating around a core product to make it more compelling, rather than having to choose between attempting the radical or incremental innovation of the product itself. Findings The most powerful message that both books featured in this masterclass have to offer is that while it may be true, as they go on to observe, that large companies can’t innovate faster than the market, they can learn “to innovate better than the market,” through more imaginative use of legacy products, platforms and assets. Practical implications A “third way” to cope with market disruption is based on innovating around the core product, by surrounding it with a set of complementary innovations, rather than re-featuring the product itself. All of the complementary innovations operate together with the product “as a system or family to satisfy a compelling promise to the customer.” Originality/value Both Dual Transformation and The Power of Little Ideas, present different, but far from mutually exclusive, innovation strategies that can help many more great companies to survive disruptive competition.

scholarly journals Manezinho who makes good food: Restaurante do Costinha

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro José Raymundo ◽  
Diego Hernando Florez Ayala ◽  
Ullian Fadu Naatz ◽  
Anete Alberton
Keyword(s):  
Food Waste ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Teaching Case ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Contemporary Perspective ◽  
Business Challenges

PurposeThe aim is to enable debates about the need for changes in the restaurant's management posture regarding food waste.Design/methodology/approachThis study is a teaching case about a restaurant and was prepared based on information collected from the authors' experiences in teaching, consulting, and academic research. The plot, company name, and characters are fictitious.FindingsThe results are related to the classroom application to promote discussion and knowledge of topics such as finance, costs, sustainability, food waste, and the Demonstration of Results for the Exercise.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation is that it is a fictitious study, but it allows applied research based on the authors' scientific knowledge and professional practice.Practical implicationsThe theme contributes to anchoring decision-making by managers in the face of day-to-day business challenges. Furthermore, in a contemporary perspective, it involves a small establishment concerning the possibilities of contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Furthermore, due to the richness of details, the case constitutes an intriguing teaching tool to be applied in the classroom.Social implicationsIt impacts social actions, according to the examples found in the narrative used in the teaching case.Originality/valueIts originality is related to its interdisciplinarity and how it involves the themes of finance and sustainability applied in business practice.

Decline in maize and beans production in the face of climate change at Hai District in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linus K. Munishi ◽  
Anza A. Lema ◽  
Patrick A. Ndakidemi
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Arid Ecosystems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Annual Crops ◽  
Kilimanjaro Region ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
The Face ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Rainfall Patterns ◽  
Climate Studies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how climatic change in Africa is expected to lead to a higher occurrence of severe droughts in semiarid and arid ecosystems. Understanding how crop productions react to such events is, thus, crucial for addressing future challenges for food security and poverty alleviation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors explored how temperature and rainfall patterns determined maize and beans production in Hai District in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. Findings – Annual food crops were particularly sensitive to the drought and maize and beans yields were lower than perennial crops during the years of drought. The authors also report strong and significant association between maize and beans production with temperature and rainfall patterns. Practical implications – This study highlights how severe droughts can dramatically affect yields of annual crops and suggests that extreme climatic events might act as a major factor affecting agriculture production and food security, delaying or preventing the realization of the Millennium Development Goals. Originality/value – This is the first study that highlights how severe droughts can dramatically affect yields of annual crops in Hai District contributing to other climate studies done elsewhere in Tanzania and the world at large.

scholarly journals The Governance of Covid-19: Anthropogenic Risk, Evolutionary Learning, and the Future of the Social State

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-594
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
Gaofeng Meng
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
Anthropogenic Risks ◽  
Industrialised Countries

Abstract We consider the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for the theory and practice of governance. We define ‘governance’ as the process through which, in the case of a given entity or polity, resources are allocated, decisions made and policies implemented, with a view to ensuring the effectiveness of its operations in the face of risks in its environment. Core to this, we argue, is the organisation of knowledge through public institutions, including the legal system. Covid-19 poses a particular type of ‘Anthropogenic’ risk, which arises when organised human activity triggers feedback effects from the natural environment. As such it requires the concerted mobilisation of knowledge and a directed response from governments and international agencies. In this context, neoliberal theories and practices, which emphasise the self-adjusting properties of systems of governance in response to external shocks, are going to be put to the test. In states’ varied responses to Covid-19 to date, it is already possible to observe some trends. One of them is the widespread mischaracterisation of the measures taken to address the epidemic at the point of its emergence in the Chinese city of Wuhan in January and February 2020. Public health measures of this kind, rather than constituting a ‘state of exception’ in which legality is set aside, are informed by practices which originated in the welfare or social states of industrialised countries, and which were successful in achieving a ‘mortality revolution’ in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Relearning this history would seem to be essential for the future control of pandemics and other Anthropogenic risks.

The Need for Global Environmental Health Policy

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-59
Author(s):  
David O. Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Program Policy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Environmental Integrity ◽  
Organization Policy ◽  
Environmental Capital

The world economy has been growing by an average of 3.5% a year. Continued global development is sustainable if overall social assets remain constant or rise over time, including manufactured, human, and environmental capital. Sustainable development requires that society not decrease its overall assets. But unregulated global trade may result in long-term loss of environmental capital. Multilateral governance is needed. Classical business models tend to view environmental damage as an externality—an impact on a third party's welfare that is neither compensated nor appropriated. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development clearly states that economic development must err on the side of environmental integrity. Whereas UN Environmental Program policy requires precaution in the face of scientific uncertainty, World Trade Organization policy requires scientific certainty before precaution can be used. The conflict is obvious. In fact, there is gross lack of policy coordination across institutions. This article looks at some environmental strains and concludes that trade policy must address all aspects of human welfare, not merely the economic.

Associated change in plantar temperature and sweating after transthoracic endoscopic T2–3 sympathectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han-Jung Chen ◽  
Cheng-Loong Liang ◽  
Kang Lu
Keyword(s):  
Skin Temperature ◽  
Temperature Change ◽  
The Body ◽  
Palmar Hyperhidrosis ◽  
Compensatory Sweating ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Postoperative Changes ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Fine Print

Object. Transthoracic endoscopic T2–3 sympathectomy is currently the treatment of choice for palmar hyperhidrosis. Compensatory sweating of the face, trunk, thigh, and sole of the foot was found in more than 50% of patients who underwent this procedure. The authors conducted this study to investigate the associated intraoperative changes in plantar skin temperature and postoperative plantar sweating. Methods. One hundred patients with palmar hyperhidrosis underwent bilateral transthoracic endoscopic T2–3 sympathectomy. There were 60 female and 40 male patients who ranged in age from 13 to 40 years (mean age 21.6 years). Characteristics studied included changes in palmar and plantar skin temperature measured intraoperatively, as well as pre- and postoperative changes in plantar sweating and sympathetic skin responses (SSRs). In 59 patients (59%) elevation of plantar temperature was demonstrated at the end of the surgical procedure. In this group, plantar sweating was found to be exacerbated in three patients (5%); plantar sweating was improved in 52 patients (88.1%); and no change was demonstrated in four patients (6.8%). In the other group of patients in whom no temperature change occurred, increased plantar sweating was demonstrated in three patients (7.3%); plantar sweating was improved in 20 patients (48.8%); and no change was shown in 18 patients (43.9%). The difference between temperature and sweating change was significant (p = 0.001). Compared with the presympathectomy rate, the rate of absent SSR also significantly increased after sympathectomy: from 20 to 76% after electrical stimulation and 36 to 64% after deep inspiration stimulation, respectively (p < 0.05). Conclusions. In contrast to compensatory sweating in other parts of the body after T2–3 sympathetomy, improvement in plantar sweating was shown in 72% and worsened symptoms in 6% of patients. The intraoperative plantar skin temperature change and perioperative SSR demonstrated a correlation between these changes.

Sustainability-oriented strategy and Sustainable Development Goals

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscila Borin de Oliveira Claro ◽  
Nathalia Ramajo Esteves
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Negative Externalities ◽  
Global Compact ◽  
Content Type ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Over Time

PurposeSustainability-oriented strategies involve considering all possible environmental, social and economic factors that impact stakeholders and sustainable development. They could be a crucial contribution of the private sector to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The study’s objective is twofolded. First, the authors want to discover if enterprises doing business in Brazil are contemplating the SDGs in their strategies. Second, the authors want to identify the external and internal factors that motivate them.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data through an online survey with employees from Global Compact signatories in Brazil. From a list of 335 for-profit enterprises, the authors got back 132 answers. The sample comprises Brazilian enterprises that only operate in the Brazilian market, Brazilian multinational enterprises (MNEs) and foreign multinationals operating in Brazilian and international markets. For this study, the MNEs’ group comprises Brazilian multinationals and foreign multinationals (MNEs). To characterize the sample and identify the motivating factors, the authors conducted a descriptive analysis. To compare the domestic and MNEs’ mean differences regarding the factors that influenced their strategies and the SDGs, the authors performed Mann–Whitney's U-test.FindingsThe results of the study show that enterprises are addressing the SDGs in their strategies. All internal and external driving factors are similar for domestic and MNEs, except for the value chain's negative externalities. MNEs are more prone to consider their negative externalities, which is a positive trend. Finally, results suggest that both groups of enterprises consider the 17 goals in their strategies, contrary to the theoretical argument that multinationals suffer more pressure because of their broad geographic scope.Research limitations/implicationsThe database of the study involves data collected through a self-response survey. Thus, the authors cannot discuss the effectiveness of real SDGs' strategies once enterprises' discourse on sustainability does not always correspond with practices. Therefore, the authors suggest that researchers address the results of implemented strategies on the SDGs over time to check for improvements and new developments.Practical implicationsThe authors suggest frequent materiality assessment of domestic enterprises' supply chain and articulation of explicit purposes around the selected SDGs, including setting key performance indicators (KPIs) and monitoring progress.Social implicationsThe authors believe that enterprises and decision makers should recognize their essential role to bend the curve on SDGs and shift their behavior toward strategic choices that could contribute to their positive performance over time, without contributing to environmental degradation and socioeconomic chaos.Originality/valuePublication on how enterprises address the SDGs in Brazil is relatively scarce. This study provides some answers to that by focusing on the factors influencing sustainability-oriented strategies on the SDGs. Besides, most previous studies consider a small sample of enterprises and are industry specific or focus on the effects of the SDGs in public policy. The sample of this study is diverse and represents 42% of the for-profit signatories of the Global Compact in Brazil.

Does educational progress impact energy consumption? A causality test for India

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumen Rej ◽  
Barnali Nag
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Causality Test ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Vector Error Correction ◽  
Educational Advancement ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Per Capita

Purpose Both energy and education have been positioned as priority objectives under the itinerary of UN development goals. Hence, it is necessary to address the implicit inter relationship between these two development goals in the context of developing nations such as India who are trying to grow in both per capita income and socio economic factors whilst struggling with the challenges of a severe energy supply constrained economy. Design/methodology/approach In the present study, the causal relationship between energy consumption per capita and education index (EI) as a proxy of educational advancement is investigated for India for 1990–2016 using the Johansen-Juselius cointegration test and vector error correction model. Findings The empirical results infer although energy consumption per capita and EI lack short run causality in either direction, existence of unidirectional long run causality from EI to per capita energy consumption is found for India. Further, it is observed that energy consumption per capita takes around four years to respond to unit shock in EI. Research limitations/implications The findings from this study imply that with the advancement of education, a rise in per capita energy consumption requirement can be foreseen on the demand side, and hence, India’s energy policy needs to emphasize further its sustainable energy supply goals to meet this additional demand coming from a population with better education facilities. Originality/value The authors hereby confirm that this manuscript is entirely their own original study and not submitted elsewhere.

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