Global Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access - GIDBEA. The Architecture of A New Different

The article asserts the need for organizations to adopt intentional and transformative Global Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access (GIDBEA) practices, to ensure their future readiness. The research developed reaffirms the benefits of GIDBEA strategies in identifying gap areas and navigating crises, by providing insights on how to successfully embed a ‘new different’ GIDBEA strategy into organizational frameworks. By drawing trends across the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic and other previous health and economic crises, it is indicated what is described as the “normality of disruption” and the need to move away from the idea of a ‘new normal’ to a new different. The new different acknowledges that the ‘normal’ or the status quo was often challenging for many. The impact and importance of the disruptions that individuals, communities, nations, etc., all have and will face together, is also recognized. The new different emphasizes organizational transformation through co-creation, sustainability, adaptivity, resilience, and design thinking. By implementing a design thinking model, GIDBEA proactively engages mistakes while promoting innovation through dissent and disruption. As a result, disruptions are not considered episodic crises but as recurring, expected, and presenting opportunities. Furthermore, it is argued that GIDBEA expertise is essential for remaining agile, innovative, and providing strategic organizational architecture to prepare and innovate for these disruptions. However, it is necessary to consider that GIDBEA practice can be limited due to the failure of organizations and leaders to frame it as an asset and develop strategic plans to leverage it in the same way they do other critical functional business units. Therefore, unless prioritized and conducted intentionally, GIDBEA work will not achieve its promised bonuses and transformative potential. The article offers readers insights and tools to assess existing GIDBEA within their organization. Using metaphors of “construction” and “architecture,” it illustrates how reimaging organizational architectures and constructing initiatives focused on GIDBEA are fundamental to resiliency, organizational sustainability, and the ability to thrive through shifting landscapes.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Stakeholders

Will stakeholder theory continue to transform how we think about business and society? On the occasion of this journal’s 60th anniversary, this review article examines the journal’s role in shaping stakeholder theory to date and suggests that it still has transformative potential. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of co-citations in the literature from 1984 to 2020. Reporting these results, we examine the field’s evolving structure. Contextualized theoretically as an accomplishment of institutional work—the creation of a meaningful and innovative field ideology—this structure is remarkable for how it integrates ethical and behavioral arguments, invites engagement from adjacent domains, and arrives at important insights for business and society. We advance a research agenda consistent with this larger institutional project.

Hearing the transformative potential of metaphor in scripture? Honouring J. Wentzel van Huyssteen

Christians worldwide are (re)discovering the power of scripture in their daily lives, especially in the context of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. The present turbulent time provides the biblical sciences an opportunity to support other theological disciplines and the church to search for ways scripture can give encouragement to people. The argument in this article is that the power of biblical writings lies in their metaphors which open an alternative moral world. For the appropriation of scripture in new contexts, the transformative potential of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen’s metaphorical hermeneutic is explored as a framework. The article gives a brief overview of the influence of his work as a mentor, colleague and friend.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article focuses on the dynamic nature and intentions of New Testament Studies (intradisciplinary aspects), and uses the philosophical hermeneutic of a systematic theologian as well as insights from literary theory and cultural anthropology to support the argument and open up interdisciplinary discourse.

Multiple Understandings of Sustainability among Alternative Food Organizations in Geneva

Alternative Food Organizations (AFOs) seek to establish more sustainable practices in the food system. However, they might hold different conceptualizations of sustainability. Hence, we miss an overview of AFOs’ conceptualizations of sustainability that allows grasping their overall transformative potential. In this paper, we analyze a broad range of AFOs active in food production, distribution, and consumers’ advocacy to examine to what extent they share a common understanding of sustainability. Our empirical analyses focus on the Swiss canton of Geneva, we build on organizational survey data and detailed coding of the discourses published on their websites. We find that the environmental dimension of sustainability is more prominent and that weak and strong conceptualizations of sustainability are equally present in AFOs’ discourses. However, important differences appear between food producers and distributors. The former have a multidimensional and strong conceptualization of sustainability, while the latter focus on fewer dimensions and a weak conceptualization. In spite of these differences, AFOs interact within a small but heterogeneous network.

Transdisciplinary research: towards an integrative perspective

Since the emergence of transdisciplinary research, context dependencies, innovative formats and methods, societal effects, and scientific effects are key aspects that have been discussed at length. However, what is still missing is an integrative perspective on these four aspects, and the guidance on how to apply such an integrative perspective in order to realize the full transformative potential of transdisciplinary research. We provide an overview of each aspect and highlight relevant research questions that need to be answered to advance transdisciplinary research.