Mezcal: When Culture and Consumption Collide

Mezcal is a spirit distilled from the heart of the agave plant. It has been produced via traditional methods in Mexico for centuries, but recently has found popularity in the United States and other countries. The rise in demand for this artisanal product could greatly benefit the eight states in which it is legally distilled with an influx of capital from tourism and export. However, with this popularity comes outside influence and the potential for unfair business practices and cultural appropriation. This case provides a general overview of mezcal and the Mexican state of Oaxaca in which it is produced. Discussion questions are presented as well as a brief teaching note.

The Benefits of Benefit Forms

This article explores adoption rates of B Corps certification and Benefit Corporation incorporation in order to discuss what benefits exist for organizations to adopt sustainable business forms. The analysis of the data identifies states with low and high adoption rates. The study is based on historical analysis of 4686 incorporated Benefit Corporations from 2007 to 2016 and 837 certified B Corps during the same time period. Patterns of adoption are identified and states with high and low adoption rates are categorized, analyzed, and discussed. The patterns reveal which states are most likely to support lasting or short lived legal, peer, and stakeholder benefits for sustainable business.

Assessment of Ibn Haldun's Model for Sustainability using Structural Equation Modelling

This work firstly aims to develop a sustainability model based on Ibn Haldun’s teaching of sustainability. Religious coloring refers to the spirituality, which is re-discovered in modern ages and transferred to the workplace. Spirituality stimulates virtuousness at personal and organizational level, which in turn generates managerial sustainability meaning the lifespan of a company. While personal virtuousness refers social ethics, organizational level virtuousness could be considered as Corporate Social Responsibility. Secondly, it attempts to evaluate the relevance of Ibn Haldun’s approach to contemporary business organizations. In order to demonstrate the relationship between spirituality, virtuousness, CSR, and sustainability; data collected from Corporate Knights’ Global 100 companies were analyzed using structural equation modelling. According to the results, while workplace spirituality leads to ethical conduct and higher CSR/CS score, the relationship between spirituality or CSR/CS and financial performance is not significant. However, it seems that higher lifespan of business enterprises is related to their CSR/CS score.

The End of Corporate Political Activity

Corporate political activity (CPA) is one of the most prolific academic literatures which examines the political behaviors of corporations. CPA researchers often define it as a non-market strategy which corporations can engage in to influence political outcomes that complement their market objectives. In this paper I argue that, despite continuous theoretical development, CPA has not kept pace with changes in the political role and behaviors of corporations, particularly multinational corporations (MNCs), which has resulted in an inaccurate view of the corporate political environment. Therefore, CPA theory ought to be updated to be more descriptively and theoretically accurate.

Governance of Voice in Digital Platforms

We study the governance of voice in digital platforms in light of contestations and struggles over meaning and resources among their stakeholders. In particular, we argue that social media platforms as fields are subject to power imbalances that might constrain the voices of marginalized and under-represented individuals and groups. Consequently, the governance decisions that private firms (i.e. platform owners) undertake are critical in providing users and communities with the capacity to self-present and identify. Through a qualitative longitudinal study of a popular social media platform, we study the means through which a marginalized community leverages the governance tools at its disposal to overcome the contestation within the platform. We present implications for the governance of digital platforms and their evolution.

Communities in Management

Communities are discussed frequently in the business and management literature, but their main characteristics are not commonly agreed upon. This multiplicity of meanings results in vagueness, which hinders both scholarly research and practice. Building on a sample of 142 papers published in highly ranked business and management journals, this literature review aims to provide clarity on the concept by identifying its main underlying meanings. After conducting qualitative and cluster analysis Keyon the abovementioned sample, we suggest the following four types of communities: of Proximity, of Practice, of Users and of Firms. Their main characteristics are discussed, along with their relationship with business and management.