Discussion: View Thread

Dear Colleague,

We would like to draw your attention to the Academy of Management Professional Development Workshop (PDW) entitled:

"Teaching Sustainable Strategies to Managers: Science, Practice and Philosophy"

Saturday, Aug 8 2015

From 10:15AM to 11:45AM

In the Vancouver Convention Center, Vancouver, Canada in Room 111.

Primary sponsor: Management Education and Development (MED)

Organizers:

Discussants:

Helen Haugh (U. of Cambridge, UK)

Hemant Merchant (Florida Atlantic U., USA);

Wendy Stubbs (Monash U., Australia);

Peter Love (York U., Canada);

Aard Groen (U. of Twente, NL);

Andrew Burke (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

Presenters:

Greg Dess (U. of Texas, Dallas, USA);

Divya Bhutiani (U. of Twente,NL);

Padmakumar Nair (Thapar U., India);

Jeff Hicks (U. of Texas, Dallas, USA);

Bhaskaran Nair (U. of Cambridge, UK);

http://program.aomonline.org/2015/Session_Details.asp?print=true&SubmissionID=11454

Recently management educators and curriculum designers have been faced with the challenge of finding new pedagogies that help students develop skills and attitudes for designing organizations and business strategies that promote economic development without sacrificing future generation's ability to meet their needs. This sustainability agenda has generated genuine interest in educating business students and practicing managers in developing sustainable business strategies including new organizational forms such as hybrid and social entrepreneurial enterprises. In this PDW we explore the practical, theoretical and philosophical challenges of teaching sustainability and sustainable business strategy to MBA students and practicing managers. There are two major pedagogical challenges involved in teaching sustainability: 1. Ideological nature of sustainability debate and 2. Highly interdisciplinary nature of the subject. In this PDW we address both of these pedagogical challenges by introducing a comprehensive framework for understanding issues related to business sustainability. One of the most important characteristics of our approach is bringing together diverse fields such as social psychology, ethics, philosophy, environmental science, strategy, organizational behaviour, economics, materials science, energy technology and climate science. Finally we discuss the importance of developing a social entrepreneurial mind-set in students and practicing managers to passionately carry forward the sustainability agenda.

This PDW will begin with a brief introduction on the challenges of teaching sustainability and learning outcomes of the PDW. This will be followed by brief presentations of 10 minutes each on the following topics by our eminent presenters.

Four round table discussions will be held by our distinguished discussants with each table having a different discussion topic:Framing, Design Thinking, Transformational Thinking and Physical Science Thinking