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  Vol 9 Issue 1 The Journal of The Association of MBAs January 2012  
Business Leadership Review
  THE FORUM FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND POSTGRADUATE MANAGEMENT EDUCATION
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SPECIAL ISSUE: Making the Transition to a Green Economy: Implications for leadership and management education

PART TWO: Developing and implementing a response

CONTENTS  

Editorial
Richard Bolden
Head of Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School, UK

Scholarly
Sustainability and Management Education in China and India: Enabling a Global Green Economic Transition

Jacob Park
Green Mountain College
Runa Sarkar
Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
Rick Bunch
Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan

Opinion
Towards Green Business Leadership: Ecocentric Authenticity and Sustainable Management

Dr Carol Burbank
President, Storyweaving Coaching and Consulting

Scholarly
Responding to Complex Global Challenges: A simple matter of education?

Wenjin Dai
Parisa Gilani
Caroline Rook
PhD students, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School
Eva Oyon
Freelance Researcher & Human Rights Advocacy Campaigner

Opinion
Mobilising Sustainable Development: 10 Tips for Clever Change

Caroline van Leenders
Agency NL

Innovative Practice
Keynote Listening: turning the tables on the sage on the stage

Jonathan Gosling
Jackie Bagnall
Richard Bolden
Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter
Anne Murphy
Consultant

Opinion
Casse's Corner 19: From Crises to Opportunities - Let's stop blaming and start building again

Professor Pierre Casse
SKOLKOVO Moscow School of Management

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  Editorial

Welcome to 2012… a year in which we will witness further social, cultural, environmental, economic and political change. It's the year that will most likely make or break the euro; where world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro to try (again) to reach agreement on targets for climate change; where the after-effects of the 2011 Arab Spring will continue to ripple throughout the Middle-East and the rest of the world; where presidential elections will be held in some of the most powerful nations (including Russia, France, China, and USA); and where, according to Mayan prophesy, the world will end (on 21st December to be precise!) [1].

We do, indeed, 'live in interesting times' and, as Robert Kennedy said way back in 1966 'they are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history' [2]. It has been suggested, for example, that at current rates of CO2 emission a 2o rise in temperature will be reached within the next 20-30 years [3], and that what we do (or don't do) in the next five years will be pivotal in slowing or reversing the trend - the first generation to understand the true scale of the problem and the last to be able to act decisively to address it. Similar 'tipping points' are evident in many other areas (social, economic, political, etc.) and the legacy of what happens now will impact for years to come.

The situation does not look good but, as the articles published in the October 2011 issue of BLR testify, there are grounds for hope and plenty of opportunities for creativity and innovation. In this issue we build from the last one in which we considered the nature of the challenge of making the transition to a green economy and outlined a framework for thinking about leadership and management education in this context. Whilst the previous edition highlighted the interconnectedness of social, environmental, economic and other processes, and the value of taking a systemic perspective on leadership and organisations, in this issue we will explore in greater detail what can be done in different situations to respond to, support and facilitate sustainable and responsible leadership in management practice and education.

In the first article Jacob Park, Runa Sarkar and Rick Bunch discuss the extent to which Chinese and Indian universities are embedding sustainability within their management education programmes, and what colleagues in Western universities can do to support and learn from them. It is suggested that in order to facilitate global change we need to work in partnership and to develop a rich appreciation of the contexts in which we each operate.

In the next article Carol Burbank discusses what organisations in the US and elsewhere are doing to embed sustainability within their business practices. She argues that popular approaches, such as authentic leadership, place too much emphasis on particular individuals (an 'egocentric' approach) and not enough on social and environmental justice (an 'ecocentric' approach). We need to find ways, she suggests, of bringing about a paradigm shift through the moral education of managers who place collective and shared values and outcomes at the heart of what they do.

The next article, by Wenjin Dai, Parisa Gilani, Eva Oyon and Caroline Rook, is the first of two that discusses outcomes from the International Leadership Association's (ILA) 13th Annual Global Conference in October 2011. With over 800 leadership scholars, educators and practitioners from more than 50 countries gathered in one place it offered an ideal opportunity to find out more about what people are doing to embed sustainability in the curriculum and how to facilitate further debate. In this paper, the authors describe the findings of a series of video interviews, concluding that despite a general enthusiasm and desire to engage with these issues, only in a few instances have people truly engaged with the challenges of sustainability and there remains much more to be done.

The following article, by Caroline Van Leenders, draws together lessons and experiences from 20 years of working with NGOs, government and companies to mobilise sustainable development. She presents her insights as '10 Tips for Clever change' and provides a link to a downloadable book with further explanation and examples.

The penultimate article, by Jonathan Gosling and colleagues, describes the 'crowd sourcing' and 'keynote listening' methodology used at the 2011 International Leadership Association conference to facilitate engagement and debate around the issues of sustainability in leadership and management education. In particular it considers the implications for generating ongoing dialogue, activity and change.

Finally, Pierre Casse provides his regular provocation to reflect on our approach to leadership and management practice through his article entitled 'From Crises to Opportunities', and invites you to consider whether you have what it takes to become an opportunity leader.

As Bob Johansen[4] suggests we live in a volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world where the models and approaches that worked before are unlikely to remain effective. In such a context, leadership and leadership development play a significant role - leadership has been identified as both the cause of, and solution to, many crises now facing us. In order to move forward with hope and success we may well need to completely review how we recognise, support, develop and reward leaders and how we ensure that organisations, groups and communities prepare themselves for the future. I hope that the articles in both parts of this special issue have promoted you to reflect on the challenges that lie ahead and encouraged you to consider what you can do to help lead towards a more sustainable, green economy.

In the words of the great anthropologist Margaret Mead, "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."



[1] See http://www.economist.com/theworldin/2012 for further events and changes occurring this year.

[3] Joshi, M., Hawkins, E., Sutton, R., Lowe, J. and Frame, D. (2011) 'Projections of when temperature change will exceed 2 °C above pre-industrial levels,' Nature Climate Change, 1, 407-412, URL: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n8/full/nclimate1261.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201111

[4] Johansen, B. (2009) Leaders Make the Future, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.


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  Scholarly
Sustainability and Management Education in China and India: Enabling a Global Green Economic Transition

There has been an active international academic engagement and scholarship in exploring the important links between sustainability and management education. However, this active engagement and scholarship appears to be concentrated in business schools and management education institutions in North America and the European Union.

We argue in this article that this gap in our understanding of sustainability management education in China and India is likely to hamper the important transition towards a greener economy on the global level. In order to examine current and future trends in sustainability management education in China and India and how those trends impact the important transition towards a greener global economy, we will highlight the key global sustainability and management education trends and will analyse how sustainability and management education can best be linked in these two respective countries.

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  Opinion
Towards Green Business Leadership: Ecocentric Authenticity and Sustainable Management

Despite the many success stories of sustainable business initiatives launched by major organisations in recent years, this top-down approach to developing a sustainable business agenda is itself an unsustainable model, creating a process that overwrites local environments to build a controlled, consumer market, creating mega-corporations that control micro-economies as long as profits are high enough to jump up the bottom line. In such situations, sustainability may or may not trickle down for the long term, if profits have anything to say about it. This paper argues for the need to develop a new narrative of authentic leadership, drawn from a sense of kinship and profit that includes all stakeholders, human and non-human, based in ecocentric ethics. Built on a systems approach, ecocentric ethics offer a story of individual development as part of a complex web of life, beyond and including human beings in an irrefutable interdependency. Authenticity in this context must be collaborative.

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  Scholarly
Responding to Complex Global Challenges: A simple matter of education?

This paper highlights key findings from research carried out with 106 delegates of the 13th International Leadership Association Conference around the theme of 'One Planet Many Worlds: Remapping the purpose of leadership'. A number of important issues were brought to the forefront: the importance of the younger generation, the role of education, notions of ethics and responsibility, a bottom-up leadership perspective and calls to action of both ourselves and those we consider to be leaders. Based on interviews conducted through crowd sourcing we investigate whether dealing with the complex challenges that our society is facing such as sustainability is a simple matter of education.

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  Opinion
Mobilising Sustainable Development: 10 Tips for Clever Change

In this article ten tips are presented that can be used for the mobilisation of sustainable development. The tips come from knowledge of, and experience in, system innovation and transition management in fields like sustainable energy, food and biodiversity. The article is a shortened version of a small book, which has been used by a varied group of people involved in change initiatives. This has shown that the tips can also be applied for change in other domains or with other purposes.

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  Innovative Practice
Keynote Listening: turning the tables on the sage on the stage

This article outlines an approach that can be used at conferences and other events to generate debate around leadership for social and environmental change. The paper focuses on two main practices - ‘crowd sourcing’ and ‘keynote listening’ – that were recently trialled at a major international leadership conference.

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  Opinion
Casse’s Corner 19: From Crises to Opportunities – Let’s stop blaming and start building again

Casse’s Corner, Professor Pierre Casse’s regular BLR column, offers challenging and often controversial views on the state of modern leadership, aiming to stimulate debate and discussion. In this edition, Pierre discusses the important position of leaders in embracing the opportunities provided by the current global crisis. What do you think? Are there real opportunities out there that can be turned to the advantage of our businesses and for the good of society? Please join the debate and let us know!

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Editorial Board

Professor Pierre Casse
SKOLKOVO Moscow School of Management

Professor Roger Gill
Visiting Professor of Leadership Studies, Durham Business School, Durham University, and Fellow of The Leadership Trust Foundation

Dr. Richard Bolden
Head of Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School

Mr. Eoin Banahan
Managing Director of RoundRose Associates Ltd; Associate Professor in Change Management, Audencia Business School, Nantes, France

Professor Sharon Turnbull
Visiting Professor at the University of Gloucestershire &
Former Director of the Research Centre for Applied Leadership at The Leadership Trust

Professor José Luis Alvarez
Professor of Business Policy at ESADE, Visiting Professor at INSEAD

Mr. Jim Playfoot
Founder & Director of Strategy & Ideas, White Loop / Founder & CEO, Creative Network

Mr. Mark Stoddard
Accreditation Projects Manager, Association of MBAs

For full details of the BLR Editorial Board, please click here.

To contact the Editorial Board, or to comment on this issue, please email Mark Stoddard, Associate Editor, at: m.stoddard@mbaworld.com

© 2011 Association of MBAs