{"id":88240,"date":"2023-08-31T13:24:25","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T13:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=88240"},"modified":"2023-08-31T13:24:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T13:24:25","slug":"not-business-as-usual-business-for-the-common-good-is-uris-fall-2023-honors-colloquium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2023\/08\/not-business-as-usual-business-for-the-common-good-is-uris-fall-2023-honors-colloquium\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Not Business as Usual: Business for the Common Good\u2019 is 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Fall 2023 Honors Colloquium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Aug. 31, 2023 \u2013 The 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Honors Program will present \u201cNot Business as Usual: Business for the Common Good<\/a>\u201d as its 60th anniversary Honors Colloquium. It will tell the nuanced story of contemporary American business, one that is not as black and white as many believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The free lecture series will feature nine lectures <\/a> that will address using business tools and thinking to benefit society. The colloquium, which is also celebrating 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Business\u2019 centennial, will also put the spotlight on 溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cMarie Antoinette<\/a>.\u201d The story will be presented as an American tale of celebrity culture and irresponsible spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jerry Davis. Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The lectures will be held most Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Edwards Hall, starting Sept. 19 and running through Dec. 5. Video links to the lectures will be available on the Honors Colloquium website the day of each event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program\u2019s coordinators are Doug Creed, Seray Ergene and Christy Ashley, all professors in the College of Business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley, the business college\u2019s associate dean for undergraduate programs and professor of marketing, said the colloquium will take a big-picture approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOften business is pictured as the villain or the angel. But it\u2019s really neither. It has the ability to be on both sides,\u201d Ashley said. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to say that business is on the side of the angels, but we are saying that businesses have processes and ways of thinking that can be applied to society\u2019s grand challenges. And so what are the ways that we, through this colloquium, can make a difference?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expect frank discussions about the potential to use business thinking, while addressing its limitations, to help move the conversation forward and hopefully result in action. Speakers will address tackling climate change and inequalities, including racial and gender disparities while providing commentary on ways to motivate and enact systemic change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley said that \u201cby applying some of the tools and thinking that we apply to growing profits or growing businesses to thinking about other impacts, we could see some important changes. But the colloquium will also address the limits to what business can do and what the needs are for other systems to be put in place to address those limits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the goal is to find some common ground. \u201cIf we have more conversations and reach agreements in some areas, we can reduce some of the polarization that prevents us from even having the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley said that businesses face tough decisions and tradeoffs. \u201cThey are looking at supply chains and environmental issues while also trying to make things affordable for their customers. They want to compete so they can protect peoples\u2019 jobs. That\u2019s what this colloquium is going to address, that business is not a black and white issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ergene has a bit of a different perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me, scrutinizing the economy and the conduct of business that have benefited an ever smaller proportion of the society is the central component of the colloquium,\u201d said Ergene, an assistant professor of management. \u201cThere is growing consensus among different members of the society that the current way of organizing the economy — including practices that engender and perpetuate racial and gender inequities and ecological degradation — are not only not serving the common good, but are actually undermining it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are going through existential socio-ecological crises, and we all know industry is not innocent,\u201d Ergene said. \u201cIn response, there is much discussion on sustainability and regeneration, stakeholder capitalism, social enterprises such as benefit corporations, and so on. In this colloquium, we aim to take a close look at these issues and explore fundamental tensions between business as usual and reimagining and organizing business for the common good. Ultimately, we\u2019d like to think together with members of the Rhode Island community about what it takes to organize economic relations for the common good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creed has a similar view of the issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cIf we look at business over the last 40 years, business as usual has meant plutocracy increasingly dominates democracy, which has meant the vast majority of people are not getting a decent share of the economic pie,\u201d Creed said. \u201cIn large part, \u201cbusiness as usual,\u201d particularly the misplaced emphasis on shareholder value over the positive or negative impact on diverse communities of stakeholders, contributes to this trend, but the conduct of business could contribute to more equitable economic and societal outcomes. Our topics include gender inequality, racial inequality and just plain economic inequality, and why they appear to be part of the trajectory of our society. There is a lot of unhappiness about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creed added that \u201ctoo many people have been presented with the false dichotomy: it\u2019s either the economy or the environment. So there is this powerful misrepresentation that we can\u2019t have a healthy environment and a healthy economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 19, will feature Jerry Davis on the topic of \u201cCorporate Power, Business, and the Common Good?\u201d Davis received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and is the Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He has published widely in management, sociology, and finance. His books include \u201cSocial Movements and Organization Theory\u201d (2005); \u201cOrganizations and Organizing\u201d (2007); \u201cManaged by the Markets: How Finance Reshaped America\u201d (2009); \u201cChanging your Company from the Inside Out: A Guide for Social Intrapreneurs\u201d (2015); \u201cThe Vanishing American Corporation\u201d (2016); and \u201cTaming Corporate Power in the 21st Century\u201d (2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davis\u2019 research is broadly concerned with the effects of finance on society, changes in
the corporate economy, and new forms of organization. Recent writings examine how
ideas about corporate social responsibility have evolved to meet changes in the
structures and geographic footprint of multinational corporations; whether \u201cshareholder capitalism\u201d is still a viable model for economic development; how income inequality in an economy is related to corporate size and structure; why theories about organizations do (or do not) progress; how architecture shapes social networks and innovation in organizations; why stock markets spread to some countries and not others; and whether there exist viable organizational alternatives to shareholder-owned corporations in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See the full schedule<\/a> and accompanying biographies of the speakers. The annual university-wide educational forum is free and open to the public. The annual lecture series brings experts to 溏心vlog免费B站 annually to examine issues of national and local relevance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Aug. 31, 2023 \u2013 The 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Honors Program will present \u201cNot Business as Usual: Business for the Common Good\u201d as its 60th anniversary Honors Colloquium. It will tell the nuanced story of contemporary American business, one that is not as black and white as many believe. The free lecture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":88243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88240"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88248,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88240\/revisions\/88248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}