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In this paper, we advance the question: What are the semiotic (meaning-making) and learning opportunities offered by student-produced films? Our point of departure is a pedagogical project in which we invited management students to produce films on scalar issues related to global environmental change. Our analytical lens and our empirical findings (examined through a template analysis and a multimodal video transcription) help us make three contributions. First, we synthesize a new ontological and epistemological foundational "positioning" that portrays the nature of learning processes as revolving on meaning-making activities (a positioning that we have termed a performative, design-oriented multimodality). Second, we provide a framework that advances understanding of the "inner workings" of student film-making as resting on a triple engagement (cognitive-affective, behavioral, and relational), anchored on underpinning multimodal composing activities. These conceptual moves and empirical work allow us to distill several implications, or "provocations": film-making fosters radical openness in management learning curricula, gives new momentum to the instructor's role change ("from sage on the stage to guide on the side") and expands existing cultures of recognition around what gets valued and can be assessed as (signs of) learning. Third, we offer a pedagogical prototype containing practical teaching guidelines.

This research presents an innovative use of digital story telling (DST) for sustainability in management education (SiME) applications. Using grounded theory, we analyze 63 student generated DST films on the Anthropocene to propose an experiential learning framework based on five key learning domains: the Planetary Boundaries (PBs), scale issues, (time and place), complex governance (levels of approach), social justice (humans and animals), and environmental justice. This learning framework will help instructors introduce and conceptualize the Anthropocene to business students while promoting cognitive, behavioral, emotional, experiential and creative learning needed to manage business sustainably while becoming less impactful key drivers and amplifiers of planetary change.

Earth system science (ESS) has identified worrying trends in the human impact on fundamental planetary systems. In this conceptual article, we discuss the implications of this research for business schools and management education (ME). We argue that ESS findings raise significant concerns about the relationship between business and nature and, consequently, a radical reframing is required to embed economic and social activity within the global sustainability of natural systems. This has transformative implications for ME. To illustrate this reframing, we apply the ESS lenses of social-ecological interdependence, multiscalar relations, environmental governance, and environmental values to the ME functional domains of institutional purpose, social context and engagement, pedagogical practice, curricular design, and research focus. Our work contributes to the literature on business education for sustainability and the business-society-nature nexus. We explore and apply key ESS findings and concepts, discuss normative implications of these ideas, and offer guidance on transformational pathways for business schools and ME.

Economic growth is a two-edged sword. Expanding economies and industries create wealth and employment, but global economic expansion is having unprecedented deleterious impacts on vital planetary systems. Despite this, the core strategic goal of all economies and many businesses continues to be the pursuit of ongoing economic growth. To resolve this paradox, a reconceptualization of firm-level growth is presented. I describe and discuss the organizational characteristics of the growth paradox and follow this with a metatheoretical review of economic, organizational, and ecological perspectives on growth. From this review, a typology of firm-level strategy is developed that radically reconceptualizes business growth as developmental activity primarily concerned with social?ecological flourishing. The features of this typology and its implications for business strategy are discussed according to three principles that emerged from the analysis: multidexterity, resilience thinking for design, and inclusive balance (embeddedness). Together, these strategy principles form the prerequisite management competencies needed for the development, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable business strategies. Transformative firm-level responses to the growth paradox are needed if sustaining forms of organizational growth are to be achieved and this paper presents a novel integrative framework for informing those strategies.

Virtual conference.

Moral dilemmas are ubiquitous aspects of organisational life. Tensions underlying many fundamental aspects of business, for example, between transparency and privacy, sustainability and growth, innovation and compliance, are not extraordinary occurrences. This paper aims to improve the understanding of moral dilemmas in organisations and how to develop pedagogical methods for coaching management students to resolve these challenges. We adopt a performative and action-based model of responsible management education. In exploring this performative approach to working with moral dilemmas, the project takes family business as a setting of special relevance for disclosing ethical tensions and the dilemmas emerging from those tensions. Family businesses are sites that intensify moral quandaries and disclose loyalties and values that highlight the need for responsible decision-making and action. The research will generate a series of outcomes ranging from classroom exercises to conceptual innovations for improving responsible management education about moral dilemmas., Conference event cancelled due to COVID-19. Proceedings published.

Research indicates that religious values and ethical behavior are closely associated, yet, at a firm level, the processes by which this association occurs are poorly understood. Family firms are known to exhibit values-based behavior, which in turn can lead to specific firm-level outcomes. It is also known that one’s family is an important incubator, enabler, and perpetuator of religious values across successive generations. Our study examines the experiences of a single, multigenerational business family that successfully enacted their religious values in their business. Drawing upon intergenerational solidarity and values-based leadership theory, and by way of an interpretive, qualitative analysis, we find that the family’s religious values enhanced their cohesion and were manifested in their leadership style, which, in turn, led to outcomes for the business. Our findings highlight the processes that underlie the relationship between religious values and organizational outcomes in family firms and offer insights into the role of solidarity in values-based leadership.

Conference cancelled due to COVID-19.

Keynote Lecture.

Resilience theory has an extensive research history and has appeared in many forms in different research schools over the decades. As a means for understanding the adaptive capacities of complex human and ecological systems, each expression of resilience theory has something to contribute to its contemporary usage. For example, the social disciplines have brought transformation perspectives, ideas of growth through adversity and the identification of resilient qualities. The health disciplines have contributed process-related notions of resilience as relational and involving socio-cultural contexts for improving quality of life. The environmental sciences have emphasised system dynamics, non-linearity, thresholds and temporal and spatial scales. In this paper I map these contributions and the development of resilience theory from a metatheoretical and transdisciplinary perspective. The aim here was not to review theories of resilience but to systematically chart the definitive architectonics, that is, the key theoretical constructs and their relationships, of schools of resilience thinking across various disciplines and research paradigms. Using an adapted version of the multiparadigm method known as metatriangulation, I analysed literature reviews of resilience theory from different disciplines to identify conceptual lenses and their systemic relationships. This architectonic-centred analysis resulted in a number of metatheoretical frameworks that identify: i) explicit and implicit lenses, ii) conceptual strengths and weakness, and iii) opportunities for transdisciplinary integration of resilience constructs. Although it has a reputation for speculative abstractness, metatheoretical research can be useful for the practical task of assessing assumptions in theories on the causes and cures of social problems. Hence, this kind of research has relevance to the complex questions and big challenges that the Anthropocene is throwing up. I conclude with a discussion of the

How can non-experts and, particularly, business professionals and students grasp key issues around industry, connectivity and cross-scale dynamics? Here we will present the findings of our pedagogical work, undertaken during more than two years across three regions (Perth in Western Australia, a mining-dependent state, and the two fast-developing regions of Singapore and Dubai). Our key assumption is that it is precisely the business community the one that needs to understand and address important connectivity issues, as industry is the main driver of the Anthropocene. We engaged our MBA [Master in Business Administration] students in an amateur, documentary-style film-making project centered on the linkages between industry, the Anthropocene and the planetary boundaries framework (Rockstrom et al, 2009; Steffen et al, 2015). Here we will present the multiple insights and outcomes (at cognitive, skills and emotional spheres) resulting from their experiential-learning project, and how similar pedagogical experiences may help learners identify key industry dynamics, interactions and teleconnections - experiencing those at the local level ("in their own skin" or "backyard"), at regional and planetary levels. We argue that these are key issues for organizational leaders, to foster deeper and more informed approaches to justice and responsibility and, ultimately, to reconnect with the biosphere.

This paper contributes to the study of public value management (PVM). PVM is distinguished from other approaches to public administration in its focus on establishing community networks and collaborative capacity building for the creation of public value. We explore PVM through a case study of a public-community sector partnership strategy called the positive behaviour framework (PBF), a state government initiative designed to transform services for people with disabilities. The development and implementation of the PBF is analysed via a transitional change or 'sector awareness' model. Each phase of the model is illustrated through 'positive stories' that depict key moments in the change process and in the activities that public sector managers employed to raise awareness, build capacity, and promote collaboration. We discuss the implications of the study for disability sector change management and for the further study of the PVM approach to public sector administration. This paper contributes to the study of Public Value Management (PVM). We explore PVM through a case study of a public-community sector partnership strategy. We discuss the implications of the study for disability sector change management and for the further study of the PVM.

Over ninety years ago Lev Vygotsky warned of a growing crisis in psychology and social science research. Vygotsky’s warning has been echoed on many occasions but his solution to the problem has not been widely acknowledged. He advocated for a form of meta-science which he called “general science”, an integrative science that could connect and guide the development of specialised disciplines and schools of research. In this paper I explore the parallels between Vygotsky’s general science and contemporary forms of meta-level research and discuss their relevance and implications for addressing global challenges.

Business ethics is witnessing the emergence of new activity-based, communicative approaches to ethics theory and pedagogy that go beyond the conventional normative-descriptive distinction. The authors call this emergent approach "performative ethics" and recognise it as a fundamentally innovative new orientation towards theorising and teaching ethics. They apply this notion of performative ethics to the topic of sustainability, and illustrate their discussion using "Giving Voice to Values" (GVV). GVV is an innovative approach that focuses on implementing ethical values and how they might be expressed at multiple levels of organisational life. The challenge of intergenerational sustainability requires a multilevel orientation to the practical expression of core values in a globalised world. To illustrate this, the authors present three short case studies and explore them from a GVV perspective. They show how GVV can be applied, both theoretically and practically, to the task of expressing and acting on shared values for developing sustaining and sustainable personal, organisational, and global futures.

By interpreting the bridge as a relational metaphor, and reflecting an interrelational ‘space between’ of positions, the paper contributes to a different view of integrating pluralism in organization studies. Following an embodied realism, first bridges and bridging are presented as phenomena, media and metaphors for connecting and separating. Showing their ambivalent character the role of bridges as metaphors and metaphors as bridges are discussed in relation to organisation studies and as transition zones for paradigms. Based on an integrative orientation, mediating qualities of bridges and bridging are outlined for gaining a decentered, but interconnected understanding of organising. The final part discusses some implications for organization studies.

Business ethics is witnessing the emergence of new activity-based, communicative approaches to ethics theory and pedagogy that go beyond the conventional normative-descriptive distinction. The authors call this emergent approach "performative ethics" and recognise it as a fundamentally innovative new orientation towards theorising and teaching ethics. They apply this notion of performative ethics to the topic of sustainability, and illustrate their discussion using "Giving Voice to Values" (GVV). GVV is an innovative approach that focuses on implementing ethical values and how they might be expressed at multiple levels of organisational life. The challenge of intergenerational sustainability requires a multilevel orientation to the practical expression of core values in a globalised world. To illustrate this, the authors present three short case studies and explore them from a GVV perspective. They show how GVV can be applied, both theoretically and practically, to the task of expressing and acting on shared values for developing sustaining and sustainable personal, organisational, and global futures.