Institutes & Partnerships
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CHARTER INSTITUTES OF THE CENTER FOR BUSINESS AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT |
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The Center provides a modest stipend to encourage those with a shared research interest in the domain of Business as an Agent of World Benefit to create an institute through which to pursue their research. The charter institutes of the Center focus on sustainable development, information technology and social innovation, appreciative inquiry as a strength-based approach to organizational development, and regional economic development. Other institutes are in the formation stages. |
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Appreciative Inquiry is revolutionizing the discipline of organization development and has been nationally cited as one of the foundations in the new field of "Positive Organizational Scholarship" - a field devoted to rigorous understanding of the enablers, motivations, and effects associated with remarkably positive phenomena in organizations. Just as positive psychology focuses on exploring optimal individual psychological states rather than pathological ones, positive organizational scholarship focuses attention on optimal organizational states - the dynamics in organizations that lead to the elevation of human strengths, virtuous action, collective capacity, extraordinary organizational performance and exceptional contribution to society.
Contact Directors David Cooperrider, Ph.D., and Ron Fry, Ph.D.
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Institute for Information Technology and Social Innovation
The institute is engaged in research and development at the interface between information technologies and social innovation. It aims to:
- conduct scholarly research on information technology-based artifacts, systems, and theories that can become agents of social innovation and positive change.
- apply and find ways of using information technology for fulfilling human needs.
- become an effective voice for public interests on vital issues related to the information age.
- provide a vehicle for people who share both deep insights in information technology and a passion for social activism in pursuit of a better world.
Contact Directors Michel Avital and Kalle Lyytinen.
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Institute for Sustainable Value in Business (ISVB)
The ISVB’s mission is to develop 15 to 20 sustainable value cases of companies that have created business value through sustainability strategies. These cases will be researched and developed in a way that senior executives and line managers will find credible and compelling. They will focus on large, mainstream companies that provide innovative solutions to economic, environmental and social problems rather than on small and mid-size companies or those that are only reducing their own negative impacts. The cases will use the Sustainable Value framework that appears in Laszlo’s book The Sustainable Company while integrating Appreciative Inquiry into the methodological aspects of the research.
The benefits of ISVB’s research will be to help executives to articulate the business value of their sustainability strategies in a way that reaches the CEO’s agenda, to amplify the business logic of sustainability across companies, and to provide compelling material for Executive Education programs.
Contact Director, Chris Laszlo, PhD
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