CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

Ante Glavas' research is focused on the synnergy between creating value for a company while also adding value to society, environment. His research falls under the umbrealla of business and society literature, specifically corporate citizenship. He specifically explores the impact on employees when they work for companies that are good corporate citizens. The initial findings of the project titled "Effects of Corporate Citizenship on Employees" suggest that when employees have personal values aligned to a company's values that care for society & environment, they are more engaged at work, they are more creative, and they form high quality relationships with other employees. In addition, Ante's research is on organizatitonal behavior, specifically positive rganizational scholarhip and whole system design. To contact Ante, please e-mail.

Dr. Mary Grace Neville studies ways in which business relationships, and individuals within organizations, foster societal benefit. Currently, Neville is a teacher-scholar at Southwestern University, a leading liberal arts college in Texas.  Her on-going research includes positive change in business and society, well-being and interdependence as catalysts of holistic wealth, and paradigm shifts in business education to foster global citizenship. Mary Grace's dissertation project, "Generating Holistic Wealth: A Framework for Leading Positive Change at the Intersection of Business and Society," set the tone for the follow up work of the BAWB World Inquiry. To contact Mary Grace, please e-mail.

Lindsey Godwin's dissertation project, titled "Creating Mutually Beneficial Possibilities: An Investigation of Factors Impacting Moral Imagination in Organizational Decision Making", expand individuals' repertoire of morality in organizational setting. Research suggests that maintaining a competitive advantage will rest upon a company’s ability to move their business strategy into realm of mutual benefit, where both the company and wider society benefit at the same time.  Building on the work of Werhane (1999), Johnson (1993), and others, Lindsey proposes that one key to understanding how individuals make mutually beneficial decisions is a better understanding of moral imagination in organizational decision-making. Moral imagination has been theoretically linked with the sub-constructs of moral awareness, moral reasoning, creativity, and empathy.  Although these various sub-constructs have extensive bodies of research supporting their benefits in managerial decision-making, moral imagination as a holistic construct remains an abstract concept within the literature. The goal of Lindsey's dissertation is to begin filling this gap in the literature. To contact Lindsey, please e-mail.

Bibi Potts' research project in Rwanda, titled “Changing Poison into Medicine: Transitioning from Conflict To Creative Coexistence and Cooperation,” initially came by way of a micro lending program which was started by a genocide survivor who viewed reconciliation through a lens of poverty alleviation, empowerment and relationships.  This survivor partnered Tutsi women who survived the genocide with Hutu women whose husbands were incarcerated as perpetrators of the genocide.  Although Bibi's original research interest was to better understand the business relationships between these Hutu and Tutsi women, the use of Classic Grounded Theory as her research methodology allowed continued flexibility in the exploration of the emergent concerns of the participants involved in the study.  Over time, the study evolved from one of looking at micro finance to looking at varieties of reconciliation techniques and perspectives, and more specifically, looking at the issues surrounding the research respondent’s perspective on what reconciliation, on a fundamental level, is really about in Rwanda. To contact Bibi, please e-mail.

Nadya Zhexembayeva's research includes positive organizational change, whole system approaches to organizational development, and Corporate Social Responsibility/Sustainability within the context of emergent economies. Nadya’s dissertation, titled “Towards a Model of Mutual Benefit: Business and Society in the Context of the Former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,”  provided in-depth case-studies of best business-in-society practices, and offered an applied framework for integrating business and social benefit in the context of transitional post-Soviet economy. To contact Nadya, please e-mail.