Sustainable Business and Research
Track D, Session 3 chaired by Tina Gruber-Mücke
The first presentation was held by Simone Gruber from ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. Her contribution to the RME Conference was her master thesis “Contradiction Management as a criterion and management approach to sustainable corporate activity: case studies from major Swiss companies”. The big Swiss companies analyzed were Swiss Federal Railways, Swiss Post, Swisscom, Migros, Coop, Ikea, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Zurich Insurance and Swiss Re. As a conclusion it can be said that from the science side an analysis framework for contradiction management leads to meaningful results, practically companies must sensitized to contradiction management in the sustainability context and awareness must be risen. An improvement of the operationalization of contradiction management for companies is recommended. Her talk provoked interesting questions, especially from the Swiss and German listeners.
Secondly, Samuel Petros Sebhatu from Karlstad Business School talked about the dialectic between stewardship and hyper norms for societal transition. The aim of Samuel was to find out how we can perceive the 17 goals and if this could lead to social transmission. The stewardship theorie is a new way of thinking and innovation is becoming the driver of the change. The agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. Samuel suggested refraining from a micimous economy to an imbedded thinking. His talk referred somehow to Simone’s talk as both got a deeper insight in the same company, namely IKEA, during their research.
Alexander Herzner from OTH Amberg-Weiden reported his research in progress: business excellence, governance and process management: translate international guidelines on social and environmental responsibility into universities practice. He developed the Sustainable Maturity Model (SUMA), which is based on several models and should guide the organization with a few steps for a sustainable added value. The next step will be to test the model in universities followed by a roll-out.
The last presentation in this session was given by the chairwoman herself, Tina Gruber-Mücke. The question of her research was “Which pattern configurations can be found within responsible Entrepreneurship Education?” Pattern are composed of a formulated context, a defined problem and the solution for solving the problem. Pattern can be applied to describe and analyze courses, to describe single patterns with integration in training programs and to monitor individual competence development of entrepreneurs. It is a useful tool for praxis orientated activities at universities. Tina then passed the book “Change making patterns” by Takashi Iba round and recommended it to the audience.
