In the following blog, you will delve into a myriad of insights surrounding the topics of Trust, Ethics, HR, Leadership, Management and their intricate connections to the research I am currently engaged in. These are my personal reflections, which may occasionally challenge conventional views and stir debate.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗹: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲

Another ritual round of hunger games layoffs despite that research has shown that even in these times dignity counts, 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸?

The answer is not a lack of knowledge. It is 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.
Ideology as a worldview that silently orients action: how the world 𝗶𝘀, how it 𝘴𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲, what counts as 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲, and what kinds of action are 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲. Ideology is sticky because it works not only through arguments but also through powerful fantasies. It does not merely tell us what to do; it makes us 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to do it, even when evidence points elsewhere.

Organizations are ideological actors. They do not simply apply best practices from management textbooks. They embody a vision of what people are - cogs, agents, citizens, or serfs - and of what the company itself is - machine, marketplace, community, or sovereign. These deep beliefs shape how they respond when crisis hits.

This becomes visible in moments of profit warnings or downturns. Even with decades of research on “decent downsizing,” the path companies choose depends less on insight and more on ideological commitments.

A 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 firm sees the world as a machine to be repaired. Downsizing is executed like a mechanic adjusting broken parts. A 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 firm sees the world as a marketplace of individuals: layoffs become transactions, abrupt and performance-based. By contrast, a 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 company imagines itself as a community of citizens and aims for fairness, transparency, and reciprocity. A 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 company sees itself embedded and generative, a steward for unlocking the good, enabled by persons with dignity and vocation, seeking to regenerate and protect the common good while adapting.

And then there are the 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 firms of our age. Their worldviews are darker, but no less coherent. The 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼-𝗳𝗲𝘂𝗱𝗮𝗹 corporation (Meta, Amazon) imagines itself as a sovereign lord. Layoffs are decrees to be handed down: opaque, unilateral, framed as dominion over subjects. The 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁 corporation (Tesla, Palantir) sees itself as an ark on a frontier. Layoffs here become acts of sacrifice: dramatic, abrupt, justified as necessary for the mission of saving humanity.

So we can have research till the cows come home and show that "fairness pays" - ideology will often get the better end when decisions are taken.

That is why the question for leaders is not simply 𝗵𝗼𝘄 to downsize in a downturn. It is: 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀?

📚 Reference: Durand, C. (2024). How silicon valley unleashed techno-feudalism: the making of the digital economy. Verso Books. And Taşkale, A. R. (2025). The affective politics of reactionary futurism in Silicon Valley. Critical Studies on Security, 1-5.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐲 — 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲’𝐬 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟒𝟔

Yesterday, forty-six CEOs asked Europe to “free” them from the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, claiming that regulation “burdens competitiveness.” But what they are really asking for is the right to compete without responsibility. And Germany, more than any other country, should know how that story ends. For decades, our automotive sector turned resistance into strategy. As researchers Ina Richter and Karen Smith Stegen show, it perfected what they call the choreography of delay - a disciplined dance that protects incumbents under the guise of cooperation.

It begins with 👉 𝐒𝐲𝐦𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - a ritual acknowledgment of environmental problems and vague promises to act.
Then follows 👉 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐲 - questioning data, feasibility, and timing while asking for “more research.”
Next comes 👉 𝐍𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 - transforming obligations into subsidies and responsibility into privilege.
Under pressure, 👉 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 appear - some firms adopt token measures to showcase progress, others hide behind them.
Finally, 👉 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐨 - technical fixes like converters or filters are celebrated as breakthroughs while the combustion regime remains untouched.

This is not accident; it is design. Delay became an economic model, and doubt its most profitable product. As Tilman Altenburg’s research reminds us, Germany’s problem is not a lack of intelligence or capital - it is path dependency: an entire ecosystem of suppliers, engineers, and regulations optimized for yesterday’s technology. That ecosystem now risks becoming our gilded cage.

The lesson for the coalition is clear. Industrial policy cannot reward delay any longer. If we continue to subsidize legacy systems, we will not preserve competitiveness - we will embalm it. The next chapter of German leadership must bind innovation to transformation: clear fleet targets, bold green procurement, charging and digital infrastructure, and patient capital for those scaling new industries instead of cushioning old ones.

Germany does not need to be freed from responsibility - it needs to be freed from inertia. If it fails to act, it will not die in crisis, but in comfort. It will die in beauty. 

LEADERSHIP WASHING – OR MIRROR, MIRROR, WHO…

Have you ever wondered why in your company the talk is all about trust, or leadership-as-coaching, yet “on the ground” you feel very little of it?

That’s the first thing Fischer & Alvesson (2025) teach us: we rarely experience the kind of leadership we’re promised in textbooks or glossy brochures. Research they cite is sobering:

- Nobody really has time to do leadership.
- Most people speak negatively about their leaders
- And almost everyone - leaders included - believes they’re more ideal than they are.

So what’s going on?

The authors argue we should pay attention to leadership meta-talk the grand narratives presented by our “leader-philosophers.” Even, or precisely, when those narratives don’t match reality. Because presenting oneself as a hero-quality, moral, self-aware leader has real effects on what leadership becomes.

1️⃣ First, it encourages leaders to fall in love with themselves - or more precisely, to romanticize their own capacity. This self-idealization is comforting; it helps sustain an identity of being a “good person” in a messy world. It feeds the fantasy that through reflection and self-optimisation we can earn moral worth. But it also nourishes subtle narcissism - leadership as self-admiration in the mirror.

2️⃣ Second, this kind of talk comforts followers. When leaders speak from a shared script - the language of trust, care, empowerment - it creates the illusion of harmony. The talk itself reduces anxiety, containing uncertainty and conflict beneath a layer of moral reassurance. In psychodynamic terms, leadership talk works as an organizational tranquilizer: it keeps difficult emotions under control.

3️⃣ Third, and least surprisingly, this performance also works outward. It’s part of what we might call virtue washing. Companies reward leaders who can convincingly perform moral awareness and leadership theatre thrives on precisely that. The more the leader believes their own act, the more convincing it becomes.

But the more interesting question, as always, is: why should we care?

Well, if talking leadership is almost as effective as doing it, why bother with the latter? Also when impression management is rewarded - and it often is - faking becomes functional. And most worrying of all: this theatre, and the stages companies build for it - kick-offs, strategy days, teambuilding events, far from daily work - help sustain existing power structures. They display harmony where there is, in reality, tension that needs to be addressed. They turn the messy contradictions of organizations into glossy moral performances.

Seen through this lens, leadership washing isn’t just PR. It’s collective self-soothing. Talking about good leadership lets us feel moral, modern, and in control, even when reality is rather ordinary.

So maybe next time you hear someone talk about trust, authenticity, or servant leadership, ask yourself: Is this leadership or just the mirror talking?

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝟒𝟔 𝐂𝐄𝐎𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 — 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐧𝐨.

When forty-six of Europe’s largest corporations sign a joint letter urging governments to scrap the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, they don’t just challenge a regulation. They challenge Europe’s capacity to lead. Their message to Presidents Macron and Merz was clear: remove the rules, and “restore competitiveness.” But what they are really asking for is the right to compete without responsibility.

𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭: the claim that due diligence “burdens” competitiveness is not new and it has always been wrong. As Michael Porter showed decades ago, nations don’t grow strong by protecting their companies from pressure. 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭. Europe’s strength has always come from demanding standards that push industries to evolve. The Due Diligence Directive does exactly that: it forces companies to innovate in transparency, traceability, and circularity.

𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲’𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡. For too long, subsidies and political protection insulated the car industry and dulled its urgency to innovate. The result? A lost decade of clinging to the Verbrennungsmotor, while competitors abroad built the technologies that now define the future. Europe cannot regain its edge by lowering the bar again.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐥: once more, the most powerful players use their influence to tilt the field in their favor. Small and mid-sized innovators - those building sustainable materials, clean energy systems, and ethical supply chains - are already competing in a market distorted by greenwashing and lobbying. These forty-six are not defending Europe’s competitiveness. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞.

Yes, Europe must reduce bureaucracy. But let’s be clear about where bureaucracy came from. We built it because trust was broken by the very industries now demanding deregulation. From diesel scandals to offshore tax evasions, every call for “less red tape” rings hollow when it comes from those who abused the light-touch regimes of the past. 𝐈𝐟 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐲, 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭.

Europe’s competitiveness will not be rebuilt by retreating from responsibility. It will be rebuilt when our industries embrace the challenge of high standards and turn them into innovation advantages.
𝐉’𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟒𝟔 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲. Europe’s future will not belong to those who flee the rules - but to those who rise to meet them.

The gig economy has not (yet) arrived in Switzerland – and that's a good thing.

In Switzerland, the gig economy – i.e. working on demand, via platforms or as a solo self-employed person – has so far been a marginal phenomenon. Maybe that's not so bad after all.
A look at America shows where the development can lead. There, many of the so-called "gig workers" live in precarious conditions, often with several jobs, because the main job is not enough. Only a small, already privileged minority benefits from the new freedom.

In this country, the dynamics are (still) modest. According to Avenir Suisse, around 0.4% of the population worked via platforms in 2019; even with rental and online sales, the figure is only 1.4%. Solo self-employment is also decreasing. So there is no boom – and perhaps that is exactly the opportunity before the risks grow.

Researchers Gretchen Spreitzer and Lindsey Cameron distinguish between two worlds of new work: a privileged, autonomous one for the highly qualified – and a precarious, externally determined one for many others. Both exist side by side, but their relationship determines the social balance of a society.

Switzerland is faced with the choice of whether to allow the second world to grow or deliberately set limits for it. This requires clear terms instead of buzzwords. Whether "Hustle", "Solopreneurship" or "Freelancing" – at its core, it is about commissioned work, which can be fair and self-determined or insecure and exploitable.

Politics and human resources management have a responsibility before these new forms of work become a social risk:

1️⃣ Political: Creating framework conditions that combine flexibility with security – the principle of flexicurity. And set the course for occupational health and safety on platforms as well. No one should be exploitable because he/she has no other chance.
2️⃣ For companies and HR: External work is also part of value creation. Fair fees, transparent platform criteria and access to further training are part of responsible labour policy. And above all: dignity must not be a question of treaty status.

In the end, however, a simple sentence sticks with me: A full-time job must be enough to live on.

An economy in which people need several jobs to secure their livelihood has lost its balance – regardless of whether these jobs are called "gig", "hustle" or "project work". But we should be vigilant now - thanks Dr. Hans Rusinek for the reminder! 

We wanted autonomy. We built isolation.
𝗚𝗶𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀

The gig economy is often sold as the promise of freedom - flexible work, personal autonomy, and self-chosen projects. But beneath that rhetoric lies a deeper social transformation that thinkers like 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘁 have warned us about very early.

𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗶𝘁𝘇𝗲𝗿 and colleagues described two worlds of the new work. One is populated by high-skill professionals who enjoy self-determination and choice. The other by those for whom flexibility is imposed - unstable, underpaid, and precarious. It is a structural divide that runs through today’s labour markets.

Yet even the “first world” of autonomy is not as glamorous as it looks. 𝗣𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗶, 𝗔𝘀𝗵𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗿𝘇𝗲𝘀𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗸𝗶 studied independent experts and found that their freedom comes with emotional costs: loneliness, identity anxiety, and the constant pressure to prove one’s worth. Without the social and symbolic “holding environments” once provided by organisations, even successful independents struggle to maintain stability and belonging. Autonomy easily turns into isolation; meaning into exhaustion.

The sociologist 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘁 saw this long before the rise of digital platforms. In The Corrosion of Character he described the emergence of the “flexible man” - mobile, adaptive, but unable to build lasting commitments. The qualities that make us employable - agility, self-reliance, detachment - corrode the virtues that hold societies together: loyalty, solidarity, trust.

We are drifting toward what might be called a 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. Formally free, yet structurally bound. Each of us an enterprise of one, negotiating with markets instead of belonging to institutions. Work relationships become transactions; colleagues turn into clients; networks replace communities. Solidarity shrinks to sympathy without structure.

The paradox is clear. Flexibility expands opportunity but erodes continuity. It rewards adaptability while hollowing out the very bonds that make collective life possible. When everyone must look out for themselves, the long term becomes no one’s concern.

The challenge ahead is not to resist flexibility - it is here to stay - but to 𝗿𝗲𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 that make freedom liveable: protection from dominion, reciprocity, commitment, love and trust. Without them, the gig economy may not just change how we work.

It may change what it means to belong.

WHY DOES THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ELITE SIT PEACEFULLY IN MAR-A-LAGO?

Management researcher Arun Porutiyil (2018) has formulated an uncomfortable thesis: Neoliberalism – and with it the practice of some large corporations – creates the conditions under which authoritarian or even neo-fascist movements can flourish.

When market logic becomes the sole interpretative framework, when efficiency and returns are placed above moral or social considerations, then society loses its political and ethical balance.

The belief that markets regulate themselves and that politics only interferes weakens institutions, opens up social fractures and creates the climate in which authoritarian promises of salvation sound plausible.
Neoliberal companies contribute to this by separating business and responsibility - according to his thesis. Their strategies are aimed at short-term gains, they externalize costs and legitimize inequality as an achievement.

The moral void that arises from this is – according to Porutiyil – not a coincidence, but systemic: a technocratic rationality that translates everything political into economic efficiency.
When authoritarian regimes come to power, large corporations rarely put up resistance.

They adapt – often quietly, sometimes profitably. Such regimes secure property, weaken counter-forces such as trade unions and ensure "predictability". This is not an ideological commitment, but the continuation of economic rationality under new political auspices.

But Porutiyil also reminds us that fascism is not simply a historical accident, but a possible consequence if capitalism loses its democratic embeddedness. Whether things turn out differently depends on whether the economy becomes part of the political and moral project of society again – and not its replacement!

Literature:
Porutiyil, A. (2018). Big Business Fascism. Journal of Business Ethics, 150(2), 379–396.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭, 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥

Have you heard of Ayn Rand? If you’re an American CEO or politician, chances are you’ve not only heard of her but have been influenced by her. Some - like Alan Greenspan - were part of her inner circle. Many have absorbed her worldview indirectly: through her novels, the popular business press, or the moral language of modern management education.

Rand is famous for championing 𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐦. In her view, ethics is not an afterthought but a code of values guiding every choice and defining the purpose of one’s life. She identifies survival as the most basic value: for any living being, life is the precondition of valuing anything. For human beings, values are moral when they serve one’s survival as a rational being.

Her moral ideal is the 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞, 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥 - the heroic entrepreneur whose ambition and productivity are the highest virtues. Rand loathes collectivism, equates altruism with self-sacrifice, and defends a minimal state.

The interesting bit is how 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬, often without realizing it, have transmitted this moral code - implicitly, even complicitly.

💡 Case studies valorize heroic leaders who defy convention - Welch, Musk - mirror images of Rand’s protagonists.
💡 MBA ethics curricula often frame choices as profit versus altruism, reproducing Rand’s moral dichotomy.
💡 Courses in leadership promote self-optimization as moral virtue turning self-interest into a disciplined duty.
💡 And the ubiquitous rhetoric of authenticity and disruption continues Rand’s call for independence against conformity.

Take the an HBS Tesla Case. It celebrates “a founder who refused to delegate creative responsibility” and “redesigned almost every system” to match his vision. Yet it also shows the danger in her moral ideal. When the single-minded pursuit of vision becomes organizational culture, rational independence can slide into authoritarian control. The heroic egoist, institutionalized, can turn into a system that demands total devotion.

In this sense, Rand’s “moral ideal” lives on not just in philosophy but in 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. We reward the tireless, the self-reliant, the disruptor - and we frame these traits not merely as strategies for success, but as signs of virtue.

Business schools rarely mention Rand, but her shadow lingers in how we teach leadership, purpose, and ethics. So perhaps it’s time to ask: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟?

And: what would it mean to teach management that also values empathy, humility, and the shared conditions of human flourishing?

Many leaders respond to our seminar 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 with the words: “𝑰 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕.” Often, these are people who have seriously engaged with questions of responsibility, who have developed their own ethical code, and who try to act by principle.

And yet, there lies a paradox. Because those who genuinely want to be answerable, those who see themselves as moral agents, will never be “finished” with responsibility. To be responsible is to remain engaged in the ongoing struggle: to question one’s own judgments, to recognize prejudices, to find new language for emerging dilemmas, and to enter into dialogue with others about what is good, right, and better.

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, who more than anyone else has shaped the idea of the 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒛𝒐𝒏, described this kind of responsibility in powerful terms. For Taylor, human beings are not merely carriers of desires that we balance against each other. We are reflective beings, capable of turning back on our own wants and asking not only 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 we want, but 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 we ought to want it. In that reflection, we open a moral space in which our actions can be judged as noble or base, dignified or undignified, deep or shallow.

Taylor calls this 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏. It differs from 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏, where we simply weigh desires by usefulness or convenience. Strong evaluation means situating our lives in relation to higher goods- treating concepts like dignity, honor, and integrity as real guides to our being. And these concepts only make sense in contrast to their opposites: indignity, dishonor, loss of integrity. Such distinctions are not luxuries. They are constitutive of our very selves.

For Taylor, this is what the 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒛𝒐𝒏 provides: a framework that orients us between what makes life worth living, to whom we ascribe dignity, and what we find admirable. But he is equally clear: this horizon is never fixed. A good life is one in which we search for clarity precisely where none yet exists. It is a life in which we keep asking the right questions and are willing to rethink the answers we once gave.

For leaders, this means that 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 is never a settled competence or skillset. It is a stance of continuous reflection. Leaders who want to act responsibly must recognize that they themselves are never “done.” Good leadership consists in giving orientation amid a plurality of values, without falling into either relativism or dogmatism. Responsibility is not a burden to be carried, but the very core of a good life- an ongoing process of drawing new distinctions, developing language for new dilemmas, and remaining in dialogue.

Perhaps the strongest signal of a responsible leader is not the claim: “𝑰 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔.” But the humble admission: “𝑰 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉.”

𝗔 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗱 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗻𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀
The Doughnut framework has just been updated with global data (2000–2022). It is a simple yet powerful compass: the inner ring is the 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 every person needs for a dignified life, while the outer ring is the 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗲𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 humanity must not overshoot.

𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆.
There has been some progress. Since 2000, more people have gained access to electricity, health services, clean water, and digital connectivity. Child survival rates have improved. But large shortfalls remain: billions still face food insecurity, lack decent work, suffer corruption, and lack political voice. These deprivations are most concentrated in the world’s poorest 40%, showing that social foundations are far from secured.

𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆.
On the planetary side, the picture is stark. Seven of nine Earth systems are now in overshoot. Global GDP has more than doubled since 2000, but this growth has come with accelerating ecological transgression. Rich nations, representing 15% of the world’s population, drive nearly half of global overshoot, while the poorest contribute little and bear the brunt of consequences. Inequality is etched into both social shortfall and ecological excess.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄?
Much of today’s debate defends growth in the name of 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲: the freedom to consume more, to travel more, to expand markets. But there is another freedom at stake: 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, as described by political philosopher Philip Pettit. To be free in this sense is not merely to have options, but to live without being subject to the arbitrary power of others. Social deprivation creates domination when people lack the basics that would let them stand as equals. Ecological overshoot creates domination when one generation, or a group of nations, imposes instability and scarcity on others without their consent. Protecting freedom therefore means more than defending consumption today - it means ensuring that all people, now and in the future, can live free from domination.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀.
Companies have a pivotal choice. They can continue pursuing growth at all costs thereby deepening both overshoot and inequality. Or they can steer towards being 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻. That means cutting ecological footprints across supply chains, ensuring fair wages and ownership models, and innovating in products and services that meet human needs without breaching planetary limits.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄 - 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁.

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09385-1

𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗦𝗘 𝗛𝗥 𝗣𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗦 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗔 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚
A new integrative review pulls together what many HR leaders sense already: some of our most powerful levers can unintentionally manufacture misconduct. It maps which practices are tied to unethical behavior and why. This is a qualitative synthesis (not a meta-analysis), so think mechanisms and design choices, not effect sizes.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀:

• 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 & 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀: High-powered rewards and pay opacity can trigger reciprocity pressure, social comparison, and corner-cutting. The simple rule: 𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀. Shift toward balanced scorecards, process transparency, and clear ethical guardrails in variable pay.
• 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 invite sabotage and misreporting, while 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿-𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 (or consecutively escalating) 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 drain self-control and push shortcuts. The simple rule: 𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿-𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀. Prefer absolute standards, finite stretch cycles, developmental feedback, and human-over-algorithm fairness checks.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹:
• 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 & 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Thoughtful variety, significance, autonomy with accountability, and feedback can reduce deviance by deepening engagement; participative goal-setting and values conversations make moral disengagement less likely.
• 𝗘𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀-𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗛𝗥𝗠 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀: Treat ethics as a 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘆 - coverage, intensity, sophistication- not an add-on. Done well, this strengthens moral attentiveness, ethical climate, and voice.

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻𝘀- 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁:
• 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗴: We still don’t know which referral and algorithmic selection choices cross the line from efficiency to fairness erosion; discrimination risks remain a worry. Instrument the hiring funnel with source-of-hire ethics indicators, appeal/override pathways, and a real human-in-the-loop.
• 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: We also don’t know which elements of “development” quietly lower justice perceptions or model bad behavior (shadowing, war stories, simulations). Audit who gets into programs, run pre/post justice pulses, and script modeling risks explicitly.

𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: Design HR for 𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀 as deliberately as you design for 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲. Steer clear of high-powered incentives, rankings, and over-ambitious goals; enrich work and embed ethics; then instrument staffing and training so your systems don’t quietly create misconduct.

Reference: Yu, W., Jiang, K., Mo, S., & Su, Y. (2025). The Moral Implications of Human Resource Management (HRM): A Review of the Relationship Between HRM Practices and Unethical Behavior at Work. Journal of Business Ethics. Advance online publication.

𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 & 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲: 𝐐𝐮𝐨 𝐕𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐬?
As our prosperity is endangered - not only by the mad hatter in the White House - economic growth is back on the agenda. For some, GDP and market cap always were core goals. Others argue fair, sustainable growth is possible. A third camp urges a shift to limited, qualitative growth. Each path brings hard tasks.

𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 (𝐍𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥)
Strategy is to scale fast. Companies have to ride experience curves, launch new S-curves, expand markets/platforms. Implementation means keeping the «Rate–Direction–Method» coherent so speed doesn’t break operations.

Company challenges: strategic drift, culture/quality cracks, value-destroying M&A, balance-sheet strain. Hamilton & Ng’s meta-analysis (159 studies) shows high growth is seldom sustainable as spurts are short-lived, benefits uneven/volatile, and policy emphasis outpaces evidence.

Societal costs: environmental externalities, precarious work, privatized gains; winner-take-most inequality; concentrated power and policy capture.

𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 (𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥)
Strategy is to profit only when solving problems, not creating negative externalities. Implement via asset-light services, quality-led premiumization, selective integration, and reliable dividends over sheer expansion.

Company challenges: attracting ambitious talent without hyper-promotions; complacency risk; margin plays hit ceilings.

Societal challenges: largely voluntary without reform; firms can profit from harms while sounding “sustainable.” This strategy needs a redesigned corporate law, taxation, and accounting.

𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 (𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥)
Strategy: Stewardship, business enabling flourishing of and in society. Centers on sufficiency, ecological integrity, and dignity at work over revenue expansion. Implementation-wise: steward-ownership to lock mission, circular/regenerative models, federated networks, redesigned work.

Company challenges: capital access in high-return systems; scaling without recreating growth logic (not growing can be harder than growing); “niche” stigma.

Societal challenges: welfare, pensions, and public services assume GDP growth, making transitions complex.

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬
GDP growth long underwrote our institutions - yet we’re breaching planetary boundaries, democracy is eroding, conflicts intensify, inequality rises, and real wages in many places remain below pre-inflation peaks. If transition can’t be avoided, begin redesigning institutions now. In today’s geopolitics, however, many fair-growth fixes (e.g., true-cost accounting) remain out of reach; so experiment locally - Transition Towns, B-Corp alliances etc. - and use imagination in research and education to build a better growth framework for the future.

If you want a more complete analysis with frameworks and cases (Nvidia, Unilever, Patagonia) - have a look at the deck: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antoinette-weibel_growth-and-strategy-activity-7377972967584112641-m0Br?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACORmc0B-heQaIu8zy_uBuqirrRJdzq4ClQ

𝐇𝐑 & 𝐎𝐃 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬: 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐄𝐎 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈-𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤.

In today’s doctoral seminar, we discussed a framework that gives HR & OD professionals serious leverage in C-suite conversations: the concept of organizational “metabolic capacity.”

Most executives want AI deployment. But they’re not asking the deeper question that determines whether their people will thrive or just survive the transformation.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠:

“Before we chase AI-powered growth, how do we reshape our learning capacities to actually digest that growth?”

Because here’s what the research shows: firms that learn to use AI for multiple purposes don’t just deploy tools. They expand the horizon of what their people can imagine and achieve. But that expansion requires organizational learning capabilities most companies simply don’t have yet.

𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩:

1️⃣ 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐬. 𝐀𝐈 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝: “Our learning systems move glacially. AI moves at light speed. How do we close this gap?”

2️⃣ 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: “AI risks dulling rather than sharpening our people’s capabilities. What’s our strategy to prevent cognitive atrophy?”

3️⃣ 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: “AI reduces complexity to patterns. The more we rely on it, the less we may see of actual market reality. How do we maintain human insight?”

4️⃣ 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 & 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: “Are we growing toward something that serves humans and the planet, or just optimizing for metrics that look good in quarterly reports?”

𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐱 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐇𝐑 𝐚 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞:

AI promises to expand possibilities, but it may just as easily narrow organizational vision. Growth that cannot be metabolized because learning is too slow, human capacities are weakened, and reality is abstracted away isn’t sustainable growth. It’s organizational indigestion.

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂-𝐬𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞:

“You’re focused on growth velocity. I’m focused on growth sustainability. Without addressing metabolic capacity, we’re setting ourselves up for AI-powered failure that looks like success until it doesn’t.”

The executives chasing “more, faster” need someone asking “what kind of growth is actually worth having?” Growth that serves humans and the planet, not just shareholders and algorithms. That someone is you.

𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭: organizations that worship growth without building metabolic capacity become exactly what they’re trying to disrupt. They become slow, rigid, and eventually irrelevant.

🔨 Do we need a new society of builders?

The word builder is everywhere today. In tech, in entrepreneurship, in politics. We celebrate founders, engineers, those who launch the “new.” But what if our idea of a builder is far too narrow?

Hannah Arendt’s vita activa reminds us that human activity is richer than just producing or coding. She distinguished between labor (sustaining life), work (crafting durable things), and action (initiating something new in the public sphere). If we extend her thinking, we get a broader “builder’s vita activa” - a society of four kinds of builders:

1️⃣ Sustainers, who hold life together through care, maintenance, regeneration.
2️⃣ Makers, who shape tools, infrastructures, and institutions.
3️⃣ Initiators, who dare to begin something new in public.
4️⃣ Meaning-Makers, who tell the stories that give endurance to our deeds.

But here’s the tension: each of these roles is in crisis.
Sustainers are indispensable, yet undervalued and feminized. Simone de Beauvoir warned that women were historically confined to repetitive immanence, denied the projects of transcendence. Today, we still romanticize “care” while outsourcing the tedious parts often to those with the least power. Unless care is made visible, fairly shared, and properly rewarded, this quadrant collapses under strain.

Makers, ie. the engineers, founders, builders in the narrow sense face another challenge: automation. As AI absorbs routine making, human craft risks being hollowed out. If we don’t guard against reducing work to pure efficiency, we risk losing not just jobs but meaning: the pride in building something durable.

Initiators - those who act together in public - face shrinking space. Action depends on plurality and visibility, yet today’s public spheres are fragile, captured, or algorithmically distorted. Without scaffolds that protect plurality and resist capture, collective action becomes brittle, fleeting.

Meaning-Makers, our artists, educators and journalists remain sidelined, seen as “extras” in a world obsessed with KPIs. Yet without them, even the greatest initiatives vanish into silence. Action needs memory, stories, institutions that carry meaning forward.

So what does this mean for a new society of builders?

It means we can’t reduce building to the start-up founder myth. A flourishing society values all four builder roles:

⭐️ It revalues care, making it visible and fairly distributed.
⭐️ It protects human craft from being hollowed out by automation.
⭐️ It invests in civic infrastructure so initiators can act without capture.
⭐️ It funds meaning and memory so our actions endure.

This isn’t nostalgia. It’s a provocation. In an age of automation, care crises, and shrinking public space, the challenge is to rebalance and revalorize what it means to build.

If we want transformation that is durable, just, and human, we must expand our idea of who the builders really are and unite them!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺

In a superbly independent bookseller in Totnes, not so incidentally a “transition town” I came across a book that reminded me: 𝗻𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁. 𝗜𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱, 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱.

The word neoliberal was coined in 𝗺𝗶𝗱-𝟭𝟵𝟯𝟬𝘀. Austrian economists 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗛𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗸 and 𝗟𝘂𝗱𝘄𝗶𝗴 𝘃𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀, exiled from Nazi Europe, feared Roosevelt’s New Deal and Britain’s welfare state were steps toward tyranny. In 1944, Hayek published The Road to Serfdom, claiming social democracy would slide into dictatorship.

𝗪𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵𝘆 𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀, resentful of 𝘁𝗮𝘅𝗲𝘀, 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, saw their chance. Hayek’s book turned their self-interest into a moral crusade. With serious money behind it, his ideas spread fast. Reader’s Digest condensed it (a million copies sold), and 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗮𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, distributed by General Motors. In 1947, Hayek founded the 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆, creating the first “𝗡𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹.”

Over the decades, billionaires poured money into 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 (Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Adam Smith Institute) and 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 (Chicago, Virginia). They funded research, lobbying, and PR, reframing neoliberalism as common sense: business freedom = personal freedom. Even 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 like Little House on the Prairie were rebranded to glorify rugged individualism.

By the 1960s, Hayek hardened the ideology: democracy and equality weren’t essentials but 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗹𝗲𝘀. The rich were recast as society’s “𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘀”, blazing new trails. Inequality wasn’t a problem- it was progress.

Then the 1970s crisis hit. Inflation, oil shocks, stagnation. 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗻 stepped forward as chief salesman. His genius? Turning dense economics into catchy parables, TV shows, and simple props - like his pencil story explaining the “magic” of the market.

By the 1980s, 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗻 and 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 brought neoliberalism to power: tax cuts for the wealthy, smashed unions, privatization, deregulation, outsourcing. The ideas incubated for decades finally hatched.

And here’s the twist: neoliberalism didn’t win mainly with technical papers. It spread through 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘂𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 - 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀, 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. We thought we were consuming culture; in fact, we were inhaling ideology.

Standing in that Totnes bookstore, I thought: maybe it’s time we tell our own sharp counter-cartoons. Stories that ask the questions neoliberals never wanted us to:

𝗪𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱?
𝗪𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝘀 “𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹”?

to be read in Monbiot/Hutchison

Why BANI is wrong

BANI sounds modern, but it's a smokescreen.
It describes uncertainty, chaos and non-linearity – but it obscures the fact that power, interests and conscious action are at play.

BANI is an abbreviation for what economists call fundamental uncertainty. And that describes the current geopolitical chaos and a nature that has arrived at various tipping points, not so badly. Yes – suddenly something like democracy, unthinkable ten years ago, is under pressure. Yes – many effects are not linear, the butterfly strike and the storm. And because we have suppressed a lot, some decisions seem incomprehensible today.

But – and this is a weighty "but" – these things don't just happen to us. They not only demand humble adaptation and resilience.

Rather, power, planning, monetary interests, greed and a drowsiness on the less powerful side play a major role. The environment is deliberately destroyed. Social relationships are not only diluted by growing inequality, but also actively crushed by increasingly anti-democratic elites (Mr. Thiel sends his regards). And our consumerism reduces the necessary indignation.

This is exactly what BANI conceals – as if development were an "outside-in" law of nature. What we should emphasize much more is an "inside-out" perspective: What do we have to change through vigilant actions? How can we make the plurality of legitimate interests visible? The economy must not be the only free actor, it must necessarily serve the common good. Freedom of citizens would be more appropriate – and even more: the freedom to comply with voluntary obligations. Neoliberalism, with its narrow view of freedom, has not served us well.

On the other hand, there is the question of how we build up countervailing power. Taking power out of the markets was once the idea, but antitrust laws have failed (or have been deliberately watered down). Today, mega-players put entire states "in the bag" without any effort. That is why we need a powerful civil society, trade unions, NGOs and movements. And we must learn to work across stakeholders – with supranetworks for the common cause.

BANI therefore needs PASO – Power, Agency, Solidarity and Organization. And we ourselves need the strength to let ourselves be less sprinkled, to limit Netflix evenings - and to get into more conversation with each other again.

🌧️ Yesterday’s rain left us unexpectedly stranded in Plymouth.

Not the glossy tourist town you might imagine, but a city that wears its struggles openly. Shuttered shops, quiet high streets, signs of economic fragility. And yet: a vibrant university, cultural projects like The Box, the Barbican alive with new energy. Plymouth feels like a mirror of Britain beyond London - resilience mixed with hardship.

It also carries history. On 17 March 1838, four of the Tolpuddle Martyrs - Dorset farm labourers transported to Australia for daring to form a union - landed back in Plymouth after their pardon. Greeted by crowds at the Barbican, their return was celebrated as a victory for solidarity. A plaque still marks the spot.

Back then, “union” meant secrecy. In 1834, when six men resisted wage cuts, they swore oaths in a “friendly society” - a secret association at a time when collective organisation was criminalised. Betrayed and convicted, they were sentenced to seven years’ transportation. Only a wave of petitions and protests forced their return. That courage helped seed the modern trade union movement.

Fast-forward to today. Unions are weakened by decades of anti-union laws and fragmented work. And yet inequality grows, authoritarian leaders flex unchecked, and billionaire “robber barons” consolidate power.

So the question feels urgent: where is the counterpower now?

Perhaps we do still need “secret societies” — not clandestine oath-sworn groups, but new associations built for our century.

💡In Plymouth, ordinary people have pushed back. Campaigners stopped the felling of Armada Way’s trees, forcing the council to rethink. Locals mobilised against far-right groups, saying clearly: this is not who we are.
💡In Totnes, just up the road, community-led projects like the REconomy Centre incubate ethical enterprise and rethink what a local economy can be.
💡Across Britain, social enterprises, cooperatives, grassroots networks, and even digital communities are experimenting with forms of solidarity beyond the old union model.

History shows us: power does not concede on its own. It takes organisation. It takes pressure. It takes counterpower.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs remind us that when the system seemed immovable, ordinary people found ways to whisper “enough” and then to shout it loudly enough to be heard.

We may not need secret oaths today. But we do need new alliances, new solidarities, new associations that can balance power in the 21st century.

✊ The real question is: who builds them, and when do we start?

🌍 THE BEAUTY OF SERVICE LEARNING

In an age of geopolitical rupture, cultural fragmentation, and open moral conflict, developing responsible global leaders is becoming more and more of a necessity. Yet most business schools still teach leadership as if the world were stable, predictable, and value-neutral. We tend to train sharp minds, but mostly neglect moral judgment, and we cultivate performance awareness, not ontological awareness; it optimizes within systems but rarely questions their foundations.

That is what makes Project Ulysses such an interesting project. Developed by PwC’s global talent development team, and studied in depth by Nicola Pless, PhD, Thomas Maak, and Günter Stahl, it represents a rare fusion of leadership education and human development. Drawing on Kolb’s experiential learning theory and Mezirow’s transformative learning framework, Ulysses takes participants far beyond the classroom and directly into the moral and cultural complexity of real life.

Over eight weeks, senior PwC professionals live and work in developing countries, embedded in NGOs and community organizations. Their task is not to advise from a distance but to engage, learn, and contribute.

The learning architecture follows Kolb’s full cycle:
✅ Concrete Experience: direct engagement with social and environmental challenges in unfamiliar contexts
✅ Reflective Observation: journaling, dialogue, and storytelling to process cognitive, emotional and moral dissonance
✅ Abstract Conceptualization: connecting lived experience to broader ethical, cultural, and systemic insights
✅ Active Experimentation: translating new awareness into changed behavior—in leadership and life

The program is supported by deep pedagogical scaffolding: conceptual teaching, peer feedback, coaching, mindfulness practices, and team and guided reflection. The result, as per this study ( 👇 ) seem to have led to true personal transformation.

✅ Participants reported moral growth and sharper ethical awareness
✅ They developed cultural humility and a bigger circle of moral concern
✅ They acquired a cognitive capacity that embraces ambiguity and contradiction
✅ Many underwent a re-evaluation of their values, purpose, and identity as leaders.

This is what Mezirow called a “perspective transformation”- a shift in how one understands the world and oneself within it. And it cannot be achieved through cases or simulations alone.
This is the beauty of service learning: it has the potential to educate the whole person. It confronts leaders with the real, the relational, and the uncomfortable and thereby invites them to grow through it.

We clear need much more business school education like this. Not only frameworks, but also formation. Not only technical competence, but also moral courage. Not more "best practice" management, but leadership for an uncertain, interdependent world.

✨ I’ve long appreciated Ina A.s work on sustainable HRM but this paper, co-authored with Michael Muller-Camen and Brian Matthews, and building on the sustainability paradigm of Thomas Dyllick, is the one I’d most love to recommend to all of you who are reimagining the future of work.

📘 In “Common Good HRM: A Paradigm Shift in Sustainable HRM?”, the authors leave the narrow logic of instrumentalism behind. They ask a bold (and in my opinion) the right question:

What if HR didn't just serve the company but truly served society?

Drawing from Dyllick & Muff’s business sustainability typology, they outline four types of Sustainable HRM and introduce a new fourth type: Common Good HRM, which reframes HR as a lever for social, ecological, and human flourishing.

🔍 A Quick Summary of Their Typology:

1️⃣ Type 1: Socially Responsible HRM
→ Focused on diversity, well-being, and safety but mainly to reduce reputational or legal risks. This approach treats social responsibility as an add-on to the core business model, not something that reshapes it.

2️⃣ Type 2: Green HRM
→ Promotes environmentally friendly behavior (e.g., green training, green bonuses), but framed as a business strategy. While it engages ecological issues, it still operates within a logic of cost savings, branding, or compliance.

3️⃣ Type 3: Triple Bottom Line HRM
→ Aims to balance people, planet, and profit. Yet this often leads to unresolved tensions and trade-offs. It opens space for dialogue and innovation, but frequently defaults to economic priorities in moments of conflict.

4️⃣ Type 4: Common Good HRM 🌍
→ A true paradigm shift: HR becomes a vehicle for solving grand societal challenges like inequality, climate change, and precarious work. Here, the purpose of the firm is redefined. And HR creates conditions for human dignity, democracy, and sustainability.

💡 What Common Good HRM Does Differently:
✅ Outside-in perspective: Begins with the needs of society, not just firm strategy.
✅ Human rights in supply chains: HR takes responsibility beyond company walls.
✅ Workplace democracy: Hiring, feedback, and compensation become shared responsibilities.
✅ Job creation as a purpose: Employment is not a cost but a value in itself.

One standout example: Sonnentor, an organic tea and spice company rooted in the Economy for the Common Good movement. Their HR approach includes hiring long-term unemployed and people with disabilities as a matter of principle, not charity. They deliberately avoid full automation, investing instead in manual, meaningful work that sustains local employment and human dignity.

🧭 This is for all of you who truly want to go further—who believe HR can be more than a function. It can be a practice of care, a force for justice, and a cornerstone of a future where humans, nature, and the economy flourish together.

📖 Link to article: https://lnkd.in/dkHAxZHx

BUSINESS SCHOOLS WITHOUT PURPOSE?

In another post I proposed four principles for a flourishing business school: flourishing, practical wisdom, the common good, and contestation.

So let’s hold today’s schools up to that standard. The verdict? Systematic failure.

✊ Theories that kill flourishing.
Sumantra Ghoshal warned that bad theories don’t just misdescribe reality, they make it worse. Agency theory assumes managers are selfish, so BS designed systems of distrust for practice - and managers behave accordingly. Shareholder primacy tells us greed is rational, and greed becomes normalized. Even psychology isn’t better. As Bal & Dóci show, employability, job crafting, even “well‑being” still recast people as self‑entrepreneurs, forever optimizing for the market. Where flourishing should mean energy turned into excellence in community, BS teach restless self‑optimization in competition.

✊ No practical wisdom.
Gert Biesta calls it “learnification”: education hollowed out into competences, outcomes, metrics. Students collect badges of employability, professors deliver quantifiable units. But phronesis cannot be measured. It requires judgment about what is good in messy, uncertain contexts. MacIntyre shows how managerialism pretends to be neutral: efficiency as the only virtue, conflict erased. Schools produce clever technicians of efficiency yet efficiency without wisdom is directionless, and often destructive.

✊ Contestation erased.
Learning requires conflict and courage. Yet BS mainly elevate consensus. Case studies end with tidy “solutions,” “best practices” are served as gospel, while rankings reward conformity. Bal & Dóci expose the fantasy of harmony: the myth of organizations as win‑win spaces. Laske shows how dialectical thinking - grasping contradictions, perceiving absences, imagining transformation - is never developed. Students graduate fluent in analysis but allergic to debate. A school without contestation is not a school but a factory of conformity.

✊ The common good betrayed.
Business schools were founded to professionalize management for society. That mission is gone. Today success means salaries and corporate ties. Sulmasy helps us see why: schools confuse the aggregative good (private satisfactions like careers) or the supersessive good (“what’s good for business is good for society”) with the real thing - the constitutive common good. This means flourishing in community, cultivating virtues and practices together. By ignoring it, schools betray their reason for being.

The result is stark: a lot of business schools fail every part of their telos!

The cruel paradox: the very institutions that promise opportunity keep us trapped in an iron neoliberal cage, and one that tightens with every student stepping out to enter “the real world.”

👉 What do you think: why do bad theories persist, dialectics gets exchanged with balancing, audit culture prevails and nobody even bothers to discuss about the common good?

🔨 While faculty everywhere debate AI plagiarism policies, we're missing the bigger question: Are we still preparing leaders for a world that's disappearing?

Here we are, educators supposedly preparing tomorrow's leaders, focused on catching cheaters rather than asking: if AI can write, code, and analyze better than most humans, what the hell are we actually preparing students to do? The real crisis isn't academic integrity - it's that we've swallowed a fundamentally broken story about who builds civilization.

We worship the founder myth. Tech bros launching apps, entrepreneurs "disrupting" industries, engineers coding the future. Meanwhile, people who actually keep society functioning such as nurses, teachers, janitors, caregivers are treated as expendable background characters. This isn't just unfair; it's economically suicidal. When the next pandemic hits and your unicorn startup needs cleaning, good luck paying your "builders" in equity.

Building on Hannah Arendt's work, I see four types of builders facing crises AI will amplify, not solve.

1️⃣ Sustainers do invisible work keeping life going- care, maintenance, healing. We've systematically devalued this work, outsourcing it to whoever accepts poverty wages. AI can optimize schedules but can't change diapers or talk someone off a ledge. Yet instead of finally paying care workers properly, we'll probably use AI efficiency gains to pay them even less.
2️⃣ Makers are having their existential crisis now. As AI eats routine coding and design, we're discovering much of what we celebrated as "building" was pattern matching. Survivors won't code faster than GPT-5; they'll orchestrate AI tools while maintaining judgment about what's worth building ethically. Most business schools aren't teaching this—they're still teaching optimization.
3️⃣ Initiators creating democratic change face shrinking space as public spheres get captured by algorithmic manipulation and billionaire whims. You can't have genuine collective action when platforms controlling discourse are owned by people with toddlers' emotional maturity and nation-states' power.
4️⃣ Meaning-makers get dismissed as luxury goods in our efficiency-obsessed culture. But as AI floods the world with generated content, distinguishing signal from noise becomes the scarcest skill. We desperately need people who can tell true stories—just as we've defunded journalism, arts, and education.

Here's what building the capacity for future work means on a policy level: Tax AI productivity gains to properly pay care workers. Force tech companies to fund retraining instead of pocketing automation savings. Build public digital infrastructure so democracy doesn't depend on Musk's Twitter whims.

Business schools on the other hand need to figure out how to enable the full spectrum of human capability. If not BS will optimize themselves into irrelevance while wondering why nothing works anymore.

A Non-Disciplining Market

Yesterday I read a post by Hans Steegeman that brought two perspectives together in a way that won’t leave me:

📖 Adam Tooze on the “sequel” to polycrisis (FT, 2025)
📖 Lawrence, Homer-Dixon et al. on the causal mechanisms of polycrisis (2024)

Tooze observes something eerie. Despite Gaza, Ukraine, Trump’s second term, ecological stress markets are calm. Equities float on AI hype. Treasury markets stay liquid. Where many expected turmoil, capitalism hums along. His provocation: maybe this isn’t even “crisis” anymore. Maybe we’ve shifted into a postliberal order, where capitalism no longer disciplines politics or upholds liberal legitimacy. Rather it just keeps functioning, detached and indifferent.

Lawrence et al. insist the opposite: today’s capitalism is the engine of polycrisis. Its globalized, hyper-connected, efficiency-obsessed design produces the stresses - ecological breakdown, inequality, political fragility - that cascade across systems.

Put them together and a sharper picture emerges:

➡️ The capitalism Tooze calls eerily resilient is the same capitalism Lawrence et al. show to be fragility-producing.
➡️ But it is no longer neoliberal. Neoliberalism at least pretended that markets were “epistemologically wise” (Hayek) by discovering information, coordinating efficiently, disciplining states.
➡️ Postliberal capitalism has shed the pretense. It doesn’t need to justify itself as wise or stabilizing. It doesn’t need to guard liberal order. Its only function is to keep giving the wealthy and powerful more wealth and power.

That’s why markets can remain calm even as politics and ecology unravel. Calm is not a sign of stability, it is detachment. For capital, everything is fine. For everyone else, the polycrisis deepens.

And here’s the real danger: if we no longer recognize this as crisis, we lose the chance to act. A crisis (from the Greek krisis) means a turning point it allows for recovery or collapse. If collapse is normalized, catastrophe creeps in unnoticed, efficiently, profitably.

👉 That’s why semantics matter. Call it polycrisis or call it postliberal capitalism, the point is the same: unless we see this as an actionable crisis, we won’t mobilize. And without mobilization, catastrophe becomes the new normal.

How to Applaud Your Own Precarity (and Call It Growth) — or Why America Is Cheerfully Marching Over the Cliff, Gaga in MAGA

This is 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁’𝘀 neoliberal self-control at its finest.
Tech companies lay off thousands - “9,000 gone,” “12,000 gone,” “11,000 more” - to massage stock prices, while revenues, investments, and share prices soar.

And the employees? They are telling themselves:
👉 “Fear becomes fuel.”
👉 “Uncertainty becomes opportunity.”
👉 “Sunday scaries become strategy sessions.”

This isn’t resilience. It’s the 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗺 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲 of the contemporary workplace: workers applauding their own precarity, mistaking cortisol spikes for creativity hacks.

The irony is brutal: mass layoffs dressed up as “neural rewiring” for innovation, liked 735 times. A living demonstration of how ideology works. How capitalism’s progressive face making people thank the system that just cut them loose.

And perhaps also an explanation of why America seems so ready to march over the cliff right now - not resisting, but cheering, “growth mindset” all the way down.

NOT MORE WORK. BETTER WORK.

If you listen to European leaders like Friedrich Merz or business voices echoing Silicon Valley mantras, the message is clear: Europe needs to work harder to stay competitive. Work longer, retire later, push harder. Tech leaders like Zuckerberg echo the same gospel: hustle harder, optimise performance, sacrifice rest for "impact."

This ideology of more is wrapped in responsibility and merit. But in reality, it is a treadmill: it destroys health, corrodes democracy, and drives us deeper into ecological overshoot.

A post-growth perspective asks a different question: not how to increase work, but how to make work good.

To unpack this, imagine work along two axes:
◦ Macro vs. Micro – system-level vs. lived experience.
◦ Direct vs. Indirect – the work itself vs. the conditions shaping it.

That gives us four dimensions of good work:

◆ What we produce (Macro–Direct) Work must heal, not harm. Orienting production towards planetary repair and human need: circular economy regulations, eco-social years contributing to care and climate, industrial policy steering investment from fossil to regenerative sectors.

◆ How much we work (Macro–Indirect) Paid work cannot expand infinitely. We need systemic boundaries. Working-time reduction lowers material throughput and redistributes time fairly. Job guarantees create socially useful employment. Transition supports protect workers as carbon-intensive industries wind down.

◆ How we experience work (Micro–Direct) Good work gives autonomy, meaning, growth and relationships. Universal basic income gives freedom to refuse bullshit jobs and choose care, art, or community. Vocational retraining re-skills workers for green and care sectors. Social and cultural infrastructure creates non-commodified spaces for flourishing.

◆ How work is governed (Micro–Indirect) Workplaces are political spaces. Stronger collective bargaining, a Decent Work Promotion Act, and cooperative ownership models return dignity, recognition, and decision-making power to workers.

→ This isn't about accepting decline: it's recognizing that working less on harmful production while working intentionally on care, repair, and community increases real prosperity and security. And this vision is already emerging across Europe: Belgium's four-day work week trials, cooperatives in northern Italy, care income pilots in Finland, circular economy strategies in Dutch industrial policy.

While we also have the yesterdays' European policy debates: calls to abolish social supports and replace them with harsher systems tied to compulsory labour, proposals to extend working hours by scrapping protections - all marketed as "flexibility," but meaning longer shifts and more stress.

The future of work is not about squeezing more labour out of exhausted societies. It is about reshaping work itself.

𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘀𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝗕𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗼 🎯

“Lead with purpose.” “Embed meaning.” “Authenticity matters.”

Corporate reports overflow with these promises. But how much is genuine - and how much is purpose-washing?

To see through the fog, it helps to turn to sociologist 𝗟𝘂𝗰 𝗕𝗼𝗹𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗸𝗶 (with Ève Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism). They argue that modern capitalism constantly absorbs critique. After the 1960s, workers and social movements demanded autonomy, creativity, community, and authenticity. Capitalism didn’t ignore this. No, it repackaged it.
The result was what they call the 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺: a cultural logic that celebrates networks, flexibility, diversity, projects, and purpose. It wears a progressive face. But these values are rarely treated as ends in themselves. Instead, they are converted into tools for competitiveness, productivity, and growth.

𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁: 𝗠𝗰𝗞𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲
McKinsey’s 2021 article Help Your Employees Find Purpose or Watch Them Leave looks convincing: employees want meaning, leaders should provide it. But read closely, and civic/inspired language (“authenticity,” “community,” “meaning”) is consistently folded back into market and industrial logics (retention, efficiency, innovation, competitiveness).

👉 See the analysis table below. It shows not only what is being claimed, but how the rhetoric works: borrowing higher “orders of worth” and closing them back into performance talk.

When we coded the piece, the result was clear: about 75% of its purpose rhetoric turned out to be bullshit - authentic words absorbed back into KPIs.
And this isn’t just an academic exercise. I have my students use our Purpose Bullshit Detector in class. We scan texts, and code the claims, and quickly see how much is genuine purpose talk and how much is instrumental spin. You can spot the pattern in seconds (even when it is not so easy as it is forseeably with McK)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
𝗥𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝗴𝘀 🚩
✖ Purpose always justified by performance → productivity, retention, profits
✖ Authenticity as technique → leaders “role-model” sincerity to keep people engaged
✖ Civic ideals reduced to KPIs → well-being, diversity collapsed into metrics
✖ No walk, all talk → purpose lives in posters and speeches, not in daily decisions
✖ Given up in bad weather → the first thing sacrificed in a downturn or crisis
✖ Top-down cascades → purpose handed down as a slogan, not co-created with employees
✖ Purpose ≠ practice → lofty board statements, but incentives tied only to short-term returns

✨ Purpose is too important to be left to bullshitting.
If it remains trapped in the connexionist spirit of neoliberal capitalism, it won’t transform work as it will just re-legitimate the same logic.

✔ Genuine purpose should orient organizations toward human flourishing and the common good, not just serve as the latest HR lever in the war for talent.

Further reading: https://www.academia.edu/download/48743293/s10767-006-9006-920160911-6196-77bbx3.pdf

𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱-𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

We are all kept alive by invisible hands and yet philosophy has often struggled to value this work properly.

𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮𝗵 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘁 called it labor: cycles bound to necessity, leaving nothing lasting. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗿 showed how women became trapped in domestic immanence while men reached transcendence. 𝗔𝘅𝗲𝗹 𝗛𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗵 revealed how care gets erased from recognition. Despite their insights, traditional frameworks place care at the bottom or in lululand.

This dismissal has been profoundly gendered. Reproductive labor was deemed "unproductive" precisely because it was women's work. Beauvoir exposed the trap: women confined to maintaining life while men created meaning.

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹?

𝗧𝗶𝗺 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗼𝗻 and colleagues propose an alternative. They argue that carING, in their words "the work done by nature, and that done in the commons and in the household", isn't just necessity but world-building. Freed from exploitation, care work sustains conditions that make everything else possible and is intrinsically rewarding. Maintaining and repairing the world creates lasting value for future generations.

𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗼𝗻'𝘀 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴—𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲?
The skeptic has reason to doubt. Much care or caring for work remains exhausting no matter how we reframe it. The night-shift nurse isn't experiencing transcendence; they're burned out. And elevating care risks romanticizing women's unpaid labor.

Yet Jackson's reframe might matter because our current approach and homo faber is failing. Climate breakdown and care crises expose what happens when we treat maintenance as marginal.

𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗳 𝗵𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴.

This connects to Arendt's concept of 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: appearing together in public to disclose what we value. When caregivers organize strikes, when activists demand repair over growth, care 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 political.

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 means more than changing words:
① Organizations must recognize hidden care such as mentoring, emotional support, maintaining culture as real work.
② Households must share routines equitably, refusing to naturalize women as default carers.
③ Economies must invest in health, education, and repair instead of chasing productivity alone.
④ Politics must make care visible as a foundation of justice.

Whether Jackson's reframing works may depend less on theory and more on what happens when we act as if care work matters in a world facing ecological collapse.

Care isn't only about getting by. It's about what kind of world endures and who has a voice in sustaining it.

𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱-𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Care is everywhere. Cooking, cleaning, nursing, repairing, teaching, restoring an ecosystem. Yet in much of philosophy, care has been treated as the lowest rung of human activity: necessary, but repetitive, dirty, even futile.

𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮𝗵 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘁 called this labor: bound to necessity, leaving nothing lasting. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗿 described women trapped in immanence: endless domestic cycles that offered no transcendence or freedom. 𝗔𝘅𝗲𝗹 𝗛𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗵 reminds us that such work, though essential, has been systematically excluded from recognition. All three warn against romanticizing care: it is indispensable, but it can also be exhausting and disempowering.

And it has been profoundly gendered. For centuries, reproductive labor was deemed “unproductive,” precisely because it was women’s work. Beauvoir exposed the oppression here: women confined to immanence while men reached transcendence. Honneth adds that the “dirty” work of sustaining life must be more fairly shared across society.

But what if care is not only necessity? 𝗧𝗶𝗺 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗼𝗻 and colleagues ask us to look again. They describe carING - “the work done by nature, and that done in the commons and in the household” - as central to sustaining the world. Freed from coercion and detached from the logic of endless productivity, such work can be transcendent: leaving something behind, upholding conditions for future generations. Repairing and maintaining the world, they argue, is world-building. It bridges to Arendt’s work and Beauvoir’s transcendence.

Jackson also warns us: the traditional homo faber, builder and maker of artifacts, has given us industrial growth and ecological overshoot. Not all world-building is benign. To transform care is also to rethink fabrication within ecological limits.

And then there is Arendt’s provocation: action. To appear in public, to disclose who we are, to act together in plurality. Care itself may not be action. But when caregivers, feminists, or climate activists bring care into public life by demanding recognition, redistributing burdens, redefining its value then care becomes political. It becomes a way of saying: this is the world we want to sustain together - and we should!

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 means more than changing our words. It means:
① Organizations must recognize hidden care such as mentoring, emotional support, maintaining culture as real work.
② Households must share tedious routines equitably, refusing to naturalize women as default carers.
③ Economies must invest in health, education, and ecological repair instead of chasing productivity alone.
④ Politics must make care visible - from nurses’ strikes to climate movements - as a foundation of justice.

Care is not only about getting by. It is about what kind of world endures and who has a voice in sustaining it.

The 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 is a vision of an economy where care, rather than restless expansion, is the central organizing principle. In practical terms, it’s a blueprint for organizing production and social life so that the guiding aim is to maintain, restore, and improve human health (in the WHO’s broad sense), not growth for its own sake.

Tim Jackson’s new book offers a different narrative of prosperity: 𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸, caring, crafting, creating, as contribution, and economy as the system that 𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀 such care. It echoes William Morris, who wrote: “The reward of labour is life.” Work becomes craft again, valuable 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳. That usually means being less “productive” in the narrow sense, yet more fulfilling and ultimately 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵-𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 for people and planet.

Even the cover tells the story. “The swish symbolizes the 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼̄ in Zen, drawn in a single, mindful brushstroke, symbolizing action with presence, care, and completeness rather than perfection.” That’s the pivot: 𝗯𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗳𝘂𝗹, 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 in what we do (and in who we become) instead of squeezing ever more “productivity per hour.” Jackson calls this the productivity trap: the more productive each worker becomes, the fewer workers are “needed,” the more growth is required to reabsorb labour and the more the less health.

As a scholar of work, my question is institutional: 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹? Jackson’s articles point to multi-level reform:

𝗜𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝘀
• Re-center 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 over throughput; think 𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗶 / 𝗸𝗮𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗻 beyond cost-cutting.
• Protect 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 where quality depends on them (care, education, repair).
• Measure what matters: 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 and planet.

𝗜𝗻 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆
• 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 with guardrails against intensification.
• 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 & 𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 that privilege relational quality.
• 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗻𝗼 to meaningless or harmful jobs (basic income security plus 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀).
• 𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁𝘀 that move burden off labour and onto 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲/𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗽𝘂𝘁 and rents; invest proceeds in care, health, housing, transit, restoration.

None of this dominates today’s agenda - quite the contrary. That’s why narrative work matters. We won’t legislate what we can’t 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲. Jackson doesn’t just add policies; he reframes the story: 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 = 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵, 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 = 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲, 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 = 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲.

If that feels utopian, remember Morris’s line: the reward of labour is life. Perhaps the first step is simply to 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼̄ - to act with presence, care, and completeness - then build institutions that let more of us work that way.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗦𝗥 𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗦
The great CSR deception: organizations perfect the performance of responsibility while avoiding its substance.

Most organizations believe they're evolving toward responsible business. They launch sustainability reports, hire CSR officers, speak passionately about stakeholder value. Yet they remain trapped: 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁, 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲?

A review by François Maon, Lindgreen & Valérie Swaen mapped seven stages of CSR development: Organizations often evolve through Reluctance → Grasp → Embedment, maturing from profit-maximizers into moral stewards. The framework identifies a trajectory: Dismissing CSR, Self-Protecting through compliance, Capability-Seeking through dialogue, Caring through values, Strategizing for advantage, and finally Transforming society.

But three critical blindspots in their article might expose why organizations remain stuck in sophisticated instrumentalism:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁: Power struggles shape CSR trajectories. When ExxonMobil funds climate research while blocking climate policy, that's political strategy, not cultural evolution. The model underplays how corporate power shapes the rules.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗽: Culture doesn't evolve naturally. Entrenched ideologies create resistance making transformation contested. Shareholder primacy isn't a phase organizations outgrow: it's a worldview defended by powerful interests.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗲: By framing "strategizing" as business advantage, the model could collapse into business case logic. Organizations reach Stage 6 declaring victory: we've made CSR strategic! But strategic for what? The model is not clear enough in distinguishing sophisticated instrumentalism from authentic transformation.

What's missing: organizational identity. The authors build on posture but don't explore how identity evolves from "we are profit-makers" to "we are moral leaders." Without linking CSR to identity transformation, we treat it as practice adoption rather than fundamental redefinition of who we are.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 some "𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥" 𝘊𝘚𝘙 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺. Real transformation requires confronting uncomfortable truths: CSR development isn't just about stages and culture. It's about politics, ideology, structural resistance, and identity revolution. It's choosing between being a business that does good things and being a force for good that operates as a business.

The question haunting every sustainability report: What are you really optimizing for: stakeholder value or shareholder returns in stakeholder language?

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨?

Link to article: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/443967594.pdf

THE MYTH OF THE FREE MARKET
When myths become dogmas, reality chooses its poison.

We live surrounded by economic fairy tales that have become so ubiquitous that they seem invisible. The most powerful: the belief in the "free market". In a wonderful book, Ha-Joon Chong reveals these fairy tales.

Ha-Joon Chang's first myth goes to the heart: "There is such a thing as a free market." Chang shows that every market is defined by rules – usually by the state. "Free" is an illusion.

Think about how we talk about markets as if they were laws of nature. "The market has decided." As if "the market" were a divine entity, rather than a man-made system of institutions, laws, and power structures.

Chang calls it the "rules of the game" – always there, even if we pretend they don't exist. They determine who gets to play, who wins. Patenting medicines is a free market, but minimum wages are distortion? Banks rescue follows market principles, but trade unions are cartels? Capital flows freely, but migrant workers stay out – where is the consistency of this market ideology?

This intellectual dishonesty is not accidental. The myth obscures the fact that every economic order reflects political decisions. It transforms conflicts of interest into laws of nature, political decisions into amoral imperatives.

The consequences of the last three decades: deregulation of the financial markets led to crises, not stability. Privatisation of public services to poorer quality and higher prices. labour market flexibility leads to stagnant wages and growing inequality.

The myth loses its power as soon as we ask: Whose freedom is protected? Whose rights are enforced? Which rules are considered natural, which are intervention?

In a world where economic myths shape politics and business, the most radical act is to ask: What if the story is not true?

What "market-based truth" have you never questioned?

Link to article:

𝗗𝗢𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗣 𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗗
When learning became performance, critical thinking chose exile.

Most organizations excel at fixing errors yet fail spectacularly at questioning the assumptions behind them. They polish deck chairs while sailing toward crises, congratulating themselves on efficiency as fundamental problems persist.
Single-loop learning asks "How do we fix this?" Double-loop learning dares to ask "Why did we think this was right?"

𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲-𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗴𝗲. 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲-𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘆. One treats symptoms; the other questions governing rules, values, and assumptions that create our reality.

A systematic review of 128 studies reveals: despite decades of research, double-loop learning remains elusive. Leadership coaching, continuous improvement, simulations - all producing incremental fixes while fundamental problems persist.

Why? Organizations remain trapped in Model I reasoning: defensive fortresses where questioning assumptions triggers panic. These systems suppress responsibility, hide mistakes, and strangle transformative inquiry.

We need conditions that make double-loop learning possible. Two mechanisms stand out:

1️⃣ First, "relational leadership" that holds a triadic relation bringing leader and team together in the practice of questioning assumptions where the shared purpose (creating better ways of working toward better goals) provides vital focus for their interaction. This I-Thou-It structure gives way to independent engagement with purpose itself.

2️⃣ Second, affording structures which are disciplined practices that make reflection routine rather than heroic. Like Torbert's liberating disciplines, these create containers for inquiry: regular forums for surfacing assumptions, protocols that protect vulnerable exploration, and rhythms that embed questioning into organizational life.

If we then create a beloved 2x2 - relational leadership (weak/strong) versus organizational design (weak/strong - four worlds emerge:

🧐 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘂𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 (both weak): Leadership collapsed into ego-protection, organization calcified into defensive routines.
🧐 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 (strong design, weak leadership): Sophisticated processes treating people as objects, producing learning's illusion.
🧐 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝘆 (strong leadership, weak design): Reflective leaders trapped within structures that cannot sustain breakthroughs.
😊 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 (both strong): Where double-loop learning becomes embedded and transformative.

Can we create leaders and communities that make transformation possible? Or will we perfect single-loop fixes while the world demands double-loop "wisdom" (although spoiler for wisdom one question remains strikingly absent: what is good ;-)).

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯?

Link to article: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antoinette-weibel_double-loop-learning-activity-7365993903805648896-oSvc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACORmc0B-heQaIu8zy_uBuqirrRJdzq4ClQ

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜𝗡𝗩𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛 𝗚𝗔𝗣
When academia became a performance, real understanding chose its poison.

We built an entire industry on a beautiful promise: money could save the world. The checks got bigger, the rhetoric got bolder, and everyone felt very good about themselves. There was just one problem: the researchers studying this industry forgot to study the one thing that actually matters.

A jaw-dropping new review has emerged with a conclusion that should terrify every business school professor publishing on ESG: 𝗮𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗮 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁. How did the entire academic community studying impact investing manage to avoid studying the actual impact?

Because researchers chose the comfortable questions over the essential ones, building careers on studying everything except what matters.
Academics measure what gets them tenure. They avoid what's hard: real-world outcomes, systemic change, lives genuinely improved. The assessment is brutally clear: researchers obsessively focus on "outcome measurement at the individual investee-level" while completely ignoring "the aggregate societal impact" that is supposedly the entire point.

We have hundreds of papers analyzing how impact investors choose their portfolios, and almost zero studying whether those portfolios change the world. Our performative universities reward publications, not problem-solving, creating tenure systems that incentivize studying the process while ignoring the purpose. The researchers call out the academic community directly: despite impact investing's "intention to create measurable social impact," this impact, literally the field's reason for existing, "is not scrutinized in the literature."

𝘈𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮: 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩.

The tools exist to measure real impact, eg. longitudinal studies tracking societal changes, or systems-level analysis across time and communities. We just choose not to use them because measuring what's hard doesn't fit our conference schedules or publication timelines.
This is the age of homo academicus - the unwise scholar - methodologically sophisticated yet practically obsolete. A field that mistook rigor for relevance, and now finds itself writing about everything except the thing it claims to study.

Our proud academic world probably won't change with a breakthrough, but with a LinkedIn post.
How could we know so much about impact investing, and understand so little about impact?

If you care for all the citations go here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7364688063693840385/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A(activity%3A7364688063693840385%2C7364691482991017984)&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A(7364691482991017984%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7364688063693840385)&dashReplyUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A(7364693039501426688%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7364688063693840385)&replyUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A(activity%3A7364688063693840385%2C7364693039501426688)

𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜𝗡𝗩𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗦 𝗚𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗙𝗢𝗥?

...𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁; 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗲𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄. Deike Schlütter et al. ( 👇 ) conduct a 𝗷𝗮𝘄-𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 qualitative meta-analysis of the literature and come to the conclusion: research on impact investing is completely 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁.

Now this is 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗙𝗔𝗜𝗟𝗨𝗥𝗘 rather than contributing to grand challenges. But how is this possible? The authors provide one very telling explanation: because we work with 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘆-𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗿𝘆 (not their original wording ;-)). We avoid the hard things: measuring impact, looking at impact across levels and across time, diving deeper into generative mechanisms. So we pick the data that is convenient, look at the complex issue reductively by focusing on investors, and often miss the chain of effects 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁-𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.

And they also nicely show that we would have the means to go much deeper: longitudinal ethnographies to understand unfolding processes, or life cycle analysis to assess impacts across value chains and system boundaries. And much more...

So probably the issue lies deeper. We sit in 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 and need to make sure that we brush up our publication record - no time to go into depth and length. And we also learn that 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁, whilst a glossy goal of all universities right now, is mainly translated into 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁: publications, rankings, teaching evaluations. So why should we start to think about it in more depth in the real world when 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗲 seems to suffice?

In addition, and as evident also in the CSR literature - where another meta-analysis showed that we are great at measuring the effect of CSR on profit but hardly anybody looked at its effect on social value - we are still trained that 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 matters. And performance is almost always read as 𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆. So it is seductive to look at the efficiency of impact investing, the appropriateness, the fitting to the needs of the investee and the investor. After all, 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱.

𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿… investors (who look responsible), academics (who stay employable), and universities (who tick their glossy “impact” boxes). But maybe not, it seems, for 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆.

Until we dare to measure impact itself - across systems, across levels, across time - we risk becoming part of the very problem we claim to solve.

👉 What would it take for us to put the good back at the centre of (not only) impact investing research?

When even "psychological safety" becomes an obligation to perform... THE SELF-REINFORCING SPIRAL OF NEOLIBERAL WORK

This is the silent paradox at the heart of modern work. In their article "Neoliberal Ideology in Work and Organizational Psychology", which is well worth reading, Bal & Dóci (link below👇) show how neoliberal ideology permeates our organizations (and also research). Using political, social, and fantasy logics, they analyze how instrumentality, individualism, and competition have become unquestioned truths. Even scientific findings often serve to increase efficiency – not to search for meaning.

But the real perfidious thing is that neoliberalism does not work through coercion, but through fantasies. Namely: to be free. Self-determined. Successful if you only give enough. Those who fail were simply not committed enough in this logic (see also the language of the CDU at the moment). And it is precisely because this feels liberating that it is so effective – and so difficult to question.

This is where a self-reinforcing negative spiral begins: Organizations are based on the assumption that people are rational, self-reliant, and competitive. They create structures that generate exactly this beh * avior: self-optimization, peer competition, inner performance control. And it is precisely this behavior that seems to confirm the original theory.

The ideology thus proves itself. When the system fails, it does not look for the fault in itself – but in the individual. The answer: resilience training, coaching, feedback loops:

🦸 Exhaustion is reinterpreted – as an "opportunity for growth".
🦸 Criticism becomes performance.
🦸 Resistance to service. And so psychological safety also becomes a product line.

Google case study:

The company is considered a pioneer in "psychological safety" – at least since the internally acclaimed Project Aristotle, which identified psychological safety as a central factor for high-performance teams. A company that presents itself as a future laboratory for good work.

And at the same time?
At the end of 2022, Google introduced a new performance system that requires up to 6% of employees to be classified as "low performers" – regardless of actual team performance. (CNBC, 12/22/2022) In addition: regular, quiet layoffs. While this is not a traditional stacked-ranking it is still results-oriented. Calculated.

The episode?
You can speak openly – but please with output.
You can feel safe – as long as you deliver.
You can live purpose – as long as you don't slow down.
And you can look forward to your own self-optimization including a "warm feeling".

But that's already the spiral. It does not drag itself out because it works – but because it so elegantly translates its own failures into self-responsibility.

The phase-out begins there, where we stop treating the individual – and begin to demystify systems.

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2018.1449108

GOOD EDUCATORS

As I wrote the other day, the ideal business school must enable 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, not just utility or well-being. Flourishing means the full realization of human and social potential through 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 and 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐞 in community. It is eudaimonic rather than hedonic: not only feeling well, but becoming good. Where well-being and utility would reduce education to what Biesta termed "learnification" based on "revealed" preferences, flourishing asks more. It asks us to form humans and future leaders who aspire not only to comfort but to excellence, not only to consumption but to contribution.

This what makes teaching demanding, this is why 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞. A practice is not just a set of skills, but a profession that must be 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝, struggled for, and pursued with standards of excellence in community. Teaching is not a sideline to “real business”; it has its own goods, its own virtues, its own contributions to the university and to society.

Biesta shows that good education pursues three aims at once: 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (developing knowledge and skills), 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (initiating students into traditions and communities), and 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (helping them become free and responsible agents). Stolz, drawing on MacIntyre, adds that this requires the integration of four forms of knowledge:

🔶 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 – knowing the methods, tools, and techniques that make action possible.
🔶 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 – developing the sensitivity to read contexts, people, and situations wisely.
🔶 𝐏𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 – clarifying purposes and principles, asking not just how but why.
🔶 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 – forming connections of trust and mutual respect that make collective learning and action possible.

Put together, these insights show that "ideal" professors should be professionals in their own right, whose vocation is to bring these aims and knowledges together in the formation of flourishing human beings. That is why their education takes 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞, why it requires 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 as much as information, and why its standards cannot be reduced to metrics or market demand.

From this standpoint two things stand out: (1) we need to make sure that teaching becomes more appreciated and (2) 𝐜𝐨-𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 with leaders from practice becomes a central dialogue, not substitution. Executives bring experience of the world as it is; professors could bring wisdom to discern what it might yet become through education. Together, they can cultivate graduates who not only succeed in business, but who 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡 and help institutions, communities, and societies to flourish as well.

👉 Do you agree that 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 should be seen as a profession and practice in its own right? MacIntyre was sceptical about this but even more sceptical about managers.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗹: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲

After my last post on Meta’s layoffs, I was asked a pressing question: if research has shown for decades how to downsize responsibly, 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸?

The answer is not a lack of knowledge. It is 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.
Ideology as a worldview that silently orients action: how the world 𝗶𝘀, how it 𝘴𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲, what counts as 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲, and what kinds of action are 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲. Ideology is sticky because it works not only through arguments but also through powerful affects and fantasies. It does not merely tell us what to do; it makes us 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to do it, even when evidence points elsewhere.

Organizations are ideological actors. They do not simply apply best practices from management textbooks. They embody a vision of what people are - cogs, agents, citizens, or serfs - and of what the company itself is - machine, marketplace, community, or sovereign. These deep beliefs shape how they respond when crisis hits.

This becomes visible in moments of profit warnings or downturns. Even with decades of research on “decent downsizing,” the path companies choose depends less on technical insight and more on ideological commitments.

A 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 firm sees the world as a machine to be repaired. Downsizing is executed like a mechanic adjusting broken parts. A 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 firm sees the world as a marketplace of individuals: layoffs become transactions, abrupt and performance-based. By contrast, a 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 company imagines itself as a community of citizens and aims for fairness, transparency, and reciprocity. A 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 company sees itself embedded and generative, a steward for unlocking the good, enabled by persons with dignity and vocation, seeking to regenerate and protect the common good while adapting.

And then there are the 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 firms of our age. Their worldviews are darker, but no less coherent. The 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼-𝗳𝗲𝘂𝗱𝗮𝗹 corporation (Meta, Amazon) imagines itself as a sovereign lord. Layoffs are decrees to be handed down: opaque, unilateral, framed as dominion over subjects. The 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁 corporation (Tesla, Palantir) sees itself as an ark on a frontier. Layoffs here become acts of sacrifice: dramatic, abrupt, justified as necessary for the mission of saving humanity.

So we can have research till the cows come home and show that "fairness pays" or similar - ideology will often get the better end when decisions are taken.

That is why the question for leaders is not simply 𝗵𝗼𝘄 to downsize in a downturn. It is: 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀?

📚 Reference: Durand, C. (2024). How silicon valley unleashed techno-feudalism: the making of the digital economy. Verso Books. And Taşkale, A. R. (2025). The affective politics of reactionary futurism in Silicon Valley. Critical Studies on Security, 1-5.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗹: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮’𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗼𝗳𝗳𝘀 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗨𝘀
Every crisis summons leaders to a crossroads - cut costs, or also preserve trust and humanity?

Every leader is summoned to that crossroads in times of crisis. On one side lies the imperative to protect the organization’s financial health. On the other lies the responsibility to preserve the dignity, trust, and future of the people who constitute that very organization.

The management scholar Wayne F. Cascio (see 👇 ) has studied downsizing for decades. His conclusion is unambiguous: most companies downsize badly. They cut broad and deep, lose critical talent, damage morale, and often fail to achieve the promised financial results. Downsizing is not just a technical choice; it is a strategic one (and as I argue an ethical).

From his research, five principles of decent downsizing emerge:

1️⃣ 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀. Employees are more likely to accept hard decisions if the process is transparent, consistent, and respectful.

2️⃣ 𝗛𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁. Crises inevitably reshape the implicit bonds of trust, loyalty, and reciprocity. Leaders must manage this actively.

3️⃣ 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀. Engagement turns passivity and cynicism into energy and creativity.

4️⃣ 𝗜𝗳 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗼𝗳𝗳𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲, 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱. Indiscriminate cuts undermine long-term competitiveness.

5️⃣ 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀. Tools like voluntary programs, sabbaticals, or shared reductions can preserve both talent and trust.

Now consider Meta’s recent layoffs, where about 3,600–4,000 people were cut:

Fairness? Many employees reported surprise: even high performers saw abrupt downgrades in evaluations before being let go. The perception of arbitrariness undermined fairness.

Psychological contract? Meta had scaled up aggressively during the pandemic, signaling long-term growth. The sudden reversal broke the implicit promise of stability, fueling anxiety and mistrust.

Involvement? The process was highly top-down. Employees were informed, not consulted. This deepened a sense of powerlessness.

Targeted? Cuts spanned across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs. Broad-based reductions suggested expedience rather than strategic workforce planning.

Creative alternatives? Unlike companies that experimented with voluntary or flexible arrangements, Meta defaulted to layoffs. Opportunities for less disruptive solutions were missed.

Cascio’s research reminds us: downsizing may sometimes be necessary, but how it is done determines whether organizations emerge weaker or stronger.

I would go the step further: at the heart lies an ethical question every organization must confront: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼? Is it the pursuit of short-term shareholder value, or do we also take responsibility for ensuring prosperity and humanity?

📚 Reference: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hrm.20034

Why smart organizations keep doing stupid things?

Most of us have been in the room when an obviously poor decision is made by a group of intelligent, experienced people. We leave wondering how so much collective capability could result in something so absurd. This is not an occasional mistake or a product of one weak leader. It is a broader, systemic phenomenon: organizational stupidity.

Organizational stupidity is not simply incompetence, although it can look like it. It is the set of patterns and practices that disable reflexivity, slow learning, and normalize wasteful or nonsensical activity.

Guilherme Azevedo recent work offers a typology that helps us see these patterns more clearly. He distinguishes three main lenses for understanding them:

1️⃣ The systemic–mechanistic lens sees the organization as a machine whose design is flawed. Poor structures, outdated processes, or missing resources trap people in unproductive routines. In this view, the obvious remedy is to redesign the system and remove the bottlenecks. The difficulty, of course, is that systems are run by people, and the human side is rarely as straightforward as the technical side.

2️⃣ The critical–sociological lens focuses on human behaviour and collective dynamics. Stupidity here is the result of conformity, groupthink, and sometimes moral compromise. Leaders may protect their own egos or positions at the expense of open debate. People avoid asking difficult questions. The remedy proposed is to cultivate reflexivity, dissent, and better learning processes. But this is far more challenging than simply implementing a new structure.

3️⃣ The cultural–functionalist lens is more provocative. It asks whether some apparent stupidity serves a useful function. Rituals that seem pointless may help maintain stability. Roles that look redundant may keep livelihoods intact. Strategic ignorance can protect people from burnout. In this view, not all stupidity is dysfunction; some of it is survival.

The reality, of course, is rarely one lens alone. Most cases are an entanglement of all three: flawed systems, unreflective human behaviour, and power/politics. A policy may be a relic of poor design, reinforced by leadership interests, and embedded in cultural meaning that makes it resistant to change.

The question, then, is not simply how to eliminate stupidity. It is which elements are actively harmful, which are functional and for whom, and how any change can be made without undermining the stability that people rely on. Stupidity is not a glitch in the system, rather it seems part of the system.

Understanding how and why it operates is the first step to making informed choices about whether to change it, challenge it, or accept it. We will discuss this in class today...(read the poem)

Source: Guilherme Azevedo, “Into the Realm of Organizational Folly: A Poem, a Review, and a Typology of Organizational Stupidity,” Management Learning (2023).

Trump Isn’t Doing Industrial Policy - He Just Thinks He Is

Everyone’s talking about industrial policy. From Washington to Brussels to Bern, leaders promise to “bring industry home”. It sounds bold. But most of what’s called industrial policy today is just a mix of subsidies, tariffs, and corporate tax breaks. These grab headlines but fall far short of the deliberate, structural transformation that has historically worked.

Real industrial policy as Antonio Andreoni and Ha-Joon Chang define it (hashtag#deepdive) is about reshaping an economy’s structure over decades. It’s not just protecting national champions. It’s about fostering industries that can drive productivity, innovation, and quality jobs and linking them so they reinforce one another. It’s about aligning finance, skills, technology, and regulation.

History is full of examples. Hamilton and List in the 19th century argued for state-led strategies to build capabilities. Mid-20th century structuralists like Hirschman and Prebisch promoted coordinated “big push” strategies to overcome underdevelopment. Post-war Japan, Korea, and Taiwan perfected disciplined, export-oriented approaches that built national capabilities from the ground up.

Andreoni and Chang’s work identifies four fundamental challenges that any serious industrial policy must master and the strategies to meet them:

1️⃣ Structural Tensions & Dualism
Industrialisation is messy and uneven. Some sectors surge ahead, others lag. Without coordination, bottlenecks strangle growth. Solution: Map and manage sectoral interdependencies, using state-led vision and careful sequencing.

2️⃣ Institutional Misalignment
New industries demand new institutions in finance, skills, and standards. Misaligned policies cancel each other out. Solution: Design policy packages, not isolated measures, and adjust them as industries evolve.

3️⃣ Conflict Management
Industrial policy redistributes power and resources. Resistance is inevitable from incumbents, rivals, even within government. Solution: Build political coalitions, create transparent support rules, and link benefits to performance.

4️⃣ Global Pressures
Global value chains, financialisation, and trade rules limit room to manoeuvre. Solution: Use strategic leverage - from procurement to standard-setting - to retain domestic value capture.

This is what separates real industrial policy from political theatre. It’s a long-term, coordinated, and politically savvy process aimed at structural transformation. Without it, governments risk spending billions on short-lived wins while leaving their economies vulnerable.

Next: we’ll put Trump’s 2024–25 industrial policy and “Agenda 2025” under the microscope. Spoiler: it’s not close to the gold standard.

📚 Reference: Andreoni, A., & Chang, H.-J. (2019). The political economy of industrial policy: Structural interdependencies, policy alignment and conflict management. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 48, 136–150.

The EU's Nobel Peace Prize: A Call to Remember Who We Are

In 2012, the Nobel Committee didn't just honor the EU for ending wars - they celebrated something deeper: Europe as a living testament to human dignity and shared values.

The Values That Won the Prize:

Human Rights as Foundation: "One cannot become a member without first having adapted their legislation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights" - The EU made human rights non-negotiable.

Democracy Through Membership: From Portugal's 1974 revolution to Eastern Europe's liberation - "several generations of Europeans have shown again and again that their choice for Europe was also a choice for freedom."

A Community of Dignity: As President Barroso stated: "Our Union places the person and human dignity at its heart... it gives a voice to diversity while creating unity."

A Global Inspiration The Nobel Committee recognized the EU as "a powerful inspiration for many around the world" - proving that former enemies can become family, that democracy strengthens through cooperation, that economic integration creates lasting peace.

But for some years already these values have been under pressure both internally through the rise of populism as well as externally. The latter clearly coming to an apex with the government of Trump.

The Nobel Committee warned us: "We must stand together... without this European cooperation, the result might easily have been new protectionism, new nationalism with the risk that the ground gained would be lost."

This is our moment to choose.

As Europeans, we must raise our voices for the Europe that won the Nobel Prize. We must defend the values that transformed our continent from battlefield to beacon. We must remember that democracy, human rights, and international cooperation aren't guaranteed - they require our active protection.

The Europe our grandparents dreamed of is worth fighting for.

Will you stand up for these values?

Source: Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony 2012, Oslo City Hall

LEADING WITH PRACTICAL WISDOM IN A TIME OF PERMANENT CRISIS

The United States’ decision to impose tariffs of up to 39% on European partners is not just a trade policy shift. It is a reminder that stability is no longer the norm and crisis no longer the exception. For CEOs and political leaders, this is not an “event” to be managed - it is a condition to be lived with, learned in, and navigated with wisdom.

Elena P. Antonacopoulou & Zachary Sheaffer (2013 👇) show that in such contexts, the decisive capability is practical wisdom: the cultivated ability to make context-sensitive, ethically grounded judgments when the context is uncertain and interests are manifold, time is short, and consequences are profound.

In chronic crisis, the loop between information, decision, and action is continuous, shaped by three forces:

1️⃣ Sensemaking under ambiguity: Understanding that “facts” are contested and that a shared understanding must be constructed through dialogue, while truth must be searched with much more depth.

2️⃣ Action with moral clarity: Decisions must reflect not only strategic advantage but the values we are prepared to live by.

3️⃣ Institutionalised reflection-in-action: Reflection must be embedded in the very act of leading and governing, not postponed until the crisis has passed.

In practice, for European CEOs and policymakers, this means cultivating a number of capacities:

💡 Strategic foresight as ethical stewardship – Anticipate trade disruptions not only to protect profits but to safeguard the livelihoods and trust of those whose work and communities depend on cross-border exchange.
💡 Judgment under incomplete intelligence – Act with provisional clarity, making choices that can be revised as realities unfold, rather than waiting for impossible certainty.
💡 Relational capital as a strategic asset – Build and maintain trust with a diverse range of partners, knowing that relationships are a form of liveblood and offer resilience no tariff can erode overnight.
💡 Value-consistent decision-making under pressure – In moments of economic strain, ensure that expedience does not erode commitments to fairness, reciprocity, and the common good.
💡 Governance that channels politics into learning – Accept that trade policy is political; structure decision-making so that competing interests lead to richer understanding, not paralysing division.

The U.S. tariffs will test not only Europe’s economic resilience. But they also test our wisdom; our ability to steer towards the good life. The challenge is not how quickly we return to “normal” trade, but how we cultivate the capacity to act decisively, ethically, and adaptively in a world where normality is the illusion.

True leadership in such waters might not about predicting the storm’s end but more about steering with phronesis, knowing that crisis is no longer the interruption, but the ocean itself. And this will also demand that we find back to some core values we seemingly forgot.

Link to article: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elena-Antonacopoulou/publication/274970149_Learning_in_Crisis_Rethinking_the_Relationship_Between_Organizational_Learning_and_Crisis_Management/links/55a7d93608ae481aa7f4f655/Learning-in-Crisis-Rethinking-the-Relationship-Between-Organizational-Learning-and-Crisis-Management.pdf

BUSINESS SCHOOLS ARE DEAD – LONG LIVE BUSINESS SCHOOLS IV

Welcome to the lab and a very, very, very first collection of realist utopias. 😊

Critique is never enough. If business schools fail to cultivate flourishing, wisdom, the common good, and contestation… what could alternatives look like?
Sociologist Erik Olin Wright tells us to judge “real utopias” with three tests:

1️⃣ Desirability: do they embody the moral yardstick we aim for?
2️⃣ Viability: can they function sustainably?
3️⃣ Achievability: can we get there from here?

Three cases show how this could work.

💡 Lancaster: critique without emancipation?

In the 1990s–2000s, Lancaster University Management School was a global flagship for Critical Management Studies. Students were told not to come if they wanted a conventional business education. Contestation was its hallmark. But the project was better at dismantling neoliberal ideology than forming wise practitioners. Its desirability lay in critique, not flourishing. When leadership changed, its viability collapsed. No alliances, no pathways to scale: the “critical enclave” was ripe to be dismantled and is currently even more at danger to be so.

💡 LIS: innovation without a constitutive common good?

The London Interdisciplinary School, founded in 2017, blends arts, sciences, and humanities to tackle “wicked problems.” It is desirable as an antidote to disciplinary silos and cultivates problem‑based wisdom. It has serious viability too: over £24m in investment, regulatory approval, strong faculty. But its vision of the common good is thin, leaning on employability and impact. Its achievability depends on graduate success. If alumni thrive, LIS could inspire imitation. If not, it risks remaining a boutique experiment.

💡 Mondragón: cooperation in practice?

Mondragón University in Spain’s Basque Country is the world’s first cooperative university, rooted in the Mondragón Corporation of 90+ worker co‑ops. It is desirable because it seems to embed flourishing, some sort of practical wisdom, common good, and contestation in cooperative practice. It is viable, tied to a robust ecosystem with financial solidarity and participatory governance. And it is achievable: it grew step by step from a technical school in the 1940s. Its limitation? Replication. Mondragón works because of a deep cooperative culture not easily transplanted. But it proves that real utopias in business education are possible.

The preliminary lesson?

Lancaster shows critique alone isn’t enough. LIS shows innovation without thick common good could be fragile. Mondragón shows alternatives can be desirable, viable, and achievable if embedded in supportive ecosystems.

👉 Over to you: Where should we borrow from Lancaster, LIS, and Mondragón? But more importantly: please tell me your favorite realist utopia - and send me case studies, articles to go (much) deeper into this!

Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0896920520950387

BUSINESS SCHOOLS ARE DEAD – LONG LIVE BUSINESS SCHOOLS III

Last time I proposed four principles for a flourishing business school: flourishing, practical wisdom, the common good, and contestation.
So let’s hold today’s schools up to that standard. The verdict? Systematic failure.

✊ Theories that kill flourishing.
Sumantra Ghoshal warned that bad theories don’t just misdescribe reality, they make it worse. Agency theory assumes managers are selfish, so BS designed systems of distrust for practice - and managers behave accordingly. Shareholder primacy tells us greed is rational, and greed becomes normalized. Even psychology isn’t better. As Bal & Dóci show, employability, job crafting, even “well‑being” still recast people as self‑entrepreneurs, forever optimizing for the market. Where flourishing should mean energy turned into excellence in community, BS teach restless self‑optimization in competition.

✊ No practical wisdom.
Gert Biesta calls it “learnification”: education hollowed out into competences, outcomes, metrics. Students collect badges of employability, professors deliver quantifiable units. But phronesis cannot be measured. It requires judgment about what is good in messy, uncertain contexts. MacIntyre shows how managerialism pretends to be neutral: efficiency as the only virtue, conflict erased. Schools produce clever technicians of efficiency yet efficiency without wisdom is directionless, and often destructive.

✊ Contestation erased.
Learning requires conflict and courage. Yet BS mainly elevate consensus. Case studies end with tidy “solutions,” “best practices” are served as gospel, while rankings reward conformity. Bal & Dóci expose the fantasy of harmony: the myth of organizations as win‑win spaces. Laske shows how dialectical thinking - grasping contradictions, perceiving absences, imagining transformation - is never developed. Students graduate fluent in analysis but allergic to debate. A school without contestation is not a school but a factory of conformity.

✊ The common good betrayed.
Business schools were founded to professionalize management for society. That mission is gone. Today success means salaries and corporate ties. Sulmasy helps us see why: schools confuse the aggregative good (private satisfactions like careers) or the supersessive good (“what’s good for business is good for society”) with the real thing - the constitutive common good. This means flourishing in community, cultivating virtues and practices together. By ignoring it, schools betray their reason for being.

The result is stark: business schools fail every part of their telos!

The cruel paradox: the very institutions that promise opportunity keep us trapped in an iron neoliberal cage, and one that tightens with every student stepping out to enter “the real world.”

👉 What do you think: why do bad theories persist, dialectics gets exchanged with balancing, audit culture prevails and nobody even bothers to discuss about the common good?

BUSINESS SCHOOLS ARE DEAD – LONG LIVE BUSINESS SCHOOLS II

Yesterday I argued that business schools are not just classrooms but ideological machines. They don’t just teach capitalism - they reproduce it in us.

If that’s true, where do we even begin to change them? The sociologist Erik Olin Wright offers a roadmap: transformation begins not with critique but with values and moral principles. Before we ask what is wrong or how to fix it, we must ask: what should guide us? What is the legitimacy for change? What is the good life to strive for?

For business schools, I believe four principles stand out. Each challenges a mainstream idea and offers a richer alternative:

🔹 Flourishing, not well‑being or utility.
Education is not just about maximizing comfort, pleasure, or employability. It is about becoming excellent through practice, and realizing our potential in community. People aspire not only to feel good, but to be good. Flourishing captures this deeper telos: who we become through what we do, together.

🔹 Practical Wisdom, not rationality alone.
Managers don’t just need tools to calculate and optimize. They need phronesis: the ability to judge what is good in messy, uncertain situations. Rationality tells us how to be efficient. Wisdom asks: what is worth doing? And without wisdom, even the smartest strategy risks being directionless.

🔹 The Common Good, not the private good.
The purpose of business is not simply to deliver private benefits such as profits, salaries, prestige. It is to create shared goods: products, knowledge, relationships, and virtues that enable all to contribute and thrive. The common good is not opposed to personal success, but it insists that true prosperity must be shared, enabled in common and sustainable.

🔹 Contestation, not best practices.
There are no final “best practices.” Business schools should be arenas of debate about ends as well as means. True learning requires disagreement, dialogue, and courage instead of conformity to neutral templates (say good-bye to the 10 habits of successful entrepreneurs or the McKinsey best practice news of the week). Contestation reminds us that management is always a moral and political practice, never just a technical one.

Taken together, these four principles give us a new telos for business schools. They remind us that management is not a neutral science, but a moral practice. And they set the benchmark by which today’s institutions and tomorrow’s alternatives can be judged.

👉 What do you think? How would you critique these "principles" - what is missing?

Sources: https://leadershipsociety.world/ and https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/62E41482551D6CF4BC293D44A96150B1/S0028428900013639a.pdf/div-class-title-the-very-idea-of-a-university-aristotle-newman-and-us-div.pdf?casa_token=DqSFcnFQ0bgAAAAA:gu8tcL_SZTmoczuXSag7QhfCCOINSnaUgeRzVDTF4AeFeP0DjrdgyG871fflZHIE8EWefXGcI2k and ofc https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.7227/IJS.21.2.2

BUSINESS SCHOOLS ARE DEAD – LONG LIVE BUSINESS SCHOOLS

Squashing critique by Otti Vogt and many before him raises an uncomfortable question: are business schools beyond rescue?

Working inside one, watching motivated and intelligent young minds (and hearts) prepare to become tomorrow’s leaders, I cannot quite accept that. If some businesses can be a force for good, why not business schools too? But before we talk about change, we must understand the problem. And today I’d like to start on the lighter side - with some first critique from my side (a deeper critique will have to follow).

Here’s the paradox. Business schools claim to produce responsible leaders. Yet the dominant ideology they teach and embody is still neoliberalism:

🎯 Markets are natural.
🎯 Competition is virtuous.
🎯 Shareholder value is the only true measure of success.

This worldview is not neutral. It tells a story about order (markets and managerial elites rule), about the good (efficiency and growth), and about praxis (deregulate, compete, manage technocratically). And it does something even more powerful: it shapes who students and professors become.

Think about it. Business schools are not just classrooms. They are as Gianpiero Petriglieri explains identity workspaces. They mold how future managers see themselves: as competitive, mobile, self‑investing and self-optimizing agents whose worth is measured by salary and prestige. This is how ideology works: it doesn’t just fill minds with theories, it anchors desire in fantasies. The fantasy to talk in Zizekian terms is beatific - wealth, prestige, global careers. The nightmare is horrific - failure, irrelevance, exclusion. Even when students are cynical, they can’t quite escape the pull.

This is why “fixing” business schools is not as simple as adding an ethics course or a sustainability track. Ideology runs deeper. It shapes visions, practices, and identities. If we take ideology seriously - as I have defined it in my series on ideology - as descriptive, normative, and action‑oriented, then we must admit: business schools don’t just teach adverbial capitalism, they reproduce it in us.

And yet if ideology can be taught, it can also be transformed. In this series, I’ll explore how.

👉 What do you think — are business schools doomed to reproduce the past, or can they become places of flourishing for the future, and how? I will explore this here in the coming weeks - but I will need the help of others, also insiders. Remember another truism: it is always easier to critique from the outside, than to change from the inside.

WHEN ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY FAILED AND SUFFERING REMAINED UNNOTICED

The other day, Rebecca Tillery gave a thoughtful talk on Philippa Foot - but what lingered for me was the deeper question that shaped the world of Iris Murdoch and her philosophical peers: why does no one notice the drowning of Icarus?

In Bruegel’s painting, Icarus falls into the sea and disappears. But the ploughman keeps ploughing, the ship sails on, the world continues, unchanged and unbothered. A human being suffers and is lost - and it barely registers.

We are in that painting again.

Why do so many people fail to really see what’s happening in Gaza? Or the quiet violence in the United States as it slips further into authoritarianism? The information is there. The images are there. But something is missing.

Iris Murdoch gave this a name: a failure of moral attention. For her, it’s not about lacking facts. Rather it’s about not seeing clearly. Moral life isn’t mostly about choosing between good and bad actions, as if we’re standing before a list of options. It starts deeper: with how we see the world, and how distorted our vision often is be it by ego, prejudice, habit, ideology, and fear.

To really attend to another person means letting go of those distortions (as far as we can). It means being open. Vulnerable. Willing to be affected. That’s why attention is hard. It’s not passive. It requires effort: to notice when our vision is off, to pull ourselves back from distraction, and to accept what we see, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Murdoch calls this “obedience to reality.” We don’t just learn the truth - we have to want to see it! That desire, that careful attention, is what gives moral life its shape.

And this is why attention matters so much now. It’s easy to scroll past someone else’s suffering, to keep ploughing the field, sailing the ship, doing our job. But the challenge Murdoch gives us is to look again - and this time, to see.

More literature: https://lnkd.in/dWySf2aW

IDEOLOGY, FLOURISHING, AND TRANSFORMATION: ERIK OLIN WRIGHT’S REAL UTOPIAS

Financial capitalism survives on a story: “There is no alternative.” This is not analysis but ideology, designed to shrink our sense of the possible. Erik Olin Wright’s project of real utopias directly attacks that story. By proving that alternatives can exist, function, and spread, he reclaims imagination as a tool of realism.

Wright begins with two foundational propositions:

1️⃣ Much human suffering and many deficits in flourishing are caused by existing institutions.
2️⃣ Transforming those institutions in the right way can reduce suffering and expand the possibilities for flourishing.

From this follows a clear procedure: articulate moral principles (in his case equality, democracy, sustainability); diagnose harms; design alternatives; and propose strategies for transformation.

But what makes an alternative real? He sets out three criteria:

1️⃣ Desirability: Does it embody emancipatory values?
2️⃣ Viability: Can it function without self-destruction?
3️⃣ Achievability: Are there pathways from here to there?

Among these, viability is crucial. If people cannot believe that alternatives will actually work, they will not fight for them. Demonstrating viable alternatives is therefore itself an ideological intervention: it expands the horizon of the possible.

And such alternatives exist. Participatory budgeting, worker cooperatives, solidarity finance, and basic income pilots are not castles in the air but institutions that embody different logics: democracy over technocracy, solidarity over competition, equality over hierarchy.

For Wright, transformation is not one path but a grammar of strategies:

1️⃣ Ruptural: confrontational breaks with dominant institutions.
2️⃣ Interstitial: building alternatives in the cracks and margins.
3️⃣ Symbiotic: reforms that empower the many while addressing systemic problems.
4️⃣ Encompassing: scaling alternatives until they reshape the system.

The most promising lies in the interplay of interstitial and symbiotic strategies: prefiguring flourishing futures in the present while opening cracks in the dominant order.

What makes Wright’s framework enduring is that he never separates critique from construction, or ideology from institutions. Real utopias destabilize not only materially but ideologically, by proving that hierarchy, competition, and commodification are not natural laws but social choices.

The challenge for us today is to push this project further. Wright gave us the tools to connect ideology, flourishing, and transformation. But we must ask: which institutions - businesses, digital platforms, civic networks - will carry this work forward? And how do we design them not only to redistribute resources, but to cultivate freedom, and flourishing?

Because emancipation is not only about building better systems. It is about making better lives thinkable - and livable.

👉 Where do you see real utopias emerging?

IDEOLOGY EXPOSED – AND THEN ŽIŽEK RUINS IT ALL

In our ongoing series on ideology, we've explored how ideas like growth, performance, and utility continue to shape our institutions - even after we've stopped believing in them. We know they're flawed. We see the contradictions. We joke, critique, roll our eyes.

And yet: we comply!

This is what Žižek calls ideological cynicism: the paradox where knowing that something is nonsense doesn’t set us free. On the contrary, our very awareness becomes part of the system’s functioning. We say: “Of course KPIs are reductive, of course strategy decks are performative, but what can you do?” So we keep going.

No ideology captures this better than managerialism. Managerialism appears most objective precisely when it is most ideological. It hides its values - performance, control, efficiency -behind the mask of neutrality and science (or evidence-based). It speaks the language of dashboards, maturity models, “best practices,” and evidence-based everything. And because it sounds like science, it escapes scrutiny.

But even the loudest critics rarely escape its grip.
Models like Teal or Humanocracy claim to liberate us from hierarchy and bureaucracy. They flatten structures, elevate autonomy, celebrate wholeness. But they still promise universality. They still optimize. They still scale. They sell freedom - but only through the next system. Meaning becomes a productivity tool. Autonomy becomes a design feature. Purpose becomes measurable.

This might be managerialism with a human face - but it is still managerialism - only soothing, flexible, but still in control.

Žižek’s point is brutal: seeing through the illusion isn’t enough. We’re not trapped because we believe rather we’re trapped because we can’t imagine a meaningful alternative. And so we cling to structure, technique, and the fantasy that one more framework might fix the system.

But maybe the real shift isn’t methodological. It’s moral.

What if we asked different questions?
Not “How do we perform better?” But “What’s worth doing?”
Not “How do we manage people?” But “How do we live well together?”

Beyond ideology lies not another model, but a different spirit: one of wisdom, discernment, responsibility. Not freedom within the system but freedom from the logic that everything must be managed.

That’s not a framework. That is a commitment.

SUMMER READING

Want to understand ideology? Start here.
If you’re curious about how political ideologies shape our thinking - whether in politics, business, or daily life - Andrew Heywood’s Political Ideologies: An Introduction is the best place to start.

📘 This book is clear, smart, and deeply informative. And - not always the case in political philosophy - it is very well written, even fun to read. It doesn’t just list “left vs. right” but explores the core ideas, values, and tensions inside each ideology. It shows how our beliefs are framed by traditions we may not even be aware of and how these frames influence our assumptions about fairness, freedom, growth, justice, or leadership.

🧭 What ideologies are covered?
Heywood explains the big traditions that still define political and organizational life today:
- Liberalism (from classical to neoliberal)
- Conservatism
- Socialism (including social democracy and Marxism)
- Anarchism
- Fascism

But then also goes towards newer traditions:
- Feminism
- Environmentalism
- Multiculturalism
- Religious Fundamentalism
- Postmodernism and Post-ideology

Each ideology is introduced through its core concepts, internal divisions, historical roots, and current relevance. It’s not just theory it’s also about how ideas live and mutate in real societies.

🏗️ How is it structured?
Each chapter begins with a conceptual map, then breaks down the core values, typical beliefs, and internal debates within each ideology. The book ends by reflecting on what ideology even means today especially in an age of populism, polarization, and “post-truth” politics.

💡 Why should ordinary people care? And why is this also important for leaders of all realms?

Because ideology doesn’t stop at politics. It silently shapes how we run organizations, how we talk about leadership or merit, how we define success, and what we think is "realistic." From growth-at-all-costs to CSR, from libertarian founders to stakeholder capitalism ideological assumptions are everywhere. If you want to lead with clarity, you need to understand the waters you’re swimming in.

🔍 For the open-minded reader - manager, policymaker, citizen - this book offers not just knowledge, but orientation. Highly recommended.

LIBERATING THE FUTURE: FROM TINA TO TRANSFORMATION

In my last post, I unpacked the ideological grip of TINA – “There Is No Alternative” – particularly around the growth imperative. But the point of critique is not despair. It is to reopen imagination. As Jin Xue argues in her excellent paper on ideology and critical realism, we can challenge the “ideological closure” of TINA through a threefold process: exposing contradictions, imagining alternatives, and experimenting with transformation.

Let’s illustrate this with a hard case: business schools and degrowth.

📍 Step 4: Expose Contradictions, Arouse Dissatisfaction

Most business schools reproduce the TINA logic. Growth is seen as a self-evident good. Degrowth? Fringe, unscientific, economically irresponsible. But look closer. Our curricula promote shareholder value while discussing “stakeholder capitalism.” We teach “sustainability” without touching planetary boundaries. We praise innovation while ignoring that much of it fuels overconsumption. These tensions aren’t minor. They point to a deep inconsistency between the world we train leaders for and the world we actually inhabit. Xue calls this the “generative contradiction” – the cracks through which dissatisfaction grows.

📍 Step 5: Imagine Alternatives

Here imagination becomes political. Can we imagine business education beyond growth? What would it mean to teach sufficiency instead of scalability, regenerative design instead of linear optimization, interdependence instead of competitive advantage? Degrowth does not mean collapse. It means reorienting enterprise towards wellbeing, care, justice, and ecological health. Business schools could be pioneers here: experimenting with new metrics (e.g. doughnut economics), new theories (e.g. commoning, solidarity economies), new partnerships (with communities, cooperatives, the informal economy). This is what Bhaskar would call “concrete utopia” – not abstract dreams, but real, rooted alternatives.

📍 Step 6: Experiment with New Practices

Imagination alone is not enough. Xue insists on “transformative praxis” – testing new paths in practice, even within old institutions. What if HR and procurement collaborated to favour sufficiency-driven suppliers? What if strategy courses tackled limits to growth as a design constraint, not a side note? What if the rankings that drive global business education rewarded social and ecological flourishing instead of alumni salaries?

These are not utopian ideas. They are invitations to think otherwise. And if business schools – with their resources, reach, and intellectual capital – cannot take this step, we might be in the wrong business.

The work of dismantling ideology is not just critique. It is co-creation. We do not need to know the whole path to take the next step.

IDEOLOGY AND TINA

There are many reasons why at present I am drawn to analyze ideology - but one is personal. I want to understand how good organisations can help transform the economy. Yet again and again, I encounter the same wall: a deep resistance to even considering alternatives.

And I’m not talking about policymakers or lobbyists. I mean colleagues - highly cited economists, well-intentioned management researchers - who repeat, without blinking, that “we need growth” or that “post-growth is nonsense.” These aren’t arguments. They’re reflexes. The idea that a flourishing economy might be possible beyond growth is treated as unserious - or worse, as dangerous. And this, I’ve come to see, is ideology at work.

TINA - There Is No Alternative - is most famously associated with Margaret Thatcher. But the philosopher Roy Bhaskar offered a deeper diagnosis. A TINA formation is not just dogma. It is a system of ideas and institutions that makes certain paths appear necessary - not by evidence, but by framing alternatives as impossible. It works through a bundle of mechanisms: necessity narratives that present contingent choices as structural imperatives; symbolic substitutions like “green growth” that patch over contradictions without resolving them; panic that casts alternatives as reckless; and syntony, i.e. the deep structural alignment between ideology and institutional form.

The growth imperative exhibits all of this. Growth is portrayed as the condition for employment, social stability, even sustainability. Doubts are pre-emptively neutralised through “win–win” visions of decoupling or circularity, despite thin empirical support. Contradictions such as rising inequality, ecological collapse, eroded well-being are treated as regrettable side effects, not symptoms of systemic failure. Meanwhile, every policy lever, metric, and market signal reinforces the logic of expansion. This institutional echo chamber doesn’t just defend growth but it makes life beyond growth hard to imagine.

And that’s the point. Ideology isn’t just about what people believe. It’s about what they can believe. It narrows the horizon of the thinkable. And when that narrowing happens under the guise of rational necessity, it becomes all the more powerful because it no longer looks like ideology at all.

I used to naively think that alternatives would be welcome - not to attack the current system, but to prepare for the possibility that it may no longer hold. Now I see: even imagining an alternative can be threatening when the dominant ideology has become second nature.

GROWTH IDEOLOGY AS TINA FORMATION

Following on my last post on ideology ( 👇 ), this piece examines how the logic of “There Is No Alternative” (TINA) operates in practice — and how growth ideology exemplifies it.

The ideology of economic growth is a textbook case of what Roy Bhaskar called a “TINA formation”: a structure of thought and practice that presents contingent, contested arrangements as necessary, non negotible thereby foreclosing real alternatives. A recent paper can serve as a sharp analysis of how the growth imperative has been normalized, defended, and perpetuated despite deepening ecological, social, and psychological contradictions.

1️⃣ The first feature of a TINA formation is the assertion of false necessity. Growth is framed as an economic and political imperative - not as a normative choice but as a prerequisite for employment, stability, and even sustainability. As the authors show, this presumption renders degrowth or post-growth alternatives not only marginal but irrational by definition. The possibility space is collapsed in advance.

2️⃣ Second, growth ideology is sustained through compensatory narratives or what Bhaskar termed “compromise formations.” Faced with mounting evidence that growth undermines planetary limits and yields diminishing returns for well-being, defenders invoke notions like “green growth” or “decoupling.” These do not resolve the contradiction between perpetual expansion and ecological constraints. They mostly defer it, can act complementary but not on their own.

3️⃣ Third, the contradiction is lived. Growth is justified as a pathway to social welfare, yet correlates with inequality, environmental breakdown, and mental distress. This is ideological auto-subversion: a system undermining the very goals it claims to serve.

4️⃣ Fourth, the durability of growth ideology lies in its synch with institutional structures. From GDP to fiscal policy and capital markets, modern governance is calibrated to reward growth. This structural alignment makes alternatives seem not only radical but unworkable. Political imagination is pre-emptively narrowed.

5️⃣ Finally, critiques of growth are often dismissed not just as misguided, but as dangerous. This rhetorical strategy - portraying alternatives as utopian or irresponsible - enacts what Bhaskar called “denegation of absence.” The problem is not the nonexistence of alternatives, but that they are rendered unthinkable and thereby excluded from the field of legitimate discourse.

In short, growth ideology exhibits all the hallmarks of a TINA formation: false necessity, ideological compromise, internal contradiction, institutional reinforcement, and the suppression of alternatives. Naming it as such is not merely critique - it reopens the space for moral and political imagination.

Paper: https://lnkd.in/dSavGHfy

How Ideology Shapes the Way We Manage – and How to Crack It

Yesterday I defined ideology as the way organizations (often implicitly) embody normative, epistemic, and action-guiding assumptions that appear natural, necessary, or without alternative - though in fact they are socially constructed, historically contingent, and open to change. The term neoliberalism captures one such framing: it fuses individual freedom, market competition, and performance orientation into a hegemonic logic.

It is powerful because it also operates beneath the surface - as common sense. Today we begin to unmask it, drawing on Jin Xue critical realist theory ( 👇 ). Her framework outlines six steps to understand and challenge how ideologies shape (and limit) institutional action and progress. We illustrate the first three steps using SAP as the case exemplifies a broader trap.

1️⃣ Step 1: Identifying the Ideology

SAP operates within a performance-based, meritocratic logic. Its updated performance system (“SuccessFactors 2H 2024”) promotes tighter calibration and individual accountability. At the same time, the firm is cutting up to 10,000 jobs to finance a new AI strategy and appease shareholders.

This framing rests on a specific ideology: that individual merit determines outcomes, growth ensures viability, and shareholder value is the primary goal. But it is also flawed. True meritocracy is impossible: performance is shaped by collaboration, and value also accrues to stakeholders. As Xue drawing on Zizek notes, ideology does not need to be coherent to be effective — only plausible.

2️⃣ Step 2: Uncovering Ideological Closure

When dissent arises - from employees or the public - SAP responds with TINA logic: “There Is No Alternative.” The global tech race, AI wave, and investor pressure make these choices seem inevitable.

Xue builds on Klein’s insight: ideology absorbs contradictions. Discomfort is reframed as realism. Internal resistance becomes naiveté. The effect is profound: collective agency is undermined, and the very possibility of alternatives is foreclosed.

3️⃣ Step 3: Tracing (Re)production Mechanisms

Ideology persists not just through ideas, but through structures:
– Executive bonuses tied to cost savings
– Passive capital from founders sustaining the status quo
– HR routines that reward individual over collective contributions
– Limited forums for rethinking strategy or voice from below

SAP’s system stabilizes the frame. People act as if it were natural - because the system rewards conformity and punishes deviation. This is not about individual cynicism. It is structural reproduction.

This post ends with a provocation: if we want transformation, we must first face the contradictions - at least according to critical realism. In the next post, we’ll explore Steps 4–6: how to unlock imagination, generate alternatives, and initiate real change. Until then, where do you see the traces of ideology in your own organization?

Why Ideologies Matter in Management

In both management studies and organizational practice, we often try to keep things “neutral.” We speak of best practices, evidence-based strategies, or performance indicators as if they were free of values or politics. We rely on technical tools, managerial frameworks, or data-driven decisions often without questioning what lies behind them. But in doing so, we risk masking the political assumptions that shape how we organize and lead.

This is where ideology comes in. I understand ideologies as action-oriented configurations of political ideas. They help us make sense of the world by answering three questions:

1. What is the current order?
2. What would a good society or organization look like?
3. How do we get from here to there?

In that sense, ideologies are always descriptive, normative, and praxeologic. They do not just reflect ideas - they shape how we act. And crucially, every account of “order” also includes an account of power: who holds it, how it is justified, and for what purpose.

This is true in organizational life as much as in politics. Consider how the belief in meritocracy influences hiring, promotion, or evaluation systems. Or how market-based thinking shapes our assumptions about efficiency, value, and impact. These frameworks are not neutral - they are political ideas that carry implicit answers to what kind of organization we believe in and who it should serve.

When we ignore this, we do not escape ideology - we simply leave it unexamined. And when dominant ideologies present themselves as common sense or technical necessity, their influence becomes harder to question. As others have said: the most political act is often claiming something is not political at all.

For both scholars and practitioners, the challenge is not to step outside ideology, we can’t, but to become aware of the one we are part of. That includes understanding the ideas we rely on, the structures we reinforce, and the assumptions we carry forward. It also includes recognizing the possibility for change: ideologies are not fixed. They are shaped and reshaped through structures, practices, and our own thinking.

So instead of asking whether something is ideological, we might ask: What vision of order is being promoted here? Whose interests does it serve? And what alternatives are being made invisible?

Needless to say that this needs to become a fundamental part of management education and research. 

🌍 THE BEAUTY OF SERVICE LEARNING

In an age of geopolitical rupture, cultural fragmentation, and open moral conflict, developing responsible global leaders is becoming more and more of a necessity. Yet most business schools still teach leadership as if the world were stable, predictable, and value-neutral. We tend to train sharp minds, but mostly neglect moral judgment, and we cultivate performance awareness, not ontological awareness; it optimizes within systems but rarely questions their foundations.

That is what makes Project Ulysses such an interesting project. Developed by PwC’s global talent development team, and studied in depth by Nicola Pless, PhD, Thomas Maak, and Günter Stahl, it represents a rare fusion of leadership education and human development. Drawing on Kolb’s experiential learning theory and Mezirow’s transformative learning framework, Ulysses takes participants far beyond the classroom and directly into the moral and cultural complexity of real life.

Over eight weeks, senior PwC professionals live and work in developing countries, embedded in NGOs and community organizations. Their task is not to advise from a distance but to engage, learn, and contribute.

The learning architecture follows Kolb’s full cycle:
✅ Concrete Experience: direct engagement with social and environmental challenges in unfamiliar contexts
✅ Reflective Observation: journaling, dialogue, and storytelling to process cognitive, emotional and moral dissonance
✅ Abstract Conceptualization: connecting lived experience to broader ethical, cultural, and systemic insights
✅ Active Experimentation: translating new awareness into changed behavior—in leadership and life

The program is supported by deep pedagogical scaffolding: conceptual teaching, peer feedback, coaching, mindfulness practices, and team and guided reflection. The result, as per this study ( 👇 ) seem to have led to true personal transformation.

✅ Participants reported moral growth and sharper ethical awareness
✅ They developed cultural humility and a bigger circle of moral concern
✅ They acquired a cognitive capacity that embraces ambiguity and contradiction
✅ Many underwent a re-evaluation of their values, purpose, and identity as leaders.

This is what Mezirow called a “perspective transformation”- a shift in how one understands the world and oneself within it. And it cannot be achieved through cases or simulations alone.
This is the beauty of service learning: it has the potential to educate the whole person. It confronts leaders with the real, the relational, and the uncomfortable and thereby invites them to grow through it.

We clear need much more business school education like this. Not only frameworks, but also formation. Not only technical competence, but also moral courage. Not more "best practice" management, but leadership for an uncertain, interdependent world.

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.10.2.zqr237

That’s precisely why we must look at the whole package. Not just the leader’s words, but the business model. Not just the change narrative, but the systems that persist underneath. Is the transformation really tackling those issues which are clearly negative for the world? Are incentives changed and wealth better handled? Is there real change in the value chain? We must ask not only what inspires us, but what’s obscured by that inspiration. We need more than dazzling success stories. We need courage, yes - but the kind that transforms structures, not just slogans. We need integrity, justice, and organizations that serve the common good - not just the “better woman” who wins. Or not? 

MEANING GOOD DOES NOT MEAN GOOD
Why Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often bound to fail.

Capitalism doesn’t run smoothly. Rather it runs on contradiction. Exploitation and inequality. Ecological overshoot. Declining trust in institutions. These ruptures threaten the system’s legitimacy and its survival. But instead of forcing transformation, CSR helps seal the cracks.

As Schneider (2020) argues, CSR plays a systemic role: it stabilizes capitalism by managing its contradictions, not resolving them. It integrates critique into business-as-usual, preventing rupture while keeping the logic of accumulation intact.

🔹 1. Market Deepening (Economic Contradiction)

To stay competitive, firms rely on low-cost global supply chains. Yet pressure mounts for fair wages, safe conditions, and sustainability. CSR answers with supplier codes, audits, certifications. But who pays? Typically, not the lead firm. The costs are pushed upstream to small suppliers, workers, NGOs. In effect, CSR deepens commodification by pulling new actors and relationships into capitalist circuits under the guise of responsibility without altering how value or risk is shared.

🔹 2. Symbolic Expansion (Moral Contradiction)

Capitalism lacks an inherent moral language, yet firms must justify themselves. CSR fills the void but only in managerial terms: KPIs, ESG scores, dashboards. Moral complexity is flattened into metrics. Reflection becomes a reporting duty. Audit culture and functional stupidity abound, This symbolic expansion allows the system to absorb dissent by translating it into audit categories. Ethics is no longer about asking whether growth should be questioned rather it’s about proving it’s “sustainable.”

🔹 3. Political Legitimation (Political Contradiction)

Structural harm calls for systemic reform. But CSR offers an alternative: stakeholder dialogues, sustainability reports, voluntary pledges. These deflect demands for binding regulation. Instead of democratizing power or redistributing wealth, CSR legitimizes corporate autonomy. It offers credibility without transformation by ensuring the system can reproduce itself politically through narratives of care, not constraints on capital.

Schneider’s conclusion is sobering: CSR doesn't fail because it falls short—it fails because it functions exactly as the system needs it to. It helps capitalism adapt, not evolve. It reframes harm as strategy, dissent as engagement, and responsibility as brand.

👉 And yes, newer forms like B Corps risk the same trap. Even with better intentions, they often moralize without politicizing, individualize systemic issues, and uphold voluntarism over regulation. The pathologies might repeat unless the system truly changes.

Why must care, sustainability, and ethics always pass through the market?

📖 Link to article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0007650319856616

MORAL DISENGAGEMENT IS NOT NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED—NOR NORMAL

A colleague recently claimed that since most people are decent, we don’t really need to worry about morality or responsibility in organizations. Just hire smart, competent people—and everything else will take care of itself.

I beg to differ—loudly.

Research on moral disengagement tells a more troubling story. Moral disengagement refers to the mental maneuvers we use to act against our values without feeling guilt - like euphemistic labeling (“just business”), diffusing responsibility (“just following orders”), or dehumanizing others (“they brought it on themselves”). Yes, some individuals are more predisposed, for instance those high on narcissism, psychopathy, or Machiavellianism. But these are indeed the exception, not the rule.

The real danger lies elsewhere: organizations themselves can systematically produce moral disengagement.

A major review by Newman et al. (see comment 👇 ) shows how performance pressure, rigid hierarchies, silencing climates, hypercompetitive structures, and workplace injustice don’t just enable unethical behavior but make it even feel reasonable. These settings deactivate people’s moral self-regulation. Even decent, well-meaning employees begin to rationalize harm and disengage from responsibility.

And this matters. We spend 85,000 hours of our lives inside organizations. If those environments are designed around targets, efficiency, and control, without moral safeguards, then we’re not just risking isolated misconduct. We’re engineering moral apathy at scale.

So no (!) technical competence is not enough. It never was. The question isn’t just “can people do the job?” but “what kind of human being and humman community does the job turn them into?”

Because organizations don’t just reflect our character. They form it.

✨ I’ve long appreciated Prof. Dr. Ina A.’s work from her early research on trust to her later studies on sustainable HRM. But this paper, co-authored with Michael Muller-Camen and Brian Matthews, and building on the sustainability paradigm of Prof. em. Dr. Thomas Dyllick (emeritus professor at the University of St. Gallen), is the one I’d most love to recommend to all of you who are reimagining the future of work.

📘 In “Common Good HRM: A Paradigm Shift in Sustainable HRM?”, the authors leave the narrow logic of instrumentalism behind. They ask a bold (and in my opinion) the right question:

What if HR didn't just serve the company but truly served society?

Drawing from Dyllick & Muff’s business sustainability typology, they outline four types of Sustainable HRM and introduce a new fourth type: Common Good HRM, which reframes HR as a lever for social, ecological, and human flourishing.

🔍 A Quick Summary of Their Typology:

1️⃣ Type 1: Socially Responsible HRM
→ Focused on diversity, well-being, and safety but mainly to reduce reputational or legal risks. This approach treats social responsibility as an add-on to the core business model, not something that reshapes it.

2️⃣ Type 2: Green HRM
→ Promotes environmentally friendly behavior (e.g., green training, green bonuses), but framed as a business strategy. While it engages ecological issues, it still operates within a logic of cost savings, branding, or compliance.

3️⃣ Type 3: Triple Bottom Line HRM
→ Aims to balance people, planet, and profit. Yet this often leads to unresolved tensions and trade-offs. It opens space for dialogue and innovation, but frequently defaults to economic priorities in moments of conflict.

4️⃣ Type 4: Common Good HRM 🌍
→ A true paradigm shift: HR becomes a vehicle for solving grand societal challenges like inequality, climate change, and precarious work. Here, the purpose of the firm is redefined. And HR creates conditions for human dignity, democracy, and sustainability.

💡 What Common Good HRM Does Differently:
✅ Outside-in perspective: Begins with the needs of society, not just firm strategy.
✅ Human rights in supply chains: HR takes responsibility beyond company walls.
✅ Workplace democracy: Hiring, feedback, and compensation become shared responsibilities.
✅ Job creation as a purpose: Employment is not a cost but a value in itself.

One standout example: Sonnentor, an organic tea and spice company rooted in the Economy for the Common Good movement. Their HR approach includes hiring long-term unemployed and people with disabilities as a matter of principle, not charity. They deliberately avoid full automation, investing instead in manual, meaningful work that sustains local employment and human dignity.

🧭 This is for all of you who truly want to go further—who believe HR can be more than a function. It can be a practice of care, a force for justice, and a cornerstone of a future where humans, nature, and the economy flourish together.

📖 Link to article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053482218303917

ESG: AGGREGATE CONFUSION

The ESG world is in disarray. A company celebrated as a sustainability leader by one rater may be labelled a laggard by another. This isn't a rounding error, this seems to be a structural confusion. And the consequences are far-reaching: for investors, firms, researchers, and regulators alike.

A recent paper by my colleague Julian Kölbel, together with Florian Berg and Roberto Rigobon, reveals the depth of this problem with empirical precision and conceptual clarity. In Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings (Review of Finance, 2022), the authors examine ESG ratings from six major agencies - KLD, Sustainalytics, Moody’s ESG, S&P Global, Refinitiv, and MSCI - and ask: Why do they disagree so much?

Their answer? It’s not just noise. It’s systemic.

THE PROBLEM
Correlations as compiled by other papers between overall ESG ratings range from 0.38 to 0.71 - far from reassuring. But it gets worse as their own analysis shows. At the category level, say, “climate risk management” or “labor practices”, correlations are often low, and sometimes even negative. That means one agency may rank a company high on, say, water management, while another gives it a low score on the exact same issue. This is not just divergence—it’s contradiction.

THE DIAGNOSIS
The authors dissect this chaos into three drivers:

🔶 Scope divergence (38%): agencies include different ESG issues.
🔶 Measurement divergence (56%): even when they look at the same issue, they assess it differently.
🔶 Weight divergence (6%): agencies prioritize issues differently.

The real "villain" here is measurement, i.e. the “how” of ESG, not just the “what” or “why”. Adding to the concern is a documented rater effect (15% of variation): agencies tend to rate firms consistently high or low across categories, suggesting subjective bias or organizational blind spots.

WHY THIS MATTERS
Such divergence weakens incentives for firms to improve, muddles investor decision-making, and undermines the legitimacy of ESG as a signal. It also limits our ability to link ESG to firm value, performance, or ethical behavior in academic research or policy frameworks.

THE WAY FORWARD
Berg, Kölbel, and Rigobon do not argue against ESG ratings per se. Rather, they emphasize the urgent need for:

🔶 Harmonized disclosure standards (like those under the CSRD),
🔶 A clear EU-wide taxonomy of ESG categories,
🔶 And greater transparency in how ESG data is generated and interpreted.

THE TAKEAWAY
If ESG is to live up to its promise, we need more than good intentions. We need clarity, consistency, and credibility. Otherwise, we create a system where opacity rewards those least committed to change.
📖 Full (open access) article here: https://lnkd.in/df38A34j

 https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/92330920/fbe1350fb9fffff981e23f011912a0ad404a-libre.pdf?1665580268=&response-content- 

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034515

Link to article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5203477

In an open letter in the Guardian, 31 Nobel laureates and hundreds of intellectuals warn of the return of fascism. Her words are clear:

"The threat of fascism is back – and it is growing on the fringes as well as in the centers of world politics. Silence is no longer an option."

It is a rare but necessary moment: people whose authority is based on knowledge use their voice – not for reputation cultivation, but for public responsibility! (see here: https://lnkd.in/dHgU4KV5)

France stands for the tradition of the intellectuel engagé – the morally speaking individual who takes sides on principle. With J'Accuse, Émile Zola opposed anti-Semitic state arbitrariness in the name of universal justice. Simone de Beauvoir publicly fought for equal rights and against patriarchal structures with language that defended human rights, not relativized them.

In the USA, a different tradition was formed: resistant pragmatism. Cornel West speaks from an experience that is not abstract, but historically wounded – he calls America's betrayal of its promises by its name. Judith Butler defends the dignity of vulnerable bodies against state control as a critical corrective to the liberal order (for the differences, which sometimes lead to misunderstandings, see below).

We are living in a time of moral tests: in Gaza, in Ukraine, in the election campaigns of Western democracies. What unites these moments is not only violence, but the supposedly ideological gutting of public language. Euphemisms replace analysis. PR replaces attitude.

But right now, intellectuals are needed – not as experts, but as consciences. They have to name the cracks that produce systems. They must be allowed to be uncomfortable.

After all, we are not in a crisis of knowledge. We are in a crisis of courage.
What we need is not more content. But more conscience.

Link to article: https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/105/1/19/5000188?redirectedFrom=PDF&casa_token=1tgA6shTy1YAAAAA%3akt9YZ-dNWFXTolvuwsbvdZuowTMigygiroL-qWMSN_oybOoeSWB7IurMnST8i4pmbFEfqbFvi5JPrEBZ&login=false

Link to article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/13/nobel-laureates-fascism

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034515

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-08-2015-0101

TRUST IS NOT NEUTRAL — AND NEITHER IS TRUSTWORTHINESS

I’ve often heard: „Even the mafia has trust.” So: should trust and above all trustworthiness be morally neutral? Is there really no difference between trusting Trump and trusting Mother Teresa?

Some of our most-used models seem to suggest that. Mayer, Davis & Schoorman’s influential framework defines perceived integrity as “the perception that the trustee adheres to a set of principles the trustor finds acceptable.” In other words: if I think you follow principles I approve of, you’re trustworthy; regardless of what those principles actually are.

This reduces trust to value congruence and trustworthiness to alignment, not ethical quality. No reflection on whether those values are just, inclusive, or life-affirming.

Why does this persist? Maybe because it keeps trust research within the bounds of a liberal paradigm - one that avoids taking a stance on what counts as good or just. But that neutrality is not innocent. By avoiding substance, we legitimize systems that reward performance over principle, utility over virtue.

And there is a cost.

When trust is defined without ethical reflection, we risk flattening important distinctions. We may end up treating instrumental alignment as equivalent to moral integrity. This can obscure how trust functions differently in democratic institutions, exploitative regimes, or purpose-driven organizations. Over time, such minimal definitions make it harder to hold individuals and systems accountable to more than efficiency or loyalty.

But we have alternatives — thinkers who anchor trustworthiness in moral depth:

🔹 Annette Baier reminds us that trust is moral because it involves vulnerability — and trustworthiness means responsibility toward the other’s dependency.
🔹Bernard Barber links trust to social roles and moral obligations, arguing that professions must act with integrity, not just competence.
🔹Robert Solomon sees trust as an emotional-moral commitment, grounded in authenticity, not mere calculation.
🔹Onora O’Neill insists that trustworthiness comes from honesty, competence, and respect for others’ autonomy - a Kantian standard that binds.
🔹Luigino Bruni calls for a relational economy, where trust is rooted in reciprocity and gratuitousness, not strategic alignment.

These views don’t shy away from moral philosophy. They deepen our understandings about trust. They re-moralize it.

So let me ask: If we want a society worth trusting, shouldn’t we start by redefining what makes someone trustworthy? What would it take for trust to be not just useful but just? 

DEEP DIVE: teaching on poverty

Why is poverty still missing from business education? It’s not just an oversight. It’s an ethical failure.

Poverty is treated as a marginal topic in most business schools and if addressed at all, it’s buried under “CSR,” “sustainability,” or framed as a charity case.

But poverty is not peripheral to business. It is a systemic outcome of how global markets are structured, managed, and legitimized.

So why the silence?
Because confronting poverty means confronting uncomfortable truths:

😤That many business models depend on low-cost labor and regulatory arbitrage.
😤That shareholder primacy often rewards value extraction from the vulnerable.
😤That the global economy produces poverty, even as it claims to fight it.

This isn’t just a blind spot. It’s a value choice. We’ve built a curriculum that can track consumer behavior to the millisecond but can’t explain why billions remain economically excluded.

📚 This post draws on an article by Mark Neal (2017), who argues that we must place poverty at the heart of management education; not as a moral add-on, but as a lens to understand business itself.

Here’s how:

Teach business students to:
💡Analyze corporate involvement in poverty—as both creator and potential alleviator (e.g. FDI in Vietnam).
💡Debate the ethics of microfinance—is it empowerment or institutionalized debt?
💡Interrogate the “Bottom of the Pyramid”—are we meeting real needs or marketing dependency?

This isn’t about virtue signaling. It’s about pedagogy and power. If we don’t teach students how business intersects with poverty, we’re graduating leaders unfit to govern in a world of inequality.

🧭 Poverty is not a niche topic. It’s the mirror business education avoids.
Time to look in. And it might save democracy too.

Link to article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26400164

Sunday Musings: Business Schools and Poverty

A colleague made me pause. She shared that for their Grand Challenges conference, a significant number of papers addressed environmental crises. Some explored the neglect of human rights in global value chains. But very few tackled poverty. And a quick search on google scholar revealed that this was true for our larger research on management science too.

Even fewer asked the hard question: how do corporations, especially large ones, exacerbate or alleviate poverty? Not only in less industrialized countries, but right here, in industrialized economies. How do corporate decisions widen inequality or build more inclusive job markets? How do they generate either extremely well-paid or precariously underpaid work? How do their hiring practices either open or close the door to workforce participation for people with fewer resources? And how does tax optimization - let’s call it what it is, legal avoidance - drain the very state budgets meant to reduce poverty?

It’s a strange silence. Because how can we expect people struggling to pay rent or put food on the table to care about climate, AI ethics, or biodiversity loss if they’re barely surviving?

And if business students never engage with the full picture, if they never learn how business decisions shape the economic conditions of the poor, how can they be expected to design the novel, systemic solutions we so badly need?

Of course, business schools are driven by rankings. And rankings have, in fairness, nudged us toward better environmental and sustainability metrics. But on poverty, they remain largely mute. And as usual we have not really taken the intiative from our side (McKinsey did not consult us to 😉.

Maybe it’s time to leave the ivory tower and take a hard look around. Even in our own countries, the numbers speak volumes:

😡In the UK, roughly 1 in 5 people (22%) live in relative poverty after housing costs.
😡In the EU, around 95.3 million people (21.6% of the population) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2023.
😡In Switzerland—one of the wealthiest countries on Earth—more than 720,000 people (8.5%) live in income poverty, and over 13% are at risk of social exclusion.

These are not edge cases. This is the systemic underside of the economies we teach our students to manage.

Poverty isn’t someone else’s problem. And it’s long past time we taught it that way.

THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF U.S. CONSERVATISM—AND ITS THEOLOGICAL ROOTS

I am still trying to make sense of how the current US executive can call themselves deeply religious and at the same time behave so mercyless towards those outside their (rather narrow) moral circle of concern. So: Why does today’s U.S. right-wing moral discourse emphasize purity over justice, loyalty over care, rule-following over consequences?

A meta-analysis by Saroglou & Craninx (2021) offers clues.

Synthesizing dozens of studies, they show that religiosity is strongly associated with:

👉 Loyalty (group cohesion and allegiance)
👉 Authority (deference to tradition and hierarchy)
👉 Purity (avoidance of moral and social contamination)

And only weakly linked to:
👇 Care (sensitivity to suffering)
👇 Fairness (equity and justice)

Religious individuals also tend toward rule-based (deontological) morality, even when it leads to harm. “Spiritual” individuals, by contrast, align more with fairness- and compassion-based ethics.

But of course this begs the questionof what kind of religion is being measured here? Though the paper treats religiosity as a general category, what it captures is likely the moral psychology of Protestantism, especially in its Calvinist-Puritan form in the U.S.

As Michael Walzer (via Charles Taylor) argues, Puritanism was born from a profound horror at disorder in both social (vagabonds, beggars) and personal (licentiousness, idleness) areas. Its remedy was a disciplined, self-governing elite: individuals whose visible conduct., i.e. steady work, self-restraint, moral rigor, signaled inner regeneration. The resulting order was not liberal democracy, but a covenantal hierarchy between the regenerate and the unregenerate. The former ruled themselves through moral discipline and mutual admonition; the latter were to be ruled coercively if needed. In this framework, purity functioned as a moral boundary, loyalty as a test of belonging, and authority as the expression of earned moral standing. Care and fairness were largely reserved for those within the elect community; echoing today’s findings.

This makes the paper empirically insightful but ontologically and politically naïve. It treats “religion” as a monolith, failing to distinguish between divergent ethical traditions based on different religions, for instance Catholic social teaching, Jewish covenantal justice, Islamic mercy ethics, or Buddhist compassion.

Hence it seems that we might not need less religion in politics. But that we must ask: Which religion? Which morality? Which politics? And how do they interlink? At the very least we should ask this in research before we come to such rather sweeping "said-to-be" causalities.

Link to article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X20301834

🔍 What if the biggest problem with our politics isn’t partisanship but our imagination?

Charles Taylor taught us that every society lives within a social imaginary: not just a set of theories, but a felt understanding of how life fits together: who we are, what we owe one another, and what institutions are for. It’s the cultural “background hum” that shapes both identity and institutional design.

For decades, that background has been one of neoliberalism: a social imaginary of the autonomous individual, free to choose, compete, and consume. It has shaped us from toe to head: from the language of self-optimization to the structure of our economies and governance. But it has also eroded social bonds, hollowed out institutions, and left many isolated and precarious. It rendered many societies prey to new authoritanism and populism - because of the (so) many loosing out*, no solidarity left and the fantasm of "it is all your own fault".

🌀 In an interesting, Marcia Pally and Adrian Pabst offer an alternative: a social imaginary of the commons.

Rather than choosing between individualism or collectivism, they propose an ontology of “separability-amid-situatedness.” We are distinct, but never disconnected. Identity is not self-made, but co-constituted. It is formed in webs of care, place, infrastructure, and mutual recognition.
And just like the neoliberal imaginary shaped institutions built for competition and extraction, this relational imaginary could inform institutions designed for reciprocity, resilience, and repair.

🌱 But how do we get there? Here are their thoughts:
“Accounting for separability and situatedness together requires not an economic or legal codex but a process of reciprocal consideration, of seeing and seeing to the networks of relations and physical infrastructures that inform individual identity and broad-based opportunity.”

And it starts with a politics of formation:
“The task of politics is to ask: do societal arrangements cultivate among the citizenry, its leaders, and the next generation an understanding of our interdependent, reciprocal situation? Do institutions… provide the means for economic development, problem-solving, and decision-making based on the inter-dependence of those involved?”

This is more than policy: it’s a transformation of what we value, how we educate, how we govern, and who we become.

*approximately half of the US have very low literary skills (read border to functional analphabetism according to a Gallup study), and according to LISEP around 25% are considered to be functionally unemployed which includes those who earn a wage which leaves them under the poverty line).

WHEN HARMFUL JOBS PAY MORE—AND ATTRACT THE WRONG PEOPLE
New research (see in the comment Schneider and colleagues👇) challenges the idea that labor markets are morally neutral. It shows that industries like tobacco, gambling, or arms don’t just offer higher pay because the work is unpleasant. Rather they offer more because the jobs are morally tainted. Most people need extra money to justify doing them. But crucially, those who don’t need that justification, those with low moral aversion, are also the ones most likely to take the job.

The researchers test two key hypotheses:

👉 Immorality Premium – immoral jobs pay more to compensate for moral discomfort.
👉 Moral Sorting – people who care less about morality are more likely to accept these jobs.

They back this up with four studies:
🧪 Study 1: Swiss labor market data show that industries perceived as immoral systematically pay more, even after controlling for education, occupation, and firm size (see figure 1).
🧪 Study 2: In a lab experiment, participants accepted harmful tasks (e.g., misleading others) only when paid more. People with low moral sensitivity were significantly more likely to accept.
🧪 Study 3: Survey data showed a stark sorting effect, i.e. those with higher moral aversion avoid working for immoral firms and industries (see figure 9 - and zoom in as it is also interesting to see what students saw as immoral).
🧪 Study 4: An external validation confirmed that the “immoral” job used in the lab caused real harm and was judged as such by neutral observers.

The most disturbing insight: the people most willing to work in harmful sectors are the ones least likely to challenge them from the inside or to excercise prudence in difficult situations (think about the weapons industry for instance). Where we need moral courage, we find moral indifference.

This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: Immoral jobs pay more → attract the least ethically sensitive → repel those who care → reinforce the culture of harm. It’s not just about incentives. It’s about who’s left standing in the room when things go wrong.

What can we do?

💡 Reward moral work. Roles in care, education, and responsible governance are undervalued but vital. Let’s recognize and reward them both financially and socially.
💡 Tell better stories. Highlight those who say no to unethical work or exit harmful companies. Make moral refusal visible.
💡 Renew the license to manage. Just as law and medicine require ethical certification, morally hazardous leadership roles should demand competence in ethics and responsibility (Otti Vogt).

We say leadership is about character. Time to design for it.

When even "psychological safety" becomes an obligation to perform... THE SELF-REINFORCING SPIRAL OF NEOLIBERAL WORK

This is the silent paradox at the heart of modern work. In their article "Neoliberal Ideology in Work and Organizational Psychology", which is well worth reading, Bal & Dóci (in the commentary 👇) show how neoliberal ideology permeates our organizations (and also research). Using political, social, and fantasy logics, they analyze how instrumentality, individualism, and competition have become unquestioned truths. Even scientific findings often serve to increase efficiency – not to search for meaning.

But the real perfidious thing is that neoliberalism does not work through coercion, but through fantasies. Namely: to be free. Self-determined. Successful if you only give enough. Those who fail were simply not committed enough in this logic (see also the language of the CDU at the moment). And it is precisely because this feels liberating that it is so effective – and so difficult to question.

This is where a self-reinforcing negative spiral begins: Organizations are based on the assumption that people are rational, self-reliant, and competitive. They create structures that generate exactly this beh * avior: self-optimization, peer competition, inner performance control. And it is precisely this behavior that seems to confirm the original theory.

The ideology thus proves itself. When the system fails, it does not look for the fault in itself – but in the individual. The answer: resilience training, coaching, feedback loops:

🦸 Exhaustion is reinterpreted – as an "opportunity for growth".
🦸 Criticism becomes performance.
🦸 Resistance to service. And so psychological safety also becomes a product line.

Google case study:

The company is considered a pioneer in "psychological safety" – at least since the internally acclaimed Project Aristotle, which identified psychological safety as a central factor for high-performance teams. A company that presents itself as a future laboratory for good work.

And at the same time?
At the end of 2022, Google introduced a new performance system that requires up to 6% of employees to be classified as "low performers" – regardless of actual team performance. (CNBC, 12/22/2022) In addition: regular, quiet layoffs. Results-oriented. Calculated.

The episode?
You can speak openly – but please with output.
You can feel safe – as long as you deliver.
You can live purpose – as long as you don't slow down.
And you can look forward to your own self-optimization including a "warm feeling".

But that's already the spiral. It does not drag itself out because it works – but because it so elegantly translates its own failures into self-responsibility.

The phase-out begins there,
where we stop treating the individual –
and begin to demystify systems.

THE SELF-FULFILLING SPIRAL OF NEOLIBERAL WORK

That’s the silent paradox at the heart of modern work.

In their brilliant article 👇 , “Neoliberal Ideology in Work and Organizational Psychology”, Bal & Dóci dissect how neoliberal logic has captured both workplace practice and the discipline meant to study it. Through the lens of political, social, and fantasmatic logics, they show how instrumentality, individualism, and competition have become the unquestioned truths of our time. Even Work and Organisational Psychology research often serves to fine-tune performance, not question purpose.

But the authors go deeper. They argue that neoliberalism does not just govern through structures or incentives - it works through fantasy. It seduces us with the idea that we are free agents, choosing our paths, responsible for our own outcomes. If we work hard enough, we will succeed. If we fail, we must not have tried hard enough. This fantasy persists even in the face of burnout, inequality, and disillusionment. It is precisely because it feels empowering that it becomes so hard to resist.

This is where I would argue the negative spiral begins. Neoliberal assumptions about human nature, namely that people are rational, self-interested, and motivated by competition, are embedded in organizational systems. These systems, in turn, shape how people behave: employees learn to self-optimize, to treat colleagues as competitors, to manage their own motivation as if it were a resource. These behaviors appear to confirm the original assumptions, making the ideology seem not only true, but natural.

Through the shared phantasy (and note how we here go beyond Theory Y/ McGregor and even beyond Ghoshal) when things go wrong, the system does not blame itself. Instead, it places responsibility on the individual, who is encouraged to be more resilient, more agile, more self-aware. Interventions focus on mindset, not on power. Critique becomes another performance tool. Even exhaustion is reframed as a growth opportunity.

🌀 Every “solution” (coaching, mindfulness, peer feedback) reinforces the belief that change lies within the individual.
🌀 Even resistance becomes productized - sold as purpose or psychological safety.
🌀 The system becomes both invisible and irresistible.

Insidious, isn't it? This is how ideology becomes structure, and structure becomes self. And all the while, the underlying promise- "that this is what freedom looks like" - remains intact. The spiral tightens not because it works, but because it is so good at explaining away its own failures. That is the genius of its design and the challenge of breaking free.

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2018.1449108

🎓 Why Academic Freedom Matters — From Humboldt to Weber

Academic freedom isn’t a luxury. It’s the lifeblood of critical inquiry, societal progress, and democratic resilience. It began with Wilhelm von Humboldt’s vision in early 19th-century Prussia: a university should be a space where Lehre (teaching) and Forschung (research) are united in the pursuit of truth, free from political or economic interference. The university, in his eyes, should cultivate not just knowledge, but autonomous individuals.

Decades later, Max Weber sharpened this ideal: Scholars must speak inconvenient truths even if it costs them. In his famous lecture "Science as a Vocation" (1919), Weber called for integrity over ideology, responsibility over influence.

Today, this freedom is under pressure but defending academic freedom is not about privilege. It’s about preserving the conditions that allow societies to reflect, innovate, and hold power to account.

With Harvard we stand (or fall)!

🎓 Why Academic Freedom Matters — From Humboldt to Weber

Academic freedom isn’t a luxury. It’s the lifeblood of critical inquiry, societal progress, and democratic resilience. It began with Wilhelm von Humboldt’s vision in early 19th-century Prussia: a university should be a space where Lehre (teaching) and Forschung (research) are united in the pursuit of truth, free from political or economic interference. The university, in his eyes, should cultivate not just knowledge, but autonomous individuals.

Decades later, Max Weber sharpened this ideal: Scholars must speak inconvenient truths even if it costs them. In his famous lecture "Science as a Vocation" (1919), Weber called for integrity over ideology, responsibility over influence.

Today, this freedom is under pressure but defending academic freedom is not about privilege. It’s about preserving the conditions that allow societies to reflect, innovate, and hold power to account.

With Harvard we stand (or fall)!

THEORY IS DEAD. LONG LIVE EXPERIMENTS?

The other day a colleague in economics told me: “We don’t do theory anymore. Science today is about experiments.”

It sounded innocuous. Evidence over ideology. Precision over speculation. What could be wrong? But I heard John Locke in the background. This is the punctual self Charles Taylor describes: a disembedded agent, disengaged from history or value, made legible only through behavior. In this view, science begins from sensation, avoids reflection, and reduces understanding to data. But when theory is abandoned, much more is lost than speculation.

What remains hidden?

▶ Orientation: Without theory, data lacks direction. Experiments tell us what works, but never what’s right, what’s human, or what’s just. Policy designs based on “impact” often presuppose questionable values: utility, compliance, behavioral adjustability.

▶ The Subject: Locke’s model of a self-regulating unit echoes in "randomized controlled trials" and behavioral economics (and also for much of psychology for that matter). But people aren’t programmable modules, they are also narrating, interpreting, embedded beings. What gets erased? Identity, contradiction, moral striving.

▶ Reflexivity: The social sciences are not like physics. As Giddens put it, they involve a double hermeneutic: we study beings who study themselves and adjust accordingly (which also "ruins" our findings). When we reframe humans as utility-maximizing or irrational nudgers, we don’t just describe we also always shape. Beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies. And management theories once meant as tools become norms that deform.

▶ Responsibility: Ghoshal warned us: a theory that assumes people are selfish, or even opportunistic, and mechanistically influenceable will create practices - and people - that make it so. Theory is never innocent. And abandoning it doesn’t avoid distortion. Rather it ensures it.

So no, sorry to say, theory is not dead! It’s just gone underground. It has gone embedded in unexamined assumptions, power-laden categories, and silent norms. Without it, science cannot critique itself. It becomes technically sound (maybe) but morally blind.

💡 A truly human science doesn’t just measure. It orients. It reflects. It engages. It remembers that the way we see the human affects the way we treat the human.

In a disoriented world, we don’t need fewer theories.
We need better ones. Your views? 

FROM EVALUATION TO ENCOUNTER: RETHINKING DIVERSITY THROUGH THE FUSION OF HORIZONS

Why does mutual understanding feel increasingly out of reach? As Robert Putnam once noted, we have moved from we to I, and often to division. One reason may lie in our confidence that we can assess others from a so-called view from nowhere. This is a stance that claims neutrality but typically reflects an unexamined moral horizon and thereby introduces our own prejudices without us becoming aware of it.

This becomes especially visible in how organizations approach diversity and inclusion. Diversity is often reduced to visible difference or statistical variety. Inclusion, in the traditional DEI view, becomes a question of integrating others into pre-established norms. Meanwhile, HR is tasked with “evaluating” people through standardized criteria - as if human beings were isolated, interchangeable inputs rather than selves situated in moral space, shaped by histories, frameworks, and aspirations.

Charles Taylor, drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer, offers a deeper vision: the fusion of horizons. This is not mere tolerance of difference. It is the ethical encounter with another as a (moral) self, oriented by their own understanding of the good. It means entering into dialogue. The aim is not to erase difference, but to articulate our respective frameworks, to listen, and to allow ourselves to be morally stretched.

This is what genuine understanding demands: not just participation, but shared articulation of what matters. And this is what diversity truly offers: not just variety of attributes, but the presence of persons who orient toward different goods, each capable of enriching our collective understanding (but not necessarily so).

Such encounters, then, would not flatten difference - they would deepen it. And in doing so, they can reveal more about who we are, too.

So what if work became a place where dialogue, not data, shaped how we relate? What if our frameworks for diversity moved from formal rights to mutual recognition AND to risk being fully present to one another? What if inclusion meant co-creating a shared moral space, rather than fitting people into an existing one?

We might discover that such fusion of horizons would be deeply generative - enabling us to become better versions of ourselves (and finding better solutions together for the troubles ahead).

Trust Isn’t a Checklist. It’s a Moral Achievement!

For some reason, everyone seems to love the HBR trust triangle. And maybe even as more rigorous trust researchers we could eventually make peace with it.

Our own beloved three legged ABI model (Ability, Benevolence, Integrity) does capture something important: that trustworthiness is judged along multiple dimensions.

🤓Ability maps to competence and reason.
🤓Benevolence corresponds to care, even empathy.
🤓Integrity suggests a kind of moral coherence, or at least consistency.

And we know: goodwill - the “BI” part - carries the lion’s share. Competence might be enough for contracting. But not for vulnerability. The popular HBR triangle (Logic, Empathy, Authenticity) reinforces this in more digestible terms.

It works. But it flattens - personality indicators instead of self with commitment and depth. And this is where Aristotle’s triangle still outshines them all.

Unlike modern models, Aristotle doesn’t reduce trust to traits or checkboxes. His rhetor is not a triangle of functions but a vision of the human being as capable of moral growth and shared discernment. It consists of:

🏛️Ethos is not just “being yourself.” It is excellence. It is character, practical wisdom (phronēsis), and goodwill (eunoia). It is integrity in the sense of being integrative, not simply “authentic”- even if “yourself” is, frankly, an asshole.

🏛️Pathos is not just empathy. It is the capacity to arouse commitment to a higher good. To invoke solidarity, courage, or hope when needed most. Empathy may be part of it but it’s more than feeling with. It’s moving toward.

🏛️Logos is not just logic. It is knowing and communicating the good. Not just what works - but what is just. It is the ability to speak from a horizon, not just from inside a system.

So what does this mean?

That we would come to trust a leader for their character, for their respect and moral clarity, for their understanding of the good- ethical and political - and for their ability to inspire shared movement toward it.

Not an easy feat. It takes time, formation, reflection. But wouldn’t it be something tohave leaders who don’t just demand our trust, but truly merit?

On the Disappearance—and Possible Return—of the Common Good in the University

You might think this is the academic ideal: a community in universitas, striving together in dialogue, struggling in good faith toward the truth, and seeking a common good. A space where tensions refine our convictions, where disagreement carves new horizons.

And yet - think again.

Enter the performative university.

Here, what counts are audits and rankings, metrics and outputs. Time is money - so why wrestle too long with hard questions? In the age of procedural liberalism, we settle for a watered-down tolerance: to each their own good, because a common one feels too difficult to articulate.

Even truth is no longer shared labor. Instead, we’re caught in the old epistemological turf war: correlation-mongers versus hermeneuts, with little space for ontological depth. Our shared ontology is flat and so, increasingly, are our ambitions.

But reality may bite back.

In the age of AI, a renewed struggle for truth and the good may become not just desirable but essential. Without it, the university may dissolve into mere content provision, and our students may find themselves enrolling in McAI, taught by shallow generative models trained on noise and nonsense.

What we need now is a leap of faith: A belief that intelligent and well-hearted people can still orient toward a common good. And arecognition that productive tensions are not distractions but the groundwork of shared insight.

Because the alternative is not only uninspiring. It is, quite simply, untrue to what learning demands of us.

Good Work?

For some reason, “good work” seems to be the new hype. That could be good news, but often, it’s not. A lot of initiatives popping up today haven’t spent much time thinking about what exactly they claim to be good. Is “good” just the new “new”? A fresh spin on flexible work, remote options, with some coaching vouchers thrown in? Or is “good” just “good for business” i.e. being nice because it pays off, happy cows give more milk?

To explore that, I’ve brought together three radically different understandings of “good work.” But let’s start with the Yellow view - the neoliberal version -which, for now, seems to dominate. Here, “good” means “more good than bad,” your typical utilitarian shortcut. In practice, it usually just means “good for business.”

Now I hear you say: But what’s wrong with that? Isn’t it great that even the WEF is thinking about good work? And isn’t ‘a bit better’ still better than nothing?

Well. I’m not so sure. Or rather: no, not good at all!

First, this definition of “good” offers a convenient way out. Change the mood, change the metrics. A new American president comes in and out go the DEI quotas (as done by some of the WEF signatories). Look at the KPIs: not ambitious, not structural, not transformative. No audits, no public scrutiny, no mechanisms for accountability. If “good” is just a formula, you can always tinker with the bits and usually the bits that matter most to workers.

But that’s only the beginning of the problem.

Look at their view on embeddedness. In this model, business alone defines what’s good. No unions. No government. No public deliberation. It’s the same old libertarian fantasy of the heroic free enterprise: deciding the rules and reaping the glory. And just like before, that’s unlikely to lead to real change. Bad companies will still outperform the “good” ones, because neither the state mandates nor unions enforce the shift. Being better is optional and often, it's only skin deep.

Not to mention the dubious assumptions that go unchallenged. Workers are still treated as factors, not persons; lone agents, not relational beings. And when things go wrong, the system is never questioned - it’s always the individual who needs fixing.

So next time you see another event or special issue on “good work,” do yourself a favour: read the language carefully.

🍊 If they lead with “the business case,” steer clear.
🍊 If the speakers are all from business schools and corporations, steer clear.
🍊 If they treat “good” as self-evident, steer clear.

Instead, go where you’ll be challenged by unions, philosophers, critical scholars. Go where the ideas are too complex, the practices too ambitious, the discomfort too real. Where “next practices” matter more than “best practices.”
Because only then will you start facing the real tensions.

And maybe, just maybe begin doing good work.

HRWorld Summit for Good – Here We Come!

We’re hugely looking forward to connecting and co-creating with many wise and eager HR leaders who are ready to reimagine the future of work.

At last year’s Summit, we introduced our HR Flourishing Manifesto. This year, we’re excited to share ARC – our transformation theory for organizations ready to move beyond survival mode.

ARC maps the path from a relentless, competition-driven, performance-obsessed system…toward businesses that enable common prosperity and unleash the generative potential of people and institutions.

If you’re wondering whether this is a session for you (we’re pretty sure it is), here are a few nuggets to ponder:

😉 Has your CEO recently declared a return to “meritocracy” – while sidelining HR’s efforts to strictly promote only i also maturity, integrity, and character fit - beyond pure sales performance?
😉 Has your company rebranded from employee satisfaction to employee excellence – convinced that excellence can be captured in a single KPI?
😉 Have you sat through conferences proclaiming “New Work is dead, Good Work is the new black,” while still preaching that "happy cows give more milk"?

Then you might be working in what we call a yellow organization: one that grants more autonomy, but ultimately still worships at the altar of growth and profit. A place where even HR reinvention depends on whether the political winds in Washington shift.

If you’re tired of that, if you believe there are better ways to work and live and if
ou believe organizations can help people grow into their best selves while solving real, urgent problems:

…then join us.
Help us.
Push the system toward flourishing – not just better performance management.

The Persistent Myth of Meritocracy

Link to article: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

💡 Why You Should Care About Theory

As a girl, I loved books. As a scholar, I still do. But whether in academia or in business, I’ve often been told: “Get a grip. Go do something. Be practical.”

And I get it. We live in a world obsessed with evidence, action, outcomes. So when you offer theory be it concepts, frameworks, or structured thought you’re often met with skepticism. Even in academia, the pressure to produce “data” often outweighs the encouragement to think.

Some try to bridge the gap by becoming “pracademics” (as Julian Kirchherr puts it). And yes, I absolutely believe in engaged scholarship, ie in framing problems with practitioners, staying close to the tensions of real life.

But I also believe this: practice has a theory deficit.
And I wish we’d say it more often. We talk a lot about bias, but rarely about theoretical bias. Most people operate from implicit theories they’ve never made conscious; about human nature, power, value, success, responsibility. And without theory, we rarely challenge those assumptions. We just act them out.

So maybe it’s time we turned the tables. Instead of always telling scholars to “get practical,” maybe we should ask practice to “get reflective.” Start theorizing.

This is where the typology by Alvesson and Sandberg is so useful. It shows that good theory isn’t just abstract: it explains, helps us comprehend, reorders, reveals hidden processes, and sometimes provokes us to think in entirely new ways.

A good theory can:
👏 Help us see the lens through which we interpret the world (and how distorted it may be).
👏 Group things together we never thought belonged.
👏 Reveal why we keep reliving “Groundhog Day” at work.
👏 Or make visible what we’ve trained ourselves not to see.

Theory, in this sense, isn’t the opposite of action.
It’s what makes meaningful action possible. So next time someone retreats into data or leans too hard into “just do it” logic, I might be tempted to say:
Get a grip. Start theorizing!

The world needs more reflection, not less.

Can you have your chocolate and eat it?

Turns out, Big Tech can.

Over the past decade, tech giants like Google and Meta didn’t just get our data; no they colonized it. They collected it under the sweet promise of connection, traded it like candy across thousands of companies, and now use it to predict, manipulate, and monetize our every click.

The results?
• $600 billion in ad revenue.
• Political influence through microtargeted persuasion.
• Monopoly rents from network effects.
• And a rising bromarchy—a tightly knit elite of data barons who know us better than we know ourselves.

Just 5% of users have their data shared with over 2,800 companies. Four website visits are enough to re-identify 95% of us. And 81% of Americans are worried but at the sane time stuck.

Data is the new oil, yes. But unlike oil, you are the well.

The question is: when will we stop letting them? 

Can a Company Be a Good Employer If It Undermines the Common Good?

We are quick to praise companies for their internal reforms: de-bossing, self-management, psychological safety. We applaud progressive HR policies, leadership humility, the dismantling of hierarchy.

And yet, something crucial is often left unexamined.

A company is not just a workplace. It is a node in a web of relationships - ecological, economic, political. What it does to the world matters as much as what it does for its employees. And these things are not separable. Because we grow into the work we do. We become who we are, individually and collectively, through our labor and its consequences.

This question came alive for me as I studied the seed industry.

Bayer, widely admired in some business circles for its organizational culture, acquired Monsanto in 2018. Monsanto is known for:

🌱aggressively patenting seeds and suing farmers whose crops were accidentally contaminated,
🌱pushing genetically modified monocultures that threaten biodiversity and food sovereignty,
🌱ghostwriting scientific articles and suppressing evidence about the risks of glyphosate.

This is not ancient history. These practices have shaped agricultural systems, legal frameworks, and public discourse in profound ways.

So the question persists: Can a company foster “good work” while producing bad outcomes?

Is it ethical to be a “liberated” worker inside a system that concentrates power, silences dissent, and undermines planetary well-being?

Too often, we separate internal excellence from external ethics. But governance is not just internal. Culture is not just about values: it’s about character. A place that treats its people well while harming the commons teaches complicity, not character.

As scholars, practitioners, and citizens, we must stop admiring surface-level innovation when it masks systemic harm. We must resist the seduction of workplace “revolutions” that ignore relational and ecological realities.

Because integrity is not a vibe. It’s a total pattern.

Don't go orange - ugliness will not pay!

For those abandoning DEI initiatives in the wake of Trump's election, the data should make you think twice.

After my previous ethical appeals fell on deaf ears, perhaps the financial impact will finally get your attention. This isn't just about doing what's right anymore; it's about your bottom line.

The evidence is methodologically robust. Ronda et al. (2021) employed an adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis (ACBC), not the usual wishlist studies that merely rank preferences. This method mirrors actual decision-making processes where candidates first eliminate unacceptable options before making trade-offs among remaining choices.

Their findings are striking: Corporate Social Responsibility emerges as the second most important non-negotiable attribute (31%), surpassed only by salary (44%). This isn't just a preference — it's a screening mechanism that removes your company from consideration for nearly one-third of candidates before they even evaluate your other offerings.

Even more compelling, Kanwal & Van Hoye's (2023) longitudinal study demonstrates the critical importance of consistency between stated values and actual practices. Their hierarchical regression analyses reveal that Consistency has the strongest impact on employer attractiveness (β = 0.57), organizational identification (β = 0.32), and employee ambassadorship (β = 0.47) — far outweighing other factors.

Two critical warnings for companies "going orange":

🍊 If you abandon your DEI commitments, you will lose out on a significant talent pool: 31% of candidates will immediately filter you out based on your ethics and CSR positioning.

🍊Even worse, if you show you were just virtue washing, nobody will stand up for you any longer; the longitudinal data clearly demonstrates that inconsistency destroys employee loyalty and advocacy.

The political climate may have shifted, but talent expectations haven't. The methodologically sound research demonstrates that candidates apply non-compensatory decision rules when evaluating employers' moral stances. Companies hastily dropping DEI initiatives are sending a clear signal about their values PLUS and the research shows candidates are making consequential decisions accordingly.

Going "orange" isn't just ethically questionable; it's a demonstrable disaster for your talent pipeline and will cost you real Dollars or Euros.

No Performance, No Merit, No Justice!

It's a familiar pattern: a company publicly proclaims a return to meritocracy and so-called meritocracy, but fails to recognize the necessary foundations. All that usually remains are facades, a staging of performance orientation without substance.

SAP provides a particularly clear example.

Some time ago, the company declared that it wanted to distance itself from the zeitgeist surrounding “New Work”. No more too much freedom, too much ease, now performance should count again. After some wrangling with the works council, SAP introduced a new evaluation system, a school grading system for adults.

It is obvious that the company's management has established one thing above all with this reform: its own self-image. Those who are already at the top see themselves as a benchmark, a role model, a model of success, a superstar. Everyone else has to adapt or fall behind.

In the process, we lose sight of what large organizations do so reliably: the reproduction of structural inequalities. Systematic distortions, implicit biases, the Golem effect, network effects and career logics that determine who is visible and who is not do not create a meritocracy. Such mechanisms cannot be corrected with evaluation tables, they can only be reinforced.

In this context, a second SAP decision is particularly significant, namely the extensive withdrawal of binding targets in the areas of diversity, equality and inclusion. Under pressure from political developments in the USA, key terms were removed from the official reports. There is hardly any mention of concrete targets for diversity. Inclusion is thus declared a risk instead of a prerequisite for fair performance.

Both developments, the simplified evaluation system and the withdrawal from DEI responsibility, show that SAP not only misses the idea of a genuine meritocracy. It misses the principle of merit even more fundamentally.
Because merit, in the original Aristotelian sense, means that people assume responsibility where they contribute to the common good with attitude, performance and character. Leadership is only deserved by those who not only have specialist knowledge, but also the power of judgment, moral integrity and the ability to act wisely and courageously in difficult situations.

This would have meant not simply bowing to political pressure, but looking for smarter ways, ways that do not come at the expense of credibility and justice.
If SAP took this understanding of merit seriously, it would not have introduced such a form of evaluation, nor would it have lost sight of diversity and inclusion. Because one thing is clear: only those who deserve responsibility should be at the top - not just those who claim power!

Link to article: https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/it-internet/softwarehersteller-reaktion-auf-trump-politik-sap-streicht-frauenquote/100127302.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=LinkedIn#Echobox=1746867472

No Merits, No Deservedness!

Here we are again. The usual pattern unfolds. A company proclaims its return to meritocracy, only to cave at the first sign of real-world power dynamics. What’s left isn’t principle but it’s performance optics.

Let’s take SAP. Some time ago, SAP proudly declared the end of the “New Work” era. Enough with all the fun and flexibility. Time to focus on performance and - finally - merit 😉 . After some haggling with the worker council, they introduced their newly rediscovered tool: grading. Employees are now sorted into neat categories, into overachievers, achievers, underachievers all written straight into their records.

Of course, those sitting at the helm already knew the outcome. They were the apex, the glory, the heroes. Or in today's terms: the superstars. Everyone else? Follow suit, or stay where you belong.

In this all-too-familiar tale of hubris, one thing gets forgotten: Large organizations are exceptionally good at producing inequalities. Not always maliciously - sometimes through bias, sometimes through the Golem effect, often through network closures and design choices that subtly shape who shines and who stagnates. None of this is fixed by slapping grades onto people.

Then enters Trump, and the verdict comes swiftly. Let’s quietly rid ourselves of DEI. No more binding goals. Too risky. Possibly un-American. And let’s pretend that inclusion was a problem for meritocracy all along. Systemic injustice? Not visible from the top floor anyhow.

But here's what’s most telling: By walking away from DEI and reducing performance to school-style grading, SAP fails not only on merit but even more so on desert.

Desert is that ancient principle from Aristotle: that people should hold positions they are fit for. So that each can develop their potential, for the common good. It’s not about being clever or efficient. It’s about being morally formed. A leader, in this view, must not only know, they must judge wisely and act courageously.

That includes the courage to resist pressure from a big orange head across the Atlantic. And the practical wisdom to find better responses than cowardly giving in.

The truth is: if SAP truly honored desert, it would have done neither. No grading. No DEI rollback.
As one thing is clear: No desert, no superstar, no justice!

Driver's License for Leadership

Driver's license for leadership? Or finally a real professional license? But what does that mean in concrete terms?

First of all, it's not about a driver's license in the technical sense, but about a professional license that needs to be renewed regularly - linked to knowledge, ethical obligation and responsibility. More importantly, this license would have to be backed by a genuine professional association.
Because if we take leadership seriously as a profession, it needs the appropriate characteristics:

🔊 A common canon of knowledge and expertise,
🔊 A normative self-commitment that goes beyond self-interest,
🔊 Institutions that secure values, enable exchange - and also sanction if necessary.

In management research, this idea has been on the table for a long time - for example with Khurana, Nohria and Penrice ( 👇 ). They show: Leaders have long had the power of a profession without its accountability structures.

And what are the practical implications of this? We have to face up to the debate about what must be part of the canon of professional leadership today. One thing is clear: business administration alone is not enough. We need social, ethical, political and philosophical perspectives - and the ability for critical self-reflection.

And we finally need institutions that take this requirement seriously. Business schools are not currently doing this. We often reproduce the logic that we should actually be questioning. We promote competitive thinking, ego optimization and shareholder thinking and, unfortunately, rarely professional integrity.

The many small academies, as well as chambers of commerce and even professional associations, could start here - if they join forces, muster the courage to self-regulate and see themselves as public partners in the ethical discourse on leadership vis-à-vis the state and society.

Leadership needs more than methodological knowledge. It needs attitude - and structures that demand and promote this attitude.

Link to article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118785317.weom020208

From Rights to Recognition - and Now Back Again?

Let us reintroduce three women who shaped feminist thought across centuries:

Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) responded to the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man with her own Declaration of the Rights of Woman. Her message was clear: liberty and equality cannot be exclusive. Gouges demanded political rights, education, and an end to slavery laying the groundwork for first-wave feminism focused on formal equality.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), in The Second Sex, moved beyond legal rights to interrogate the social construction of gender. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Beauvoir’s existentialist lens shaped second-wave feminism, with its focus on emancipation, bodily autonomy, and breaking free from prescribed roles.

Judith Butler (b. 1956) unsettled the category of “woman” itself. For Butler, gender is not something we are, but something we perform. Her work gave third-wave feminism new tools: intersectionality, queer theory, and the refusal to fix identity in binary terms.

Over time, feminism moved from demanding equality, to exposing power, to deconstructing identity.

And yet today, all three of these ways of thinking are under siege. Not only have identity-based analyses been dismissed as “woke,” but calls for structural change are ridiculed as ideology, and even formal rights - really hard-won in the 20th century - are under open attack.

In parts of the world, especially the U.S., the political agenda seems bent not just on halting progress, but on reversing it going beyond Butler, beyond Beauvoir, beyond even de Gouges.

This is not a steady tide of progress. It is a rip current!

So the task now is not to pick a wave but to rise with force, to meet the undertow.

First DEI. Now deeper investments in the U.S.

Novartis and Roche have quietly scaled back their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — just as they deepen investments in the U.S., where political forces are dismantling equity efforts and calling for an end to research that includes people like me.

This isn’t just a shift in tone. It’s a test of moral courage — and a test of greed.

Both companies publicly commit to purpose-driven missions:

❄️Novartis vows to “reimagine medicine to improve and extend people’s lives.”
❄️Roche claims to be “doing now what patients need next.”

But will those promises still hold when profit and power pull in the opposite direction?

Since Donald Trump began threatening Swiss pharmaceutical companies with tariffs on medicine exports to the U.S. - their largest and most profitable market - the industry’s response has been telling. Instead of challenging political pressure in Washington, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan directed his criticism toward Europe. If governments want innovation to stay, he warned, they must be willing to pay more. “Don’t just expect us to produce here because other conditions are good,” he said. “You need to make it attractive.”

So let’s ask the obvious:

If you’re willing to abandon DEI to preserve access and avoid controversy - will you also abandon the kind of research that women need to survive?

As Invisible Women made clear, women are still misdiagnosed because clinical research is based on male symptoms. They still suffer more side effects because drug dosages are calibrated for male bodies. And they still live in a medical system that fails them because the data never truly saw them.

Without DEI, this will not change.

So: Will Novartis and Roche stand by their missions?
Or will they sell them off - one compromise at a time?

Liberalism didn’t fail because it lost control of the economy. It failed because it lost the plot of what it means to be human.

If you want to engage deeper - not with my far to shallow pop insight: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Virtue-Future-Perfect-Philosophy/dp/178348649X

We talk about fixing market failures. But what if the real failure is our failure to The perfect partner in crime: desire itself.

We talk about fixing market failures. But what if the real failure is our failure to imagine a different economy?

Reading Mariana Mazzucato’s new article (see in comment), “Governing the Economics of the Common Good,” I kept returning to one thought: neutrality is not enough. Markets do not simply fail at the margins. They drift, often deepening inequality, accelerating environmental collapse, and eroding public trust.

Mazzucato challenges the idea that governance should only intervene when markets go wrong.
She shows that markets are always shaped - by choices, by structures, by power.
If we refuse to set collective goals, we shape by default - often in ways no one would choose consciously.

Her alternative is simple but radical: govern markets around the common good from the outset.
Set direction. Foster participation. Share knowledge. Distribute rewards fairly. Demand accountability.

Governance is not just fixing. It is shaping, co-creating, building toward the outcomes we actually value.

Neutrality is itself a choice. If we want an economy that serves the common good, we must imagine it — and shape it — together.

What kind of economy do we want to build?

Link to article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17487870.2023.2280969

We talk about fixing market failures. But what if the real failure is our failure to imagine a different economy?

Reading Mariana Mazzucato's new article (see 👇 ), "Governing the Economics of the Common Good," I was struck by how deeply we have internalized the idea that neutrality is enough. For decades, we have treated the economy as a natural phenomenon, with the state stepping in only to fix occasional failures. Governance, in this view, should remain procedural, technical, impartial — avoiding any ambition to define the collective good. Yet as I read Mazzucato’s argument, it became clear how inadequate this imagination has become.

Climate breakdown, inequality, and systemic fragility are not isolated malfunctions of an otherwise healthy system. They are the result of allowing markets to drift without collective purpose or direction. Mazzucato shows that markets are never neutral. Instead they are always shaped, whether by deliberate choices or by the inertia of existing power structures.

Fixing failures after the fact is no longer enough. We need to ask, more fundamentally, what kind of economy we are building and for whom.
Mazzucato proposes a bold but pragmatic shift: to govern markets around the common good, not by retreating into top-down control, but by embracing collective goal-setting, co-creation, and shared accountability. She outlines five interconnected pillars: 1) setting purpose and directionality, 2) fostering participation, 3) building collective intelligence through open knowledge-sharing, 4) ensuring broad-based access to rewards, and 5) embedding transparency and democratic accountability at every level. Governance, in her view, is not a repair job. It is a creative, participatory act of shaping the economy toward human flourishing.

The more I reflect on it, the clearer it becomes: neutrality has a lot of unintended consequences (say a Swiss). It is a choice but not always the best one.

The future will not be shaped by those who stand aside. It will be shaped by those willing to ask what we owe each other — and to build an economy that answers.

Link to article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17487870.2023.2280969

What if the Purpose of Education Isn’t to Know More — But to (Moral) Becoming?

For centuries, education in the West has been tethered to a humanist ideal: we teach in order to realize some fixed human nature whether that’s the rational thinker, the responsible citizen, or the productive worker. In this view, education is about qualification and socialization. It is about equipping people with knowledge, and integrating them into society. But what if education is not about fulfilling a predefined essence but more about becoming a subject in response to others?

This is where Emmanuel Levinas offers something radical: a different foundation for subjectivity. He challenges the idea that we begin as autonomous individuals. For Levinas, we become subjects because we are interrupted - called into responsibility by the face of the other. Ethics comes before identity. Responsibility precedes freedom.

Two educational responses to Levinas have emerged:

🧠 Gert Biesta: A Pedagogy of Interruption
Biesta argues that education serves three functions:
(1) Qualification, (2) Socialization and (3) Subjectification. The problem, he says, is that subjectification has been reduced to normalization. We don’t foster genuine selves but we produce conforming individuals!

Levinas helps here. For Biesta, education must become an interruption: disrupting the student’s self-certainty. Subjectification begins when a learner is de-centered and made responsible for more than themselves.

🧠 Guoping Zhao: A Pedagogy of Becoming (deep dive)
Zhao agrees, but offers a crucial correction: Biesta overstates the passivity in Levinas. There is more to subjectivity than being endlessly interrupted.
Levinas’s subject is not erased. It returns, but changed. Zhao highlights the dialectic at the heart of Levinas’s thought: the self moves between being and not-being, presence and exposure, identity and responsibility.

Subjectivity, then, is not fixed, but neither is it void. It is a moral and historical becoming—a continuous effort to respond to the other while still gathering a self that can act justly.

Zhao also cautions against the posthumanist rush to abandon the subject altogether. The task is not to erase subjectivity, but to recover its ethical depth; to attend to what Levinas calls the trace, the absent presence of the other that calls me to be more than I am.

❓ Why It Matters
In an age of metrics, standardization, and moral uncertainty, this reframing of education is urgent.

We don’t just need better outcomes. We need deeper becomings!

Levinas invites us to ask:
1) What kind of self is education forming?
2) Is it capable of responsibility?
3) Can it respond to absence—to injustice, suffering, or the call of the other?

Education, then, is not just about producing knowers. It’s about forming subjects who are unfinished, responsive, and ethically alive.

Bullies Arriving - And Why Systems Let Them Win

What if bullying isn't a flaw in the system—but the result of how the system is designed?

I just read a comprehensive review of 20 years of workplace bullying research (Samnani & Singh, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2012). It's about toxic organizations but it felt disturbingly close to the state of U.S. politics today. Here's what the research found:

Who bullies?
Bullies are often deeply insecure: neurotic, emotionally volatile, driven by negative affect. They may have high stress jobs or feel entitled because they believe they can get away with it. Some were once victims themselves.

Who gets bullied?
People who are less powerful: those with lower self-esteem, more anxious, less socially connected. Often, women and ethnic minorities are disproportionately targeted. The same traits that make someone hesitant to fight back also make them visible to those looking for someone to dominate.

What enables bullying?
👊 Bystanders stay silent, often out of fear.
👊 Leaders disengage, or worse, model authoritarian behavior.
👊 Group norms shift: bullying becomes normalized.
👊 Toxic cultures reward aggression: especially in competitive, individualistic, high power-distance environments.
👊 Rules are vague or unenforced, signalling tacit approval.

The system doesn’t just tolerate the bully—it rewards them. Promotions, visibility, influence. Others mimic their behavior. Bullying spreads.

One chilling line from the study: “Some organizations perceive bullying as an efficient way of inducing performance.”

It’s not about one person. It’s about how the system is built to protect and elevate the wrong kind of strength.

💬 Reading this, I didn’t just see workplace dynamics. I saw the U.S. (top floor) government. A neurotic (and what not else) president lashing out. Women and minorities in the crosshairs. A party (or maybe even two?) standing by. A culture that mistakes bullying for leadership. Law and accountability fading into theater. Competitive zero-sum politics masquerading as democracy. Not a company—but the same script. The system makes the bully. Unless we change the system.

An Interview with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Pope Francis

What happens when you bring Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Pope Francis into a joint discussion - not as a provocation, but as a serious invitation to analyze?

In an unusual chapter entitled “Last Call” (Schäfer/Ludwig, 2025), central passages from Das Kapital, the encyclical Laudato si' and other texts are juxtaposed in such a way as to create a factual, profound dialog. It is not an essay on ideological reconciliation, but an invitation to look at the seriousness of the ecological situation from different traditions of thought.
What becomes visible: The criticism of an economic system that systematically overburdens the environment and people is not an exclusively left-wing or religious position. It is a common observation.

Marx and Engels clearly describe how the capitalist mode of production destroys the natural foundations of life, always out of internal system logic. Profit takes precedence over conservation. The soil is depleted, the workforce exhausted, the environment externalized. Engels speaks of nature's “acts of revenge” when man believes he can control it.

In Laudato si', Pope Francis also names an ecologically and socially disintegrating dynamic, driven by a “technocratic paradigm” that confuses everything that is feasible with progress. He also speaks of a destruction of the foundations of life, and he also names structural causes - including a global system that enables exploitation in the global South while the North profits from it.

What is interesting here is less the similarity in the choice of words than the parallelism in thinking: both sides call for a profound change in perspective. Humans are not above nature. They do not have a right of ownership over the world, but a responsibility. Francis says: “We are not the owners of the earth.” Marx criticizes a mode of production that has no regard for ecological limits or social issues.

The fact that these analyses are so close today is probably due to the seriousness of the situation. And one may wonder why it has taken so long for the Church to formulate such a critique of the system, despite Francis of Assisi and the long tradition of preserving creation.

But one thing remains clear: Francis is not a Marxist. But when a pope and a critic of capitalism draw similar conclusions on key issues of responsibility and ecological limitation, it is worth listening. We certainly need both at the moment: an ethical and a structural critique. A moral stance and an economic rethink.

And it is certainly time to read Marx again - not to be right, but to better understand what has brought us into this situation.

Because one thing is clear from this intellectual dialog: we should behave as stewards, not owners, of the earth.

Link to article: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-658-44410-5_3

What is the Price of  Morality?

A friend said to me recently: “Why make such a fuss? You live in safe, secure Switzerland. The US is far away.” And yes, materially speaking, he’s right.

We have little to lose when we speak up. Maybe a fraction of GDP. Maybe some trade friction. But we are not the ones dragged from our homes. We are not the ones jailed without trial. We are not the ones whose judges are ignored, whose rule of law is hollowed out in real time.

And precisely because we have so little to lose, our silence becomes indefensible.

What does it cost us to speak the truth? To support those trying to hold the line? To offer solidarity—not just thoughts and prayers, but real consequences, real political stance?

Hannah Arendt once wrote:
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

When morality becomes cheap, and we still refuse to pay the price—what does that say about us?

What, if anything, are we still willing to risk for justice?

🔬 Still Trusted, But Under Fire: When Science Meets Ideology

The good news? Science is still broadly trusted.
The bad news? That trust is eroding—unevenly, and tellingly.

A new large-scale study in Nature Human Behaviour confirms a persistent pattern: liberals in the U.S. show consistently higher levels of trust in scientists than conservatives. That in itself may not be surprising. But what should give us pause is where these gaps appear most sharply.

Trust is not equally distributed across disciplines. It falters where science touches societal fault lines: climate change, public health, environmental impact, social inequality. In other words, where science doesn’t just describe the world, but suggests we may need to change it.

This isn’t a blanket rejection of science—it’s a selective one, driven by perceived threats to identity, ideology, or economic interests. And it’s not unique to the U.S. Other countries show similar patterns, though the divide is particularly stark here.

Even more troubling: the study tested five carefully designed interventions to bridge this ideological trust gap. They tried framing science in conservative values, showcasing credible conservative scientists, highlighting shared benefits, and more. None of them worked.

Once science is ideologically discredited, it’s hard to shake that off. Distrust appears sticky—rooted less in information than in identity. That’s not just a communications problem. It’s a governance problem. A societal one. An ethical one.

Because when scientific authority is accepted only when it aligns with existing worldviews, collective action becomes nearly impossible. And yet, the challenges we face—from pandemics to planetary boundaries—demand just that: coordinated, evidence-based, cross-ideological responses.

Maybe the answer isn’t persuasion, but dialogue. It takes us scientists to embrace engaged scholarship while still walking the fine line to show that we remain critical and apply rigor. And it takes the remaining sane governments to speak up—to show they are trusting in science.

Because trust isn’t built through slogans— It’s lived, shared, co-created.

Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02147-z

“Everyone deserves a slice of the cake.” Sounds nice. But is it enough?

Mintzberg and Marques take aim at the illusion that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be both easy and effective. They dissect four familiar metaphors:

1) “Let them eat cake” (Friedman’s profit-only logic),
2) “Icing on the cake” (CSR as PR or philanthropy),
3) “Everyone gets a slice” (stakeholder balancing),
4) “Having your cake and eating it too” (the win-win CSR fantasy).

Each, they argue, hides structural contradictions and reinforces the status quo.
One metaphor deserves a closer look: “everyone deserves a slice.” The stakeholder view acknowledges a broader set of duties—but, as Mintzberg points out, it rarely offers a meaningful way to resolve conflicts between stakeholders. It often becomes moral vagueness, not moral clarity.

👉 This is where his critique hits home. Real responsibility isn’t about treating all interests equally—it’s about ethical contextuality: the capacity to judge, to deliberate, to weigh what truly matters in a given situation. Not every issue is of equal weight, but each deserves conscious attention. This kind of judgment—messy, grounded, situated—is where ethics lives. The slice doesn’t just need to be shared. It needs to be justified.

So what’s the alternative to CSR slogans? Mintzberg calls for attention to the bread and butter of responsible business. He names six essentials:

1) Fostering ethical judgment
2) Rethinking executive compensation
3) Acknowledging the role of regulation
4) Holding lobbying to account
5) Empowering the plural sector
6) Building cross-sector collaboration

Two stand out.

Regulation. Without it, pretending to be good will almost always outcompete being good. Greenwashing is cheaper than transformation. If we want responsible companies to succeed, we must design a level playing field—where integrity isn’t a disadvantage.

👉 I often see how regulation is dismissed as a constraint—yet without it, the market penalizes moral commitment. Decency needs not just courage, but conditions. It's time we acknowledge that voluntary goodness isn't enough.

Cross-sector collaboration. Complex problems demand partnerships. But responsibility cannot dissolve in the process. Just because labor is divided doesn’t mean responsibility can be. We need collective responsibility that’s aware of interdependence—but refuses to blur accountability.

👉 For me, this is the ethical core: even in a fragmented world, we must hold on to the idea that the common good belongs to us all. Complexity should be an invitation to moral cooperation, not an excuse to look away.

We don’t need another slice of cake. We need to bake better bread.

Link to article: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-corporate-social-responsibility-isnt-a-piece-of-cake/

ESG Isn’t Dead—but It May Have Lost Its Soul

Deep Dive and Reflections on Alex Edmans’ “The End of ESG”

Alex Edmans makes a good argument: ESG is both “extremely important—and nothing special.” That’s not a contradiction. It’s a call to more thoughtfulness in a field focused too squarely on metrics, labels, and performance "theatre".

Here’s where his critique cuts deepest:

1. ESG Is Not a Add-On, rather it should be fully integrated! By isolating ESG from mainstream business practice, we risk turning it into an ornamental badge—rather than a way of seeing. If a factor matters for long-term value, why carve it out as “extra”?

Implication: The real question is not whether something is “ESG enough,” but whether it serves the good life—for people, planet, and the enterprise.

2. ESG Metrics Risk Hollowing Out Meaning! What gets measured may get managed—but only if it still carries meaning. Most ESG metrics reward harm reduction, not value creation. Worse, they invite us to manage by compliance rather than by conscience.

Implication: We need fewer indicators that reassure stakeholders—and more that challenge us. Ask: Does this metric cultivate practical wisdom? Or just signal virtue?

3. ESG-Linked Pay Can Undermine Moral Motivation! Tying executive pay to ESG goals seems progressive—but it reduces complex moral trade-offs to contractual proxies. Edmans reminds us: leaders may “hit the target but miss the point.”

Implication: Stewardship is not a KPI. It is a character. Let’s build practices that form moral motivation, not just incentivize performance on pre-approved metrics.

And the rest, briefly—but no less urgently:

4. ESG Doesn’t Own Externalities! Innovation, care, and courage also generate public value. Let’s resist the temptation to sanctify ESG while ignoring other moral forces within business.

5. ESG Funds Deserve Scrutiny, Not Sanctimony!Engagement is vital—but not inherently more noble than strategic or cultural transformation. Every fund owes its investors honesty.

So, what now?

If ESG is to matter, it must stop trying to be special—and start becoming sincere. This is not about metrics or mandates. It’s about whether business can serve the common good with integrity, beyond the performance.

Let’s return to the deeper question: What kind of world is our business helping to build? And what are we becoming while serving the world proper?

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.12413

CSR reshapes how we think. It aligns social concerns with business logic, portraying companies as ethical agents while naturalizing capitalist rationality. It contributes to a business ontology that renders alternative modes of organizing and valuing almost unthinkable.

Are we ready to do that work? 

Is This What Meritocracy Looks Like? A Fraudulent Label.

For some time now, a term has been haunting management handbooks, keynotes and HR strategy papers: meritocracy. Sounds modern, fair, performance-oriented. But the term was originally a warning - in 1958, Michael Young described in a dystopia what a society that idolizes performance and ignores everything else looks like: Origin, opportunity, chance, structural inequality.

Today we can see how right he was.

Because the very question of who is actually “the best” is highly political. Is it about turnover? Visibility? Network cultivation? Or is it about integrity, vision and a sense of responsibility? Good leadership requires more than just performance. It takes aptitude - and maturity.

But potential is difficult to measure. And so we promote what is visible - and overlook what is effective. We measure what is easy to count - and ignore what is elusive but crucial: judgment, attitude, the ability to listen.
Then there are rope teams and status games. The higher the level, the more what counts is how you look - not how you act. Those who get through confuse luck with merit. And forget that no one gets to the top alone.

This is precisely why we need a serious DEI - as a structural corrective. Not as a symbolic policy, but as a response to systemic failure. Those who make it into talent pools must not be selected on the basis of brilliance and stable smell. And those who make it to the top should know this: Success is never just merit - it is also chance and context.
Modesty would then not be a career obstacle, but a selection criterion.

So dear UBS, Novartis - and you SAPs of this world:

Do you really want to stick with these selection patterns? You have abolished DEI programs - but without structural corrective measures, meritocracy is a fairy tale.can we afford to do without understanding, diversity and dignity?

And for those who don't want to recognize the picture: It shows the “perfectly selected”, “top-rated” talents who have ruined Credit Suisse with their glittering CVs - and equally glittering arrogance (alternatively, you could now add the new team in the White House).

So much for meritocracy in action. 

A Good Economy Needs More Than Just Good-Willed Companies

The idea of stakeholder capitalism has captured the imagination of many. It promises a world where businesses don’t just maximize shareholder profits but create value for all stakeholders—employees, communities, customers, and the environment.
This vision is appealing. It reminds us that business is not just economic—it is inherently moral. That the purpose of the firm is not simply to extract but to contribute. That value creation can and should be mutual.

But let’s be honest: that’s not enough says Hargrave ( 👇 ).

Why good intentions are not sufficient

The problem is that even well-intentioned firms operate within a broader economic system—a system governed by laws, incentives, institutions, and, yes, power. And in that system, bad actors can still win. Exploitative business models—those that pollute, underpay, or extract short-term gains—can outperform the regenerators if the institutional playing field rewards the wrong metrics. Good firms alone cannot fix a broken system. In fact, they risk being outcompeted, bought out, or pushed aside.

That’s why a good economy requires more than goodwill. It requires rules that reward responsibility and regulations that constrain harm. It requires a state that ensures the background conditions of justice: fair markets, rights protection, and real consequences for externalizing costs onto others.

Corporate governance and it’s internal design matter too. If we want firms to serve all stakeholders, we must ask: Who owns them? Who governs them? Whose voices count?

So far, stakeholder capitalism has largely relied on managerial discretion—hoping that enlightened leaders will do the right thing. But leadership is fragile. It changes. Incentives drift. Without formal governance structures, without ownership models that anchor long-term purpose, we risk hollowing out even the best intentions. We need new forms of stakeholder governance—structures that give employees, communities, and future generations a seat at the table.

But there is a further missing piece: civic bonds

And even then, even with responsible firms and a responsive state—something is still missing.
We also need civic strength. We need movements, networks, and associations that connect those who care about the common good. Civil society is not a backdrop—it’s a force. It pushes for better regulation, supports the firms that want to lead, and resists the rollback of hard-won gains.

If we want to change the system, we need not just companies and laws—we need commitments and coalitions. We need to act not just as professionals or consumers, but as citizens.

The takeaway?

A good economy is not just a collection of good companies. It is a well-ordered system—with ethical firms, just institutions, and a vibrant civil society working in concert. It’s time we stopped treating stakeholder capitalism as the full story. It’s a good story—but not the whole one.

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12774

Back to the 80ies?

Gordon Gekko would be delighted: bonuses and target agreements are back in fashion, as if we hadn't learned anything since shoulder pads. “There is no alternative” seems to be the HR mantra again - at a time when we should actually know better.

After all, the great triumph of performance-based remuneration that began back then has brought whole armies of remuneration consultants into the workforce - but in many organizations it has had exactly the opposite effect of what was promised. Instead of performance: false incentives. Instead of commitment: a mercenary mentality. Instead of enjoyment at work: pressure, demotivation and the risk of burnout. And, as the article by Anastasia Sapegina and myself ( 👇 ) shows, the bottom line may even be less overall performance.

What many overlook: Variable performance-related pay works - but only under very specific conditions. It may increase productivity in boring, easily measurable tasks. But wherever thinking, creativity, teamwork or even meaning are required, it does more harm than good. It suppresses intrinsic motivation, reduces emotional attachment to the company and weakens the willingness to take on responsibility or go the extra mile.

The paradoxical result: the carrot that is supposed to motivate becomes a blinder. Employees focus on what is rewarded - and leave everything else behind. Collaboration? Learning? Ethical reflection? If they are not paid: irrelevant. Welcome to the multi-task dilemma and the monetization trap.

But there is an alternative - even from the 80s (if you must). Not everything was greed and glitz. Think of the HP Way: a corporate culture that focused on trust, purpose, personal responsibility and development. Or the Montreal Protocol - when countries around the world joined forces to save the ozone layer. The 80s could also be different: profound, progressive, even collective.

So why not revive the 80s? Instead of more bonuses, more relationship quality. Instead of pay-for-performance, room for purpose. Instead of extrinsic control, genuine trust.

👉 Our article summarizes the most important findings - and shows alternatives for how companies can focus on sustainable motivation and good performance without sacrificing the human element. And if you want to go even further - entrepreneurial power for good - please take a look at our manifesto.

Time to finally put out the Bonfire of Vanities.

Link to article: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/98950

🧭 How to Organize Protest — A Crash Course for Those Who Still Care

If we want to defend democracy — and I mean actually defend it, not just write think pieces about it — we need to start studying what works when it comes to protest and solidarity.

Not someday. Now.

Because here’s the thing: democracies are not being overthrown in dramatic coups. They’re being quietly strangled by kleptocrats, hollowed out by oligarchs, and disfigured by bullies in suits. Bit by bit, checks and balances are weakened, dissent is criminalized, and the public is either distracted, divided, or demoralized.

📚 Enter a timely meta-analysis by Agostini & van Zomeren (2021), drawing on over 400 empirical studies and more than 120,000 participants. It’s the kind of research we should be printing on flyers and taping to café windows. Their model? Robust and grounded. They call it the “dual chamber heart” of protest.

At its core, collective action is powered by four intertwined forces: Identity. Morality. Injustice. Efficacy. (Or, in simpler terms: who I am, what I believe, what I feel is wrong, and whether I think I can do something about it.)

Let’s break it down.
💡 Identity gives people a sense of belonging — those who are directly affected, who are the movement. Think: parents of dark-haired girls being singled out at school. Neurodiverse kids systematically sidelined.
💡 Moral conviction is the real gateway to solidarity. It pulls in those who may not share the experience, but who recognize the violation of a fundamental principle: Every child deserves dignity. Equal opportunities are not negotiable. No one should be punished for who they are.

That’s the magic formula: concrete identity + universal moral cause. This is how you build bridges: From my child to all children.
From my experience to our values.
From my pain to a collective refusal to stay silent.

So yes — mobilize as a parent of a dark-haired girl. But do it in the name of women’s rights. Yes — speak up as a father of a boy with learning challenges. But let it be a call for equal opportunity for every learner.

Let specific pain feed universal outrage. This is how we resist — not just by standing against something, but by standing for something that touches many.
And one more thing: the research is clear — people will not act unless they believe it matters. Efficacy isn’t a nice bonus; it’s the engine of sustained resistance. If you’re organizing something, make it visible. Make it winnable. Make people believe that their voice is part of a force.

This is not the time for quiet despair. It’s the time to read, reflect, organize — and speak like it counts!

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000256

🧠 Where are the thinkers when democracy is under threat?

When human rights become “political.”
When climate science gets labeled “ideology.”
When companies are punished for standing by liberal values.

Thinkers50 calls itself the home of the leading management thinkers of our age. But in an age like this — why is the Radar so silent?

Where are the voices that unsettle, provoke, resist?

Instead of revelation, we get repackaging.
Instead of depth, "what sells"
Instead of truth, "what power wants to hear".

And let’s be honest: A ranking system for thought leadership might just perpetuate performativity.
Rewarding clarity over complexity, visibility over substance, and clever frameworks over moral courage.

Otto Laske reminds us: thinking isn’t a product.
It’s a process — dialectical, disruptive, developmental. It’s about seeing reality in motion, not fixing it into a deck.

So here’s the real question:

💥 What if Thinkers50 reclaimed thinking as an act of resistance?
Not market-friendly innovation, but truth-telling.
Not spotlighting stars, but amplifying dissent.
Not riding the wave, but revealing what lies beneath.

Because right now, if you’re a scientist — if you care about democracy, truth, or the conditions for human dignity — these are not normal times.

So Thinkers50: Will you keep celebrating what fits the system? Or will you start lifting up those who question the system itself?

The world doesn’t need more frameworks.
It needs more courage. And that by the way is asked from all thinkers out there (also those who never made it on the list).

Practical Wisdom: Why We Need It – and Why We Rarely See It

Social critics and political pundits have sounded the alarm on the rise of incivility, the spread of misinformation, the growing distrust in institutions, and the lack of ethical considerations in our governance systems. A staggering 62% of the world’s population believes the world is getting worse. Meanwhile, social and behavioral scientists call for more intellectual humility and open-mindedness to navigate the complexities of our time.
At the heart of these concerns is a fundamental question: What is wisdom, and how do we investigate it scientifically?

An international group of leading psychological wisdom researchers has developed a shared conceptualization of wisdom, distinguishing it from related constructs such as empathy, humility, openness, and rationality. A key aspect of this conceptualization is practical wisdom (phronesis)—the ability to apply deep insight, moral sensibility, and adaptability in real-world decision-making.

What is Practical Wisdom (in Psychology)?
👉 A meta-cognitive process that enables people to navigate uncertainty, resolve ethical conflicts, and balance competing interests by considering multiple perspectives and long-term consequences.

It consists of two core capabilities:
✅ Moral Orientation – not rigid rule-following, but the skillful navigation between self-interest, compassion, and the well-being of the community.
✅ Perspectival Meta-Cognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking to improve decision-making. This includes:
🔹 Epistemic humility – recognizing one’s own limitations and learning from different perspectives
🔹 Context adaptability – responding flexibly to various challenges
🔹 Perspective-taking – considering multiple viewpoints to see through illusions and self-deception

🚨 Why Do We See So Little Practical Wisdom in Leadership? Because we systematically select for the wrong traits. Research shows:
❌ We promote overconfidence, but we need humility. Bold certainty is mistaken for competence, while the ability to acknowledge limits and learn from others is overlooked.
❌ We reward egotism, but we need more interindependence. Self-centered ambition is seen as leadership material, while those who truly take responsibility for the greater good are often ignored.

💡 We must fundamentally rethink how we choose our leaders. Our selection systems—whether in business, politics, or society—need to prioritize wisdom over performative confidence and long-term responsibility over short-term self-promotion.
And in times when wisdom is lacking, we must actively spread and elevate positive role models—those who embody humility, moral courage, and deep insight. Because without wisdom, leadership becomes reckless.

Link to article: 

From Equal Opportunity to Executive Enrichment: The Quiet Corporate Retreat

CEO pay continues to climb while companies quietly scale back their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Across industries, we’re seeing layoffs of DEI teams, the rollback of work-family policies, and shrinking benefits—suggesting that many corporate commitments to fairness and inclusion were more symbolic than structural. At the same time, executive compensation and shareholder payouts remain at record highs.

A deep dive ( 👇 ) by Bidwell, Briscoe, Fernandez-Mateo, and Sterling (2013) reveals a long-term transformation of employment relationships—not just in the U.S., but across many economies—where stability, fairness, and internal career development have been replaced by market-driven employment models that concentrate rewards at the top while increasing precarity for workers.

🔹 Job stability has eroded. Long-term employment, once a cornerstone of corporate life, has been replaced by higher turnover, more layoffs, and a preference for external hiring—often disadvantaging those without elite networks.

🔹 The rise of contingent work. Gig work, temp contracts, and outsourcing mean fewer protections and more job insecurity—particularly for women and marginalized workers.

🔹 From fairness to hyper-individualism. Internal career ladders and seniority-based pay have been replaced by performance-based compensation, which the authors show often reinforces inequality rather than rewarding effort fairly.

🔹 The shift of risk to workers. Pensions have largely been replaced by defined contribution plans, employer-sponsored healthcare is shrinking, and benefits that once provided stability are now seen as business costs to be minimized.

🔹 Commitments to inclusion and fairness? Quietly scaled back. Many companies are cutting DEI initiatives, treating them as optional rather than core to business strategy.

The authors emphasize that these shifts didn’t just happen—they were deliberate corporate choices, shaped by the decline of unions, the rise of shareholder-first governance, and the increasing role of financial markets in shaping employment strategies.

So where does this leave us? If companies continue optimizing for short-term financial gains while scaling back their commitments to worker stability and inclusion, we risk further entrenching an economy where opportunity is increasingly reserved for the few. And as we see in the U.S., when economic power is concentrated at the top, it quickly translates into political influence—threatening the foundations of democracy itself.

📢 How should companies be held accountable for the employment systems they create? What needs to change? 

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2013.761403

Moral Imagination: Why Companies Need Ethical Innovation

Why do some organizations navigate ethical challenges with aplomb, while others stumble time and again? The difference lies not in better compliance systems, but in a deeper skill: moral imagination.

Moral imagination (see article 👇) goes beyond compliance. It enables companies to ask not only: How do we avoid harm? But rather: How can we help shape a fairer, more sustainable world through our actions?

Three central dimensions:
1️⃣ Reproductive imagination: recognizing that one's own perspective is limited. “My view is incomplete.”
2️⃣ Productive imagination: Breaking down existing thought patterns, seeing the world through different eyes - especially those that are systematically excluded.
3️⃣ Free reflection: Discovering new ethical solutions beyond dilemma thinking.

How organizations can cultivate moral imagination?

✅ Institutionalize epistemic humility:
- Implement red teams that question existing assumptions
- Promote a culture in which uncertainty and not knowing are considered productive
- Rewarding intellectual humility

Orchestrate perspectival plurality:
- Building deliberative spaces in which diverse perspectives are not only heard, but actively integrated
- Inclusion of marginalized stakeholders - not as a PR measure, but as a necessary strategy to avoid blind spots

✅ Develop narrative competence:
- Training for leaders to recognize the implicit narratives that shape their moral judgment
- Using storytelling as a tool for ethical reflection and decision-making

✅ Enable ethical improvisation
- Create ethical sandboxes where teams can test alternative moral scenarios
- Promote a dynamic dialog between principles and lived reality instead of rigid rules

✅ Strengthen temporal-ethical thinking
- Promote future-oriented reflection: “How will this decision be judged in 10 years' time?”
- Align ethical standards not only with current expectations, but also with long-term social responsibility

Ethical innovation is not only created by individuals, but also by structures that expand rather than narrow the moral space of possibility. Organizational “affordances” are:
✔ Intellectual curiosity instead of defensive justification
✔ A culture of reflection that legitimizes deep thought
✔ Generative rather than extractive relationships with all stakeholders

The challenge for companies is therefore not just to respond to moral crises, but to create spaces in which ethical imagination can grow!

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12206

🌿 While the US Shouts "Drill Baby Drill," Here's a Practical Framework for Actually Giving a Damn

Just stumbled upon this really nice regeneration canvas that's perfectly timed as we watch politicians compete over who can dig up fossil fuels faster.

Let's get practical about what regeneration actually means: "the process of rebuilding or renewal of the COMMON GOOD" - taking an asset, ecosystem, community or place from crisis to recovery.

This "double loop" business model canvas flips the script on traditional business thinking:

🌿 It connects BUSINESS VALUE and COMMUNITY VALUE in a virtuous cycle
🌿 It asks what products/services you should TERMINATE (yes, sometimes less is more!)
🌿 It focuses on PROTECTING, REPAIRING, INVESTING & TRANSFORMING the commons
🌿 It measures MISSION COST alongside IMPACT

What makes this approach refreshing is how it forces organizations to face hard truths. The canvas asks: "What products and services do we terminate?" - a question most sustainability initiatives conveniently avoid.

While politicians debate whether climate change is real (spoiler: it is), frameworks like this give businesses practical tools to stop pretending that slapping "eco-friendly" on the label is enough. But let's be clear - this is just a starting point. Real regeneration will require deeper systemic change, challenging ownership models, and fundamentally rethinking whom we are serving, with what good purpose.

To round it up a comment from the originator Christian Sarkar 🌱🇺🇦🇵🇸: "Our institutions are not fit for purpose – either because they are corrupt, or because they lack the imagination and will required for the tasks at hand. The same can be said for our leaders. They have betrayed the public trust.
For forty years the institutions of the world have worked to “mitigate” climate change with no results – or worse – failure to stop the rapid destruction of the ecosystems which keep us all alive. Leaders and businesses have largely ignored the cries of our dying planet." Or to say it with Mintzberg: lets stop corporate irresponsibility!

Transforming Anger into Durable Moral Courage

Many of us feel it: the setbacks in society are generating anger. But anger alone won’t take us forward. What matters is transforming it into moral courage—not as a fleeting burst of bravery, but as durable moral courage that withstands resistance.

Comer & Sekerka ( 👇 ) describe in their model how durable moral courage enables sustained ethical action. Their framework identifies three key insulating factors that prevent morally committed individuals from becoming discouraged or even demoralized in the face of opposition.

🔹 Moral Efficacy: Moral courage begins with the belief that one can remain effective even in difficult situations. Those who see themselves as capable of tackling ethical challenges are less likely to lose faith in their ability to act—no matter how strong the resistance.

🔹 Resilience (Hardiness): Research shows that resilient individuals share three key traits:

🫀 They stay engaged despite obstacles rather than withdrawing.
🫀 They believe they can exert influence instead of feeling powerless.
🫀 They view crises as opportunities for learning, not just as threats.

🔹 Planning for Endurance: Moral integrity is not a one-time act, but a long-term strategy. Successful moral actors actively plan for resistance. This includes:

🫀 Anticipating possible reactions
🫀 Understanding political dynamics
🫀 Building strategic networks
🫀 Forming alliances with like-minded individuals
🫀 Accepting that change is often slow

And when resistance has already materialized? Emotional self-regulation helps prevent demoralization. This includes self-affirmation (reflecting on past successes), self-compassion (without falling into self-pity), and seeking social support.

What does this mean in practice? Rightous anger may be the first step—the key is what we do with it. Moral courage - if understood as steadfastness requires strategy, resilience, and long-term planning. So it is also good to understand how to deal with power. 

Links: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/books/power-why-some-people-have-it-others-dont

Market for Lemons? Why the CEO Labor Market is an Illusion

CEO compensation is - rightly - being discussed again today. The common line of defense? The “market for talent”. Supposedly, companies have to pay ever higher salaries because otherwise they are not competitive internationally - especially in comparison to the USA.

But does this market even exist? Does CEO search really function like a classic labor market, where supply and demand objectively produce the best talent and the fairest prices?

A new study by Keil, Lavie & Pavićević (2022) shows: No. The CEO market is less like an open competition for the best than a market for lemons - full of uncertainties, misjudgements and systematically wrong decisions.

Why the CEO job market is an illusion:

❄️Externe CEOs are not a better solution - often quite the opposite

1) Companies pay top salaries for “experienced” external executives. But the study shows: The length and breadth of experience says little about subsequent performance.
2) More important than experience is fit: CEOs who come from companies with completely different structures, industries or cultures struggle with negative transfer effects. They overestimate the transferability of old recipes for success and often fail due to internal resistance.

❄️Stakeholder Resistance eats up supposed advantages:
3) External CEOs have to earn the trust of leadership teams, the workforce, investors and customers.
4) The study shows that negative reactions to the appointment of a CEO are a major reason for poor company performance - and that this effect is particularly pronounced in the case of external CEOs.
5) Meaning: If you spend a lot of money on a CEO who is rejected internally, you not only pay the salary, but also the costs of inefficiency.

The real alternative: no auction, but systematic succession planning

If the CEO market is not a fair marketplace, but a distorted playing field, then the solution is not “pay more”. Instead, a different strategy is needed:

✅ Targeted succession development instead of a frantic search for external “saviors” - with a focus on fit and internal acceptance.
✅ Clear, long-term remuneration models that promote sustainable leadership instead of buying in the most expensive talent in the short term.
✅ A CEO system instead of a superstar cult - where responsibility is broadly distributed instead of giving one person excessive power and pay.

A functioning company is not a soccer club that has to buy the best player. Those who systematically develop leadership don't need salary competitions - and don't end up with a lemon.

Links: 

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=8702968818123764853&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&t=1742197532644&u=%23p%3DA0-QD_iWWu0J

https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/UBS-GROUP-ANNUAL-REPORT-ERMOTTI-5ea2fef2-ce82-4df4-8c39-b344c6898ad6

SMART Goals are not always smart!

I have been teaching this now for a long time and newer evidence just validates some of the issues mentioned here. In particular specific and challenging have been found lead to ignorance and to undermine conterfactual reasoning - hence if you are searching for critical thinking, mindfulness and creativity you might want to steer clear of these. And challenging, stretch goals have been linked to counterproductive work behaviors - gaming, tweaking and unethical behaviors.

Thus reading the article (comments 👇) which was brave enough to bring this into the light is still a must: "Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting" by Ordóñez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, and Bazerman.

Their "Ten Questions to Ask Before Setting Goals" table is revelatory. It warns that overly specific goals create tunnel vision, challenging goals can demotivate when skills are lacking, and short-term targets damage long-term performance. The table explains how goals distort risk preferences, making employees more likely to take dangerous risks. Perhaps most concerning, goals narrow focus in ways that make people less likely to recognize ethical issues and more likely to rationalize unethical behavior.

The authors recommend multiple safeguards: ensure goals comprehensively cover all critical components, provide adequate training, create transparent processes involving multiple stakeholders, articulate acceptable risk levels, implement strong oversight, consider team-based goals when collaboration matters, and recognize when learning goals are more appropriate than performance goals. They suggest avoiding goals entirely when intrinsic motivation is already high.

It also bears healthy lessons both for research and practice. In research we should not let paradigm holder (here goal setting theory) prevent adversal results to see the light of the day. And in practice we should finally kiss best practices good-bye - horses for courses is the better view. And stay reflective (if your goals do not prevent it).

Link to article: https://www.academia.edu/download/54138593/hbr_research.pdf

Transforming Anger into Prudent Courage

Many people feel it: social setbacks generate anger. But anger alone will not get us anywhere. It is crucial to transform it into moral courage - not as a spontaneous act of strength, but as lasting moral courage that stands up to resistance.

In their model, Comer & Sekerka (in the commentary) describe how lasting moral courage enables long-term ethical action. Their model identifies three key insulating factors that prevent moral agents from being discouraged or even demoralized by resistance.

🔹 Moral efficacy: Moral courage begins with the conviction that one can remain effective even in difficult situations. Those who see themselves as capable of overcoming ethical challenges are less likely to lose faith in their ability to act - even when the headwinds are strong.

🔹 Resilience (hardiness): Research shows that resilient people have three things in common:
- They engage despite resistance instead of resigning.
- They believe they can exert influence instead of feeling powerless.
- They see crises as learning opportunities, not just threats.

🔹 Planning for endurance: Moral integrity is not a one-off act, but a long-term strategy. Successful moral actors consciously plan for resistance. This includes:
- Anticipating possible reactions
- Understanding political dynamics
- Building strategic networks
- Alliances with like-minded people
- Accepting that change is often slow

What if the resistance is already there? Emotional self-regulation helps to avoid being overwhelmed by demoralization. This includes self-affirmation (remembering past successes), self-compassion (without sinking into self-pity) and social support.

What does this mean in concrete terms? Anger is only the first step - what we do with it is crucial. Moral resilience requires strategy, resilience and long-term planning. It will be an endurance run - but that's exactly what we need now!

Link to article: https://www.academia.edu/download/112797618/116035.pdf

Why Slashing Public Administration Undermines Democracy

Recent aggressive cuts to federal administration in the US aren't just about "trimming the fat" - they strike at the heart of democratic governance. Johan Olsen's seminal work "Maybe It Is Time to Rediscover Bureaucracy" helps us understand why.

Public administration serves critical democratic functions:

⚖️ Safeguarding constitutional principles and the rule of law
⚖️ Ensuring equal treatment of all citizens regardless of wealth or status
⚖️ Providing institutional memory and stability across political transitions
⚖️ Implementing democratically determined policies with integrity
⚖️ Speaking truth to power through professional expertise

Why bureaucracy remains essential for public administration:

Bureaucratic organization, despite its negative stereotypes, is uniquely designed to protect these democratic values. Merit-based hiring, standardized procedures, and professional norms create an environment where decisions are made impartially, based on rules rather than personal preferences. Research shows that well-crafted (green not red) bureaucracies are associated with reduced corruption, greater social trust, and more effective poverty reduction.

The role of markets and networks:

While market mechanisms can improve efficiency and networks can enhance collaboration, neither can replace bureaucracy's core democratic functions. Markets respond to wealth, not citizenship rights. Networks privilege those with existing connections. The tensions between these forms are not bugs but features of democratic governance - they represent the ongoing balance between efficiency, responsiveness, and constitutional values.

When the business hammer sees everything as a nail:

Too many management scholars and business executives approach government with a dangerous assumption: that skills and principles from the corporate world can be directly applied to public administration. This "hammer looking for nails" approach fundamentally misunderstands the distinct nature of states versus companies. Businesses exist to maximize profit for shareholders; governments exist to serve citizens equally and protect constitutional rights. Before prescribing corporate solutions, management experts would do well to study the unique requirements and responsibilities of democratic governance.

What's at stake:

When we slash public administration in the name of "efficiency," we're not just cutting costs - we're undermining the institutional infrastructure of democracy itself. The current gutting of federal agencies is very likely not about making government work better - it's about weakening government's capacity to serve all citizens equally and implement democratically established policies.

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mui027

🔥 We got it wrong.

By ripping HR away from Organizational Development, we lost our most powerful lever for shaping well-being, engagement, and performance: work design. Instead of tackling the fundamental question—how work is structured—we buried ourselves in performance appraisals, high-powered incentives, and engagement surveys. A reactive mess that ignores the real drivers of motivation and productivity.

But work design is organizational development. And a new model is cutting through the noise to bring structure back to this fragmented field.

💥 The SMART Work Design Model
Parker & Knight (2024) propose an integrated framework that links work characteristics directly to organizational design decisions—where power, responsibility, and meaning in work are shaped:

1️⃣ Stimulating – Shaped by horizontal division of labor (how tasks are allocated). Includes task variety, skill variety, information processing, and problem-solving requirements.
2️⃣ Mastery – Reflects integration through information (how organizations coordinate). Includes job feedback, feedback from others, and role clarity.
3️⃣ Autonomous – Derives from vertical division of labor (who controls decisions). Includes decision-making autonomy, timing autonomy, and method autonomy.
4️⃣ Relational – Captures integration through social processes (how employees connect). Includes social support, task significance, and beneficiary contact.
5️⃣ Tolerable – Relates to effort allocation (how workload is managed). Includes role overload, work-home conflict, and role conflict.

🩻 The Data: Why It Matters
Across three studies, Parker & Knight found that the SMART model doesn’t just make intuitive sense—it predicts performance outcomes. And while I focus on performance here, the research covers more (read the article!).

🩺 Autonomy correlated with core task performance (r = 0.23, p < 0.05) and proactive performance (taking charge: r = 0.25, strategic scanning: r = 0.25).
🩺 Mastery had the strongest link to core task performance (r = 0.27, p < 0.01).
🩺 Relational work was associated with core task performance (r = 0.24, p < 0.05) and showed the highest correlation with adaptive performance (r = 0.30, p < 0.01).
🩺 Tolerable work was also positively linked to adaptive performance (r = 0.22, p < 0.05).

🚀 The Future of HR: Time to Step Up
The takeaway: Performance management isn’t just an HR initiative—it’s an organizational design problem. If companies want to actually improve performance, engagement, and well-being, they need to design better jobs.

But let’s not stop there. The impact of work design doesn’t happen in isolation. Daily relational practices, everyday performance conversations, and learning mechanisms must be brought together to make work design effective. And that? That’s HR’s job. HR should reclaim its role as the architect of better, smarter, more human work!

Link to article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hrm.22200

Full power ahead!

It's true - we need concentrated performance. But above all, we need a huge joint effort to create viable solutions in (and with) companies. Now more than ever!

But our current performance management is holding us back. The current models - the bureaucratic machine model with control and extrinsic incentives and the agile organism model with individualism and competition - create more problems than they solve. While one stifles creativity, the other often destabilizes organizations and encourages unethical behavior. Studies show: Employees are frustrated, performance evaluations are often useless and variable remuneration systems are full of misguided incentives. Instead of tweaking old parameters, we need a radical change of perspective: performance is created in an environment that promotes personal growth, responsibility and collective excellence.

Life-enhancing performance management focuses on collaboration instead of internal competition, recognizes people as actors with rights and combines individual and collective goals. Companies such as VAUDE and Allsafe show how: There is another way. They shape performance as a shared responsibility, promote learning-oriented feedback cultures and replace manipulative incentive systems with fair, sustainable remuneration. A new performance culture is possible - one that not only increases short-term profits, but also makes companies resilient and fit for the future. Because true performance is not about adapting to an outdated system, but about shaping a better future together.

The article is based on https://lnkd.in/dJARdKek

Bullying in the Workplace—and Beyond: A Systemic Challenge

With some of the most visible figures on the world stage thriving on intimidation, it is more than timely to reflect on bullying—not just as an interpersonal issue but as a systemic one. Despite extensive research documenting its detrimental effects on individuals and organizations, bullying often remains unaddressed, tolerated, or even mistaken for “strong leadership.”

What is Bullying? Bullying is a pattern of persistent, harmful behavior aimed at undermining, humiliating, or excluding others. It manifests in multiple forms:

- Hostile bullying (overt aggression, public humiliation)
- Instrumental bullying (manipulation, gaslighting, social exclusion)
- Cyberbullying (online harassment, reputational attacks)
- Structural bullying (abuse of power within hierarchical systems)

Myths That Perpetuate Bullying:

❌ “Tough leadership is necessary for performance.” Evidence suggests the opposite—bullies stifle innovation, erode trust, and drive high performers away.
❌ “It’s just competition.” Healthy competition is based on merit, not intimidation or sabotage.
❌ “Only weak individuals become targets.” Research indicates that bullies often target high-performing, conscientious individuals to consolidate power.

Addressing Bullying: Prevention is the best way!

- Organizational safeguards: Clear policies, transparent decision-making, and just grievance mechanisms are essential.
- Selection and promotion: Screening for toxic traits helps prevent the normalization of aggressive behavior.
- Leadership accountability: Training in ethical leadership and non-violent communication should be a core organizational practice.

💡 Aristotle argued that anger is only justified when dignity is at stake, yet he also warned that most people have an excess of anger. Hence, when in doubt, mildness is better. And of course, this does never excuse unregulated, narcissistic, or impulsive rage—which is far more prevalent. Organizations must ensure they do not select, promote, or tolerate individuals prone to destructive anger, as they contribute to a culture of fear rather than excellence. Nor should voters 😉

Link to article: https://hbr.org/2022/11/how-bullying-manifests-at-work-and-how-to-stop-it

Should We Turn to City Diplomacy? 🌍🏙️

Cities have only recently become an object of intense research. Yet, in many ways, they are the true centers of power—holding their own jurisdictions, cultivating cultural-political identities, and shaping distinct 'urban' ways of life through commerce, transport, and leisure.

As state leaders oscillate between incompetence and chaos, could cities become our last strongholds for well-being—and perhaps even for enabling the good life? Are cities, rather than nations, the real agents of progress in an era of democratic backsliding?

📚 March’s Book Tip: City of Equals by Jonathan Wolff and Avner de-Shalit. From a philosopher’s corner, this book applies an engaged scholarship lens to uncover what makes some cities more attractive to egalitarians than others. Take Berkeley—far from economically equal, yet still managing to cultivate an “egalitarian spirit.”

The authors identify four core values that underpin a "city of equals":
1️⃣ Non-market access to goods and services – ensuring essential services and amenities are accessible to all residents, regardless of their economic status.
2️⃣ Sense of meaning – fostering opportunities for individuals to engage in meaningful activities and community participation.
3️⃣ Diversity and social mixing – promoting diverse communities and encouraging interactions among different social groups.
4️⃣ Non-deferential inclusion – ensuring that all residents can access their rights and services without discrimination or bureaucratic obstacles.

At its core, the book offers policy recommendations on how cities can strengthen their egalitarian spirit—or at the very least, prevent the creation of starkly disadvantaged classes. A critical read for all the mega-cities out there striving to remain “the place to go for all” while grappling with rising inequalities and exclusion.

But of course, this book—like many others—could also serve as a springboard to a bigger question: If cities can act as incubators of fairness and inclusion, should they also become global players in diplomacy? 🌆✨

What do you think—how can cities take the lead when nations fail?

Organizational Change: From Punctuated Equilibrium to Theory U - And What is Still Missing

The idea of organizational transformation has changed significantly over the last 30 years. While in the 1980s it was understood as a radical, strategic realignment of power, structure and control, later organizational theories focused on continuous adaptation. At the same time, the practice of organizational development (OD) continued to develop - with methods such as Large Group Interventions, Appreciative Inquiry or Dialogic OD, which enable transformation through collaborative sense-making. And yet a crucial gap remains.

🔍 The different approaches to transformation

1️⃣ Punctuated Equilibrium (Tushman & Romanelli, 1985)
Transformation is understood as a discontinuous, strategic upheaval in which power relations, structures and control change radically within a short period of time - often controlled by the company's top management.

2️⃣ Large Group Interventions (Bunker & Alban, 1997)
A systemic approach in which all relevant stakeholders are actively involved in the change process. Transformation comes about through collective discussions and decisions.

3️⃣ Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987)
The focus here is on positive experiences and visions. The approach assumes that increased organizational awareness generates a moral commitment to positive change.

4️⃣ Dialogic OD (Bushe & Marshak, 2009)
Transformation here means a change in the organizational narrative. Discourses generate new self-understandings and patterns, whereby organizations reorganize themselves.

5️⃣ Theory U (Otto Scharmer, 2016)
This approach sees transformation as a profound change in awareness. By going through the “U-curve” - from letting go of old ways of thinking to perceiving new possibilities and implementing them - a new reality can unfold.

🔎 The gap: Where is the material reality?

Changing consciousness, narratives and dialog are central components of transformation - but they fall short if they are not considered together with material structures, practices and power relations. This reveals a fundamental weakness of many modern OD approaches: They rely heavily on self-organization and emergent meaning-making without taking sufficient account of how existing hierarchies, resource distributions and institutional frameworks facilitate or block transformation.

Scharmer speaks of a “blind spot” in change: the lack of consideration of the individual. I would add: The real blind spot is the lack of engagement with the hard realities of power and structure.

Which approaches succeed in linking these levels?