1st Edition
Business Transformation for a Sustainable Future
Interconnecting the concepts of sustainability, innovation and transformation, this book explains how organizations have successfully transformed themselves and wider society to foster a more sustainable future, and identifies the difficulties and challenges along the way. Part of the Principle of Responsible Management Education (PRME) series, the book promotes a strong voice for meeting sustainability challenges for transformative change in a globalized world through business education and practice.
A transition to a more sustainable way of doing business can only be attained by combining technology with profound system innovations and lifestyle changes. The chapters in the book, each written by a strong and well-recognized team of researchers in the field, open up the discussion about a new partnership between sustainability, innovation, and transformation that includes the global society (big world), the biosphere (small planet), and also requires a deep mind shift. The book presents cases from business (including Ikea and Eataly) and other service networks including the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), and illustrates how these organizations have transformed themselves for a sustainable future. The research perspectives are macro (policies and legislation), meso (institutional practices) and micro (business practices and individual behavior). This book is where research meets real-world business and societal practice. The chapters are grounded in business research, specifically the interdependencies between sustainability, innovation, and transformation, which makes for a robust basis for describing, explaining, and understanding the complex challenges faced by business and society in the 21st century.
The book is intended for graduate- and postgraduate-level students and executive education with implications for practitioners. Furthermore, it contributes to multidisciplinary research in the field of interaction between business and society with a view to extending the firm-centric view to encompass a broader, systemic, and dynamic understanding of business and societal transformation.
Samuel Petros Sebhatu, Bo Enquist and Bo Edvardsson
Part I: From firm-centric business to a broader sustainable business transformation
2. A Challenge-driven business ecosystem: Addressing Fossil-Free Transformation
Bo Enquist and Samuel Petros Sebhatu
3. The Circular Economy and Values based Sustainability Business Practice: People & Planet Positive at IKEA
Bo Enquist and Samuel Petros Sebhatu
4. Sustainable business practice for Transformative Change: The Case of Eataly
Laura Di Pietro, Maria Francesca Renzi and Bo Edvardsson
Part II: The role of the individual in business and social transformation
5. Designing for Transformative Collaboration in Complex Service systems
Lia Patricio, Ray Fisk, and Bo Edvardsson
6. Steering Towards Happiness in Sustainable Travel
Margareta Friman and Lars Olsson
7. Transforming People’s Lives and World for the Better: The New Purpose of Marketing
Per Kristensson
Part III: Base of the Pyramid thinking for transforming business-societal practice
8. Advancing Service Research at the Base of the Pyramid: A Service Ecosystems Perspective
Ana Valdes, Javier Reynoso and Bo Edvardsson
9. The Integrative Justice Model as a Challenge-Driven Normative Framework for Sustainable and Just Business Practice
Nicholas Santos and Gene Laczniak
10. Innovative Applications for Transformative Justice for Quality of Life
Tina M. Facca-Miess
Part IV: Implications for a broader societal perspective for challenge-driven transformation practice
11. Marketing ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility for a Broader Societal Perspective,
Patrick Murphy and Gene Laczniak
12. PRIME: impact for transformative change
Samuel Petros Sebhatu
13. Implications for Challenge-Driven Business and Societal Transformation
Bo Enquist, Samuel Petros Sebhatu and Bo Edvardsson
Biography
Samuel Petros Sebhatu is Assistant Professor in Business Administration, at Karlstad Business School and researcher at Service Research Center (CTF), Karlstad University, Sweden. His research focuses on management, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, business models and sustainability in different contexts of service research. He is a co-founder of CTF/SAMOT Service Innovation Lab at Karlstad Innovation Park.
Bo Enquist is Senior Professor of Business Administration and research fellow at Service Research Centre (CTF) at Karlstad University since April 2017. Since 2006, he has been a member of the executive team and Deputy Director of the Vinn Excellent Center, Service and Market Oriented Transport research (SAMOT). He used to work for more than 20 years in different businesses at the management and executive levels before embarking on his academic career.
Bo Edvardsson is Professor of Business Administration, founder of CTF-Service Research Centre and former Vice Rector, Karlstad University, Sweden. He is also Professor 2 at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. He has received the RESER Award for lifetime achievement to scholarship from The European Association for Service Research and the AMA Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award. Formerly editor of the Journal of Service Management, he is on the editorial advisory boards of seven service and marketing journals.
"The perfect blend of theory and practice is hard to achieve - especially at the intersection of sustainability, innovation, and transformation of business and society! Nevertheless, these authors have done it well - check out Sebhatu, Enquist, and Edvardsson Business Transformation for a Sustainable Future and start taking well-informed action today. Also, the book provides a solid roadmap to go from smarter to wiser service systems for the 'wicked problems' in business and society."
Jim Spohrer, IBM Director Cognitive Open Technologies
"Business Transformation for a Sustainable Future is a key contribution to the PRME initiative and represents a powerful voice to draw attention to the sustainability challenges of our world. This book provides important lessons for businesses to transform from a strictly firm-centric and profit-driven approach toward a societal approach to achieve an inclusive and sustainable future. Onward!!!"
Robert Strand, Ph.D, Executive Director & Lecturer, Center for Responsible Business, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
"This book thrives from the blended and well-integrated contributions of 16 thought leaders in sustainability, innovation and transformative thinking. The perspective is based on research related to the ‘new social contract’ that supports a more sustainable and people-centered world. At a time when so much is being rethought, this work is important to graduate and postgraduate students as well as practitioners seeking to strive for a better world."
O.C. Ferrell, James T. Pursell, Sr. Eminent Scholar in Ethics, Harbert College of Business, Auburn University and Linda Ferrell, Roth Family Professor of Marketing & Business Ethics, Harbert College of Business, Auburn University
"The quest for transforming our world, making peace with nature and preserving our planet at the same time as ensuring equality and human wellbeing, demands transformations in science and education, and very much so in business research and at business schools. This book provides refined and novel intellectual tools – concepts and frameworks, as well as innovative practice-based and co-created knowledge, immensely useful for reconsidering prevailing notions and formulating sustainable solutions for the business-society interface."
Marie Stenseke, Professor, Deputy Dean of the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Co-chair of the Multidisciplinary Expert Panel of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
