Welcome to the Council on Business & Society magazine Global Voice #24. 117 pages, 33 faculty and CEO contributors, including insights on leadership, team performance, sustainability transition, business decisions, education, the project economy, sustainable farming, and generational capital

Global Voice magazine #24: A precious bauble. On download.

A special warm welcome to this new-look Global Voice magazine issue #24!

As the end of the year approaches and a new year begins, we deliberately choose Hope with a capital H as a gift when you open this issue of our quarterly magazine. Hope in the form of our capacity – the Council on Business & Society schools and you, our readers – to learn, gain meaning, set things right, and contribute to positively changing the world.

First and foremost is our planet – that precious bauble we can imagine nestled in our Christmas trees, and perhaps one which we hope to nurture and make grow as the New Year turns.

Global Voice magazine: What this issue offers you

Prof. Adrian Zicari, Academic Director of the Council, offers an opening Editorial with a focus on the future of jobs and the need for a profound revision of existing business models to support a low carbon and circular economy. And this time, our feature cartoon leaves our usual brash glance at business and society aside to highlight the spangle of childhood and everything that seems possible when young, especially during this special time of the year.    

Following on from this, the Management & Leadership section dives into the dilemma of short and long term corporate vision and how CEOs make their decisions, the rise of a new phenomenon in the purpose-driven ecosystem in which private individuals help companies aim for sustainability, an interview with a leading CEO on how to drive sustainability transition, spot-on research into whether employee humility or modesty provide the best outcomes for performance and career, and, finally, how businesses can blend responsibility into their decisions in developing countries to avoid sparking conflict.

Our second section in the magazine – Business, Society, Planet –  brings fascinating research from Japan into the mother-daughter relationship and consumer habits, the debate over whether working from home will help disabled people overcome job market disadvantage, a focus on the rise of the project economy, climate action from both a philanthropic angle and the use of nudging techniques for the wider public, and finally an insight into how our super seniors can help younger generations solve the pressing issues of our times.

Global Voice: Using the magazine to the full

Recently reading for a second time Ray Bradbury’s bestselling novel Fahrenheit 451, two insights in particular stood out more than any other – his suggestion that in a near future reading would no longer exist, replaced by the visual and ephemeral pleasure of online media entertainment; and secondly, that the road to this would begin in reducing texts to their minimum to make literature easier, more consumable, quicker to swallow and also quicker to forget as texts lose knowledge and food for thought. Nearly 70 years after it was written, the novel’s predictions seem worryingly real.

This is not the way of Global Voice magazine. We purposefully decide to offer texts to chew on, think about, sometimes struggle over – and always learn from.

For learning is a challenge that our brains have to deal with. And the more our brains work as they take in the written word, understand and put them into perspective, the more muscled and better our brains become at doing it. And far from an ephemeral visual pleasure, it might well lead to deep and long-term happiness.

So, whether a professional working in a company or organisation, a teacher, trainer or student – or simply one of the enlightened who believes in responsible business that can benefit society and planet – we invite you to open Global Voice and bite into the top-level research from the CoBS schools made readable and often practical.

Browse, page turn, choose whatever piques your interest, opt for the journey and gymnastics of reading and enjoy the challenge and hidden gifts that await you. Who knows – the journey might spark further thought and a topic of conversation over dinner. And perhaps that thought will then turn into ideas, which become innovations, which become your positive change for the promising New Year ahead.

So, from the magazine’s Editorial team and representatives in each CoBS member institution,

Enjoy your reading!

The “Brains that have brawn” featured in this issue

Useful links:

• View the Global Voice collection on the CoBS website downloads page
• Download our previous Global Voice issue #23.

Learn more about the Council on Business & Society

The Council on Business & Society (The CoBS), visionary in its conception and purpose, was created in 2011, and is dedicated to promoting responsible leadership and tackling issues at the crossroads of business and society including sustainability, diversity, ethical leadership and the place responsible business has to play in contributing to the common good.  

• Follow the CoBS on Twitter and LinkedIn

Member schools are all “Triple Crown” accredited AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA and leaders in their respective countries.

• ESSEC Business School, France-Singapore-Morocco
• FGV-EAESP, Brazil
• School of Management Fudan University, China
• IE Business School, Spain
• Keio Business School, Japan
• Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa
• Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
• Warwick Business School, United Kingdom.