THE ABUNDANCE OF RECENT CONFERENCES and articles on responsible management, corporate purpose and stakeholder theory suggest that leaders and management scholars alike are searching for solutions to an economic system that has produced crises of global warming, inequality, pollution and other issues. Yet, we tend to look at our navels when we do so — thinking from within the current system rather than exploring entirely different ways of knowing.
That’s why concepts such as shared value and environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics dominate the conversation: By arguing that you can ‘do well by doing good,’ we imply that we can solve these problems without disrupting existing power and economic arrangements. We often fail to appreciate that the economic system reflecting these arrangements is inherently a colonial one that was originally designed to exploit people and the land.
If we are going to find solutions, they will have does for us in her excellent book, (UBC Press, 2023).
