I need some on reliable to follow all the steps bellow - Term paper info sheet attached -Use the readings attached as reference -proper apa format -make sure to include the social, financila, and ec

READING #1:

THE ELEPHANT(S) IN THE ROOM1

Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (LEAD 3030)

This reading provides a brief context for the course in the midst of Covid. In less than one single-spaced page total, provide a written response to two or more of the questions provided below. Your responses should indicate that you’ve reflected upon the reading and are coming to class prepared to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion in your Break Out group. Please submit your Preparedness Reports to the appropriate file in UMLearn at least one-hour prior to class, Thursday, Sept 16.

Introduction: The expression “the elephant in the room” describes the situation that occurs when really important topics/issues (i.e., elephants) are ignored in what people are discussing and paying attention to. In many ways, this course is about elephants in the business school, such as:

- the assumption of homo economicus (i.e., the assumption that it is rational for people to maximize their material self-interests) pervades the business school curriculum and theory, even though research says we are homo sapiens (who care for others and do altruistic things, and who are often not “rational” according to business theory);

- up to one-third of university students are diagnosably depressed (based on pre-Covid data), and yet we seldom talk about it and consider its underlying causes;

- scientists suggest that climate change is real and we are on the brink of disaster, but we seldom deeply consider what that means for businesses;

- we are aware of systemic racism that is embedded in many societal institutions, but do not spend much time thinking about how business students can and should address racism in their spheres of influence.

There are many other elephants. We can’t do them justice in a single course, but hopefully the course will inspire you to think differently about what it means to be an effective manager (hint: it’s not only about maximizing financial well-being). This first reading will focus on a new elephant—the effect of Covid specifically, and of pandemics more generally—seldom discussed in business textbooks and courses.

How has Covid affected you? Covid has, and is, affecting all of us. Its implications have been financial (e.g., 3 million Canadians unemployed, businesses bankruptcies), social (e.g., social distancing, decreasing mental health), physical (weight gain), and ecological (effect of humankind on ecosystems, reminder how we are connected to each other and nature via breath).

When it comes to discussing Covid, experts point to the importance of starting by listening to people’s personal stories. Let me start by saying that I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. In many ways, COVID-19 hasn’t been that disruptive to my everyday life: I still spend most of my day sitting behind a computer screen, working on research and emailing and so on. Although I understand and support the fact that our class in on Zoom, I much prefer the good old days with students in the classroom. Covid has had a greater effect on my immediate and extended family. My spouse, a front-line healthcare nurse working with an elderly population, spent months leaving the house with face mask and shield. My son has been among the 3 million unemployed Canadians (though he has had several term positions during Covid, and recently started a new job). And we are the lucky ones: many people spent months not allowed to leave their personal care homes or have visitors, while others have been hospitalized and faced death. Yet, even now that I am fully vaccinated, I still feel a cloud hanging over me …

Question #1: How has COVID affected you? Do you feel like your life has been put on ‘hold’ and find it depressing? Do you think Covid will be over soon, or will it linger for a while yet? What has the most difficult aspect to cope with, and what gives you hope?

Preventing, preparing for, and responding to crises like the pandemic. If nothing else, Covid reminds us that humankind is an inextricable member of a larger ecosystem, that we don’t live independently from the natural world around us. Even if we don’t recognize it, we are members of interdependent and complex systems connecting soil, water, plant and animal systems.2 For example, we rely on bacteria to keep our digestive system healthy just as they rely on us for food. And we depend on plants’ photosynthesis for producing the oxygen that we breathe just as plants depend on us to create the carbon dioxide that they need.

Although we may never know the exact factors that gave rise to Covid-19, we do know that public health officials had long been preparing for such a pandemic3, and that the number of pathogens like coronavirus have been increasing since the 1980s, and that viruses may represent the most significant single threat to humankind’s ongoing dominance of planet Earth.4 We also know that scientists have warned that climate change coupled with a general disregard for the natural world may increase the likelihood of such pandemics. The gist of the argument goes something like this: Climate change results in increasing variation in environmental temperatures which in turn may increase the rate of mutation of viruses, and humankind’s expanding footprint and encroachment on wildlife creates the need and opportunity for novel viruses to enter new species such as humans. Put simply: “We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”5 Other factors of modern society that hasten the spread of a novel virus include increased international travel, urbanization and living in close proximity, and conflict and the resulting decrease in health infrastructure.6

In addition to reducing conditions that facilitate the creation and spread of coronaviruses, we can also make preparations so that we are ready to deal with them when they arrive. For example, two months before the world’s first suspected case of COVID-19, the Global Health Security Index had published a scorecard that ranked 195 countries on their preparedness to tackle a serious outbreak: USA was ranked #1, and UK #2. However, within 6 months of its arrival, USA was #1 an UK #2 in terms of being the world’s biggest failures in managing COVID-19.7 There are many possible reasons for this, but one might be that these two countries and/or their leaders suffered from having an illusion of invulnerability.8 It seems that being well-prepared can create a false sense of confidence that leaves people more vulnerable to failure.

Question #2: What changes, if any, would you like to see made in terms of helping to prevent or prepare for future coronavirus pandemics? In particular, what can businesses do to reduce the conditions that foster such pandemics, and what can they do to prepare for them? More generally, when it comes to businesses dealing with issues like climate change and pandemics, do you think that the world’s leading corporations—who have the most resources to deal with and prepare for them—are in danger of suffering from an illusion of invulnerability? Explain.

Effect on business-as-usual. The effect of Covid on business has been far-ranging. Almost everyone I know who used to work in an office job started to work from home—for many this was a nice change, but that is slowly beginning to change as well. Three million Canadians were unemployed due to Covid, and many businesses went bankrupt or have been on the brink of doing so. Restaurants and small retailers are especially vulnerable. For awhile at least, front-line worker like grocery clerks and nurses experienced society’s love and appreciation like never before.

What will the effect be on business be going forward? The focus in this reading won’t be on specific trends (e.g., towards working from home and online shopping9), but more at a macro level with a focus on possible implications for sustainability. Consider the following continuum of possible responses regarding what will happen to business-as-usual post-Covid. On one end of the continuum is the “threat-rigidity response”,10 which is based on research showing that when individuals/groups/ organizations face a threatening crisis, they tend to revert back to what had worked in the past (not unlike a “Make America Great Again” response). The media has talked about revenge shopping11 related to the pent-up demand for consumer spending, with people itching to travel, shop and eat-out. In many ways the “threat rigidity response” may seem natural and rational, but it fails to take into account: (i) changes that have taken place in the meanwhile (e.g., changed social values) and (ii) an understanding that characteristics of business-as-usual contributed to the negative effects of Covid (e.g., the widening gap between rich and poor and other systemic issues results in worsened outcomes for the marginalized; the illusion of invulnerability slowed taking appropriate action).

On the other end of the continuum is the “punctuated equilibrium” response,12 which is based on research that shows that disruptive events like Covid can act like a “punctuation mark” that separates two sentences. Perhaps Covid will serve as the punctuation mark that separates the pre-Covid business-as-usual from a new and a yet-to-be-determined post-Covid business-as-usual. The new business-as-usual may include more people working from home, greater emphasis on regional economies (e.g., where society is not dependent on foreign manufacturers for products like N95 masks or key medicines), and on truly sustainable business practices (e.g., akin to the “Green New Deal”13).

Question #3: Do you think post-Covid will elicit a “threat rigidity response” and a desire to get back to “normal” (e.g., a sense of relief and rush to return to business-as-usual, including revenge shopping where people make up for lost purchases)? Or, do you think it will serve as a “punctuated equilibrium” event that prompts people to become more community-minded and to address systemic problems and injustices (e.g., shortcomings in personal care homes for the elderly, relative inequality in society)?

Lessons from history. Sometimes a look at the past can help to understand the present and to better predict the future. Consider what happened in Winnipeg after the last global pandemic, when the “Spanish flu” (1918-19) took the lives of 12,000 Winnipeggers (a similar death rate today would be 50,000 Winnipeggers losing their lives).14 As Covid has done today, the Spanish flu exposed systemic injustices in society (e.g., the death rate was much lower among the rich than among the working class who went to work even when they had flu symptoms because they could not afford to go to the hospital and could not live without their paycheck).

For some people, especially those with higher socio-economic status, this prompted a variation of a “threat-rigidity response” and desire to get back to business as usual. For example, members of Winnipeg’s business elite emphasized the “the importance of maintaining Winnipeg’s economic activity during the crisis.”15

For others, it served to trigger an attempt to transition to a new social order, and usher in a different business-as-usual. Emboldened by soldiers returning from World War I who were not impressed with the old business-as-usual that greeted them when they came back to their home communities (the sort of systemic injustices that the Spanish flu drew attention to were not what they had risked their lives for), soon Winnipeg had the General Strike of 1919, with 35,000 participants (that would be like a strike of 145,000 in today’s Winnipeg).

This resulted in some of Winnipeg’s political and business elite to promote “fake news” “that painted the general strike as a Bolshevik revolution led by foreign agitators who needed to be deported.”16 Immigrants were denigrated, and the national police force was called in to enforce the status quo. The General Strike was called off in June, 1919, after “Bloody Saturday” where there were several deaths and Mounties fired on demonstrators. The protesters may have lost the strike, but its legacy includes increased voice in politics, the formation of new unions, and enhanced collective bargaining.

Question #4: Covid, of course, is not the only thing affecting society today. Just as the post-Spanish flu response was influenced by the return of soldiers, what are other factors that will influence the post-Covid response? For example, how might the increasing recognition of ecological crises (e.g., wildfires, floods, IPCC) influence post-Covid responses? And, for an even more timely consideration, how might the outcome of next week’s federal election affect the post-Covid response in Canada (recall that this issue is one of the main reasons given for calling this election)?

1 This reading has been prepared by Bruno Dyck for students in LEAD 3030 at the University of Manitoba.

2 For more on this, see Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press. See also Dyck, B. (2020). The integral common good: Implications for Mele’s seven key practices of humanistic management. Humanistic Management Journal, 5(1): 7-23.

3 Before the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017, his administration had been warned of such a pandemic—and its members even participated in a role play very similar to COVID-19, with Lisa Monaco (Obama’s homeland security advisor) explaining: “We included a pandemic scenario because I believed then, and I have warned since, that emerging infectious disease was likely to pose one of the gravest risks for the new administration” Toosi, N., Lippman, D., & Diamond, D. (2020, March 16). “Before Trump’s inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influence pandemic since 1918.’” Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797

4 As noted in 1995 by Nobel laureate, Joshua Lederberg. Cited in Ali, S. (2020, April 8). How the current coronavirus pandemic links to questions of ecological sustainability in the Anthropocene. Spring Nature Sustainability Community. https://sustainabilitycommunity.springernature.com/posts/63681-how-the-current-pandemic-links-to-broader-questions-of-sustainability-in-the-anthropocene

5 Quammen, D. (2020, Jan 28). We made the coronavirus epidemic. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-china.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytopinion. Quammen is the author of the book Spillover: Animal infections and the next human pandemic. Information also taken from Brooks, D. R., & Boeger, W. A. (2019). Climate change and emerging infectious diseases: Evolutionary complexity in action. Current Opinion in Systems Biology, 13, 75-81.

6 Kavanagh, M., Thirumurthy, H., Katz, R., Ebi, K., Beyrer, C., Headley, J., ... & Gostin, L. O. (2019). Ending Pandemics: US Foreign Policy to Mitigate Today’s Major Killers, Tomorrow’s Outbreaks, and the Health Impacts of Climate Change. Journal of International Affairs, Online.

7 USA had 122,300 and UK has 65,700 “excess deaths” (number of people who died compared to what was expected in a non-COVID situation). Yamey, G. & Wenham, C. (2020, July 1). The U.S. and U.K. were the two best prepared nations to tackle a pandemic—What went wrong. Time. https://time.com/5861697/us-uk-failed-coronavirus-response/. That said, in terms of deaths per capita USA ranks 9th worst and UK 3rd worst among 189 countries (Canada is 24th worst). Coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths worldwide per one million population as of August 31, 2020, by country. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/. Among the 15 countries that had the worst per capita death rate, 5 had ranked in the top 15 in terms of preparedness for the pandemic (2019 Global Health Security Index. https://www.ghsindex.org).

8 Darío Páez & Juan A. Pérez (2020): Social representations of COVID-19. International Journal of Social Psychology. DOI:10.1080/02134748.2020.1783852. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02134748.2020.1783852?needAccess=true

9 Check out the following article for some interesting expected trends: Maqui, E., & Morris, R. (2020) The long-term effects of the pandemic: insights from a survey of leading companies. ECBank Business Bulletin. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-bulletin/focus/2021/html/ecb.ebbox202008_06~bad87fcf9b.en.html

10 Staw, B. M., Sandelands, L. E., & Dutton, J. E. (1981). Threat rigidity effects in organizational behavior: A multilevel analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26(4), 501-524.

11 Morgan, B., (2021). In a post-Covid world customers will be revenge shopping. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2021/03/22/customers-are-ready-to-back-with-covid-revenge-shopping/?sh=4a710e2b30ab

12 Romanelli, E., & Tushman, M.L. (1994). Organizational transformation as punctuated equilibrium: An empirical test. Academy of Management Journal, 37(5): 1141-1163.

13 Friedman, L. (2019, Feb 21). What is the Green New Deal? A climate proposal, explained. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/climate/green-new-deal-questions-answers.html

14 In 1918 Winnipeg’s population was 180,000, meaning the death rate was 6.7%. That same death rate would yield 50,000 people of Winnipeg’s present population of 750,000 people. Caulfield, P. (2020, April 8). Spanish Flu and Winnipeg strikes collide in 1918-19. Daily Commercial News. Construct Connect. https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/labour/2020/04/column-spanish-flu-and-winnipeg-strikes-collide-in-1918-19; McMurray, R. (2020, March 28). Disease and direct action: Organizing the Winnipeg General Strike and the 1918 influenza pandemic. Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/disease-direct-action-organizing-winnipeg-general-strike-1918-influenza; Tomchuck,T. (n.d.) The Winnipeg General Strike: Demanding rights for the working case. https://humanrights.ca/story/the-winnipeg-general-strike

15 Quote taken from McMurray (2020). The end of the Spanish flu coincided with the end of World War I and the return of veterans to Winnipeg, who lamented how conditions for their families and the working class had worsened during their time overseas.

16 Quote taken from Tomchuck (n.d.).

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