Conscious leadership for sustainability: Balancing the triple bottom line

The Assignment:

Application 1: Analysis and Synthesis of Prior Research

At professional conferences, blocks of time may be set aside for what are termed " poster sessions." A hotel ballroom or large open area will be ringed with individuals who use displays such as posters or electronic presentations displayed via projectors. These sessions provide an opportunity to share one's research in an intimate setting, with a small group gathered around who share a similar interest. The seminar format of this course is very similar to this academic exchange. During one set of paired weeks, you will be appointed as a Group Leader. If you are one of the Group Leaders for this week, you are to prepare an academic presentation, much like a poster session.

Your presentation should present analysis and synthesis of prior research on the topic: Conscious leadership for sustainability: Balancing the triple bottom line and will begin the interaction with your colleagues. You will prepare an academic paper of 7 pagesin APA format. This analysis will be an open-ended introduction to explaining how socially conscious leadership can be modeled and implemented in organizational settings. Your goal, as the presenter, should be to persuade your discussants that the approach(es) you have analyzed and synthesized are a sound means for becoming a socially conscious leader. You should acknowledge that there are other models, or means to study leaders and their use of social consciousness, but you should strive to be as persuasive as possible that the specific concepts and operationalizations you have reviewed are exciting research avenues and that they are potentially breakthrough areas in the understanding of how socially conscious leadership contributes to organizational effectiveness in a systems context. You may also consider how the system itself contributes to the inability of a leader to act in a way that furthers the application of triple bottom line principles.

Your paper and presentation should contain the following elements:

·         An incorporation and analysis of at least five of the required resources from this pair of weeks

·         The incorporation and analysis of five additional resources from the Walden Library

·         An identification of principal schools of thought, tendencies in the academic literature, or commonalities that define the academic scholarship regarding your topic

·         An evaluation of the main concepts with a focus on their application to management practice and their impact on positive social change

·         Direct evidence of addressing the learning outcomes from this pair of weeks

In addition to the above elements, the Group Leader for this week will focus thematically on:

·         Synthesizing the main points of the triple bottom line and stakeholder interests

·         Evaluating the theory(s) in terms of its impact on leadership functions in large organizations. Consider how Fortune or Bloomberg Business Week 1000 top global organizations are, or are not, exemplars of socially conscious organizations. Keep in mind Bakan's (2005) claim that the corporation as designed is pathological.

·         Assessing the catalog of grievances with neo-liberal economics that is represented by the World Social Forum (http://www.fsm2013.org/en) and others (http://movetoamend.org/) who challenge the corporation, as we know it. What considerations should drive the creation of an alternative to the modern corporation?

Resources: will be provided

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