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null Globethics.net Newsletter No 5/2011

June/July 2011

In this issue

Editorial by Christoph Stueckelberger 

Can an institution have a soul?

The "soul" of an individual or of a group of people is in their identity, radiation and centre of energy. "Europe needs a soul", said former President of the European Commission Jacques Delors in 2010. He has been calling for this for 20 years warning that without it Europe would break up into individualism, nationalism or anonymous globalisation.
Not only individuals, or groups but also institutions and structures can and must have a "soul". I was therefore surprised and pleased when a participant at the Global Ethics Forum 2011 in Geneva (see first article below) said, "I have visited many nice conferences but this conference has an added value, it has a soul". We discussed in the Globethics.net team what this could mean. The participants from very different sectors, continents and hierarchical levels met as equals in openness and committed themselves to practical solutions for ethical business and an ethical economy. This "Spirit of the Global Ethics Forum" encouraged and energized the participants to make a difference together. You dear readers and Globethics.net participants can be part of these efforts, you are part of this "soul". 

Christoph Stueckelberger, Executive Director and Founder, Globethics.net

News from the International Secretariat

 

 

Geneva Conference 2011 a great success!

Thank you to everyone who took part in the Global Ethics Forum Conference 2011 that met in the United Nations Office at Geneva and in the International Conference Centre Geneva, Switzerland from Thursday 30 June to Friday 1 July 2011.

Around 260 specialists from around the world came to share their insights on the different aspects of applied business ethics. The full list of speakers with short biographical notes and photographs can be found here.

The results of the Globethics.net Global Survey on Business Ethics in teaching, training and research were unveiled at the Conference, and the new Globethics.net Directory of Business Ethics Experts generated as one of the outcomes of the survey was launched. Two new collections on business ethics in the Globethics.net library were also launched: the new collection on Business Ethics and the institutional collection of CBERN,the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network. 

The Global Ethics Forum project is supported by 30 associated partners representing a broad range of institutions and networks, including business ethics networks, academics, CSR specialists, and governmental and non-governmental organisations. The full list is available here. 

The theme of the Forum was The Value of Values in Business: Global Perspectives, Practical Solutions with a programme that featured over 50 moderators and panellists in two plenaries and three sets of four parallel workshops over the two days. The workshops provided opportunities to explore case studies, and standards and meet key actors from around the world.

The 2011 Geneva conference is part of the Global Ethics Forum 2011-2013 project, which includes events, research, exchange and documentation across numerous sectors, public, non-governmental, academic and private. 

The follow up to the Conference will focus on networking around concrete projects. They will be selected in August and September 2011 on the basis of proposals and over fifty recommendations worked out at the conference.  

More information about the Global Ethics Forum can be found here.

The Globethics.net Libraries

New collections on business ethics in the library

During the Global Ethics Forum in Geneva on 30 June and 1 July 2011, Globethics.net launched two new collections relevant for business ethics: a new thematic collection on Business Ethics and the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN) institutional collection.

On the same model as the other available thematic and religious ethics collections, the selected documents of the thematic collection on Business Ethics are organised and presented with a classification tree. The goal of the classification tree is to give an overview of the major actors and concepts in a specific field of ethics and to help in navigating the documentation.
 
The tree was first developed in India, by Prabeetha Boolar (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore). It was then submitted to an international advisory board constituted by the regional coordinators of the Business Ethics Survey.
 
The selection of documents also happened in two steps: first Prabeetha Boolar invested a big effort in researching new documents, focusing on Business Ethics in India; and second, Nicolae Irina (CBERN), Stella Yanga (Globethics.net China) and Amélie Vallotton Preisig (Globethics.net International Secretariat) selected and classified documents already available in the Globethics.net library.
 
As a result the collection was launched with 400 documents with about half of them focusing on Business Ethics in India. The collection will be enhanced in the future with content focusing on the other regions where Globethics.net is active.
 
The Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN) collection brings together the publications of CBERN and its network members institutions. The CBERN "aims to promote knowledge-sharing and partnerships within the field of business ethics and across private, governmental, voluntary and academic sectors. CBERN also aims to support work from inception to dissemination, from graduate student research and fellowship opportunities to promoting the projects of established professionals."
 
Call to participants: if you are the editor of an ethics open access journal and if you would be interested to have your journal integrated in the Globethics.net library, please contact our librarian for the ethics library at vallotton@globethics.net.  If you are the editor of an open access journal in theology or ecumenism, please contact Stephen Brown (Programme Executive for GlobeTheoLib) at brown@globethics.net.   

GlobeTheoLib to be launched in September 2011

The Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism (GlobeTheoLib) is to be launched in September 2011. Planned in collaboration with the World Council of Churches and its Programme on Ecumenical Theological Education (ETE), GlobeTheoLib will support and enable well-equipped participation in the teaching of theology, the generation of ecumenical and intercultural perspectives and the formation of a new generation of ecumenical leaders in contextual theologies, World Christianity and interreligious dialogue.

Using the platform of Globethics.net, GlobeTheoLib is the first step in a programme to complement the existing Global Digital Library on Ethics Library with other specialised libraries, such as on Philosophy and on Islam.
 
GlobeTheoLib aims to:
  • use new digital models of information exchange to create greater visibility for theological knowledge and insights from churches of the global South;
  • make use of information and communication technologies to counter imbalances in global theological education systems;
  • respond to the needs of theological colleges, faculties and institutes of growing churches in the global South for quality resources for theological education and research;
  • overcome barriers to accessing existing digital content providers;
  • promote understanding of the diverse expressions and understandings of Christianity worldwide; and
  • foster theological exchange within and between countries and regions.

     

GlobeTheoLib is a project of Globethics.net and is supported by a consortium whose founding institutions are Globethics.net and the World Council of Churches.

The Globethics.net Network

Globethics.net partners with World Association for Christian Communication

 

Globethics.net has signed a partnership agreement with the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), a global organization based in Toronto, Canada, that promotes communication rights for social change.WACC believes that information and knowledge sharing underlie people’s ability effectively to communicate their needs and concerns. It has long advanced communication rights as a platform for participatory communication development, as well as supporting the production of print, audiovisual, and digital resources on different aspects of communication.

Through the partnership agreement, a WACC collection of publications and documents will be established in the Globethics.net library. They will include a series of articles from its international journal, Media Development, regional and national reports of the Gender Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), selected articles from its Centre for Communication Rights (CCR) and a wide range of publications and resource documents from its members and partners worldwide.
WACC and Globethics.net will also promote the possibility for WACC members and its global partners to submit documents directly to the Globethics.net libraries.  
WACC General Secretary, Karin Achtelstetter, thanked Globethics.net for entering into partnership with WACC, noting that this new venture will immensely benefit its members and partners around the world. “WACC and Globethics.net share a common interest in overcoming the digital divide. Members of both networks will highly benefit from this new partnership,” said Achtelstetter. WACC’s Centre for Communication Rights portal contains a wide range of publications and resources about communication rights. Links to the portal and the GMMP (whomakesthenews) website as well as the waccglobal website will be provided on the Globethics.net website.
Christoph Stückelberger, Executive Director and Founder of Globethics.net, said: "Globethics.net and WACC share a goal in wanting to offer solutions to ethical challenges on a global scale. Through this agreement, WACC's groundbreaking research and action on communication ethics will become available to Globethics.net participants throughout the world. At the same time WACC and its members will be able to make use of the global ethics library, networking and research facilities that Globethics.net offers."
The idea for Globethics.net was born during the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in 2003. The WSIS was promoted on behalf of civil society by members of the Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS ) Campaign, for which WACC provided the global secretariat.
For more information about the World Association for Christian Communication go to, www.waccglobal.org.

Partner Focus: CBERN

Globethics.net has partnership agreements with over 30 organisations and institutions including partners in the following categories: regional programmes, scientific,  library, networking, funding, service, project and media. In addition there are associate and funding partners supporting the Global Ethics Forum project and members of the consortium of the Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism, GlobeTheoLib. 

As a new feature of our newsletter we would like to focus each time on a specific partner. This time we are looking at the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN) whose institutional collection was launched in the Globethics.net library on 1 July 2011 (see above for more details). 

The Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN) aims to promote knowledge-sharing and partnerships within the field of business ethics and across business, governmental, voluntary, community and academic sectors. CBERN's activities are designed to invite and support active dialogue between researchers and experienced practitioners. This seven-year project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) - in spring 2007 CBERN was awarded a $2.1 million grant. The CBERN website plays a significant role, providing an online venue that supports work from inception to dissemination, from graduate student research and fellowship opportunities to promoting the projects of established professionals.

CBERN's partnership with Globethics.net has helped disseminate the research and activities of its membership. Recently signed tripartite library agreements (between CBERN, its partner organisations and Globethics.net) have facilitated the gathering of materials organised in a Canadian-focused collection of open source publications. The benefits of this initiative are twofold. On the one hand, the CBERN e-library hosted by Globethics.net offers more visibility to the work of CBERN's members and partners, placing it in the context of a large collection of scholarly and professional publications in similar areas of interest. Furthermore, this initiative makes the valuable results of its research available to the world-wide audience of Globethics.net community. Articles, reports, and other materials produced through CBERN's activities and those of its partner organisations are a valuable contribution to Globethics.net e-library collections.

CBERN has also been involved in creating and organizing the business ethics collection recently launched by Globethics.net during the Global Ethics Forum 2011. Several CBERN experts - Ben Bradshaw, Wesley Cragg, Andrew Crane, Chris MacDonald and Mark Schwartz - have generously provided valuable feedback regarding the initial version of the Business Ethics collection "classification tree." CBERN has also helped with selecting some of the most relevant publications in the Globethics.net e-library and assigning the appropriate classification codes in the Business Ethics collection. Such mutually beneficial and fruitful projects provide a solid foundation for CBERN's partnership with Globethics.net.

Call for input on management education

The 50+20 Project (www.50plus20.org), a joint project of the World Business School Council for Sustainable Business, the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) and Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) is seeking input on management education. What would an ideal business school look like? How can business schools foster leaders who are equipped to handle the emergin global social, environmental and business issues?

The goal is to create a radically new vision for management education to be presented at the Earth Summit Rio +20 in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012.   

In order to develop this vision, the 50+20 Project Steering Committee is asking for insights and perspectives from interested individuals and institutions. For this, a 20-minute survey has been created at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5020vision. This is a chance to express what you feel about business schools and what could be done about them.
 
Thank you for completing this survey ASAP and for forwarding it to your networks, friends and colleagues around the world. Critical thinking is sought from ALL STAKEHOLDERS (youth, futurists, executives, entrepreneurs, NGO’s, government, activists and concerned citizens), particularly of the SOUTH AND EAST.
 
More information about the Project and the survey can be requested from Dr. Katrin Muff, Dean of the Business School Lausanne, Switzerland and member of the 50+20 Project Steering Committee at katrin.muff@bsl-lausanne.ch.

India consultation supported by Globethics.net 

Globethics.net India co-organised a national consultation from 14 to 16 June 2011 in Bangalore together with the National Council of Churches in India and other partners. The theme was 'Towards a New Ecclesia - A Common Search'. 

The consultation was attended by 40 participants including church leaders, theologians and Christian social activists from different denominations from all over India. The main outcomes of the consultation were an Affirmation and a plan of action that will serve as guidelines for the future. Several needs were identified in the plan of action, including continuous study and follow-up workshops in different areas of the country, critical analysis of governance in churches, developing the scope of theological education, and fostering new understanding of partnerships.

It was further agreed that Ecumenical Peoples Councils (EPCs) would be established to facilitate gatherings for study, debate and collective action. Another related project is to set up long term inter-disciplinary study and research on spirituality, dialogue and transformation.

New Programme Executive in East Africa

Globethics.net East Africa has selected a part-time Programme Executive after opening up the position in May. Mr Herbert Charles Makinda took up his post on 1 July 2011. He is a PhD student in the faculty of education at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, specialising in research and evaluation. His master's degree was in the same field. With a team of researchers from the UK, Kenya and South Africa, he has been working on a three-year research project on Gender, Education and Global Poverty Reduction Initiatives; the research was conducted in ten different sites in Kenya and South Africa. He also teaches part-time at the Marist International University College, Nairobi.

 

 

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