In this paper, we advance the question: What are the semiotic (meaning-making) and learning opportunities offered by student-produced films? Our point of departure is a pedagogical project in which we invited management students to produce films on scalar issues related to global environmental change. Our analytical lens and our empirical findings (examined through a template analysis and a multimodal video transcription) help us make three contributions. First, we synthesize a new ontological and epistemological foundational "positioning" that portrays the nature of learning processes as revolving on meaning-making activities (a positioning that we have termed a performative, design-oriented multimodality). Second, we provide a framework that advances understanding of the "inner workings" of student film-making as resting on a triple engagement (cognitive-affective, behavioral, and relational), anchored on underpinning multimodal composing activities. These conceptual moves and empirical work allow us to distill several implications, or "provocations": film-making fosters radical openness in management learning curricula, gives new momentum to the instructor's role change ("from sage on the stage to guide on the side") and expands existing cultures of recognition around what gets valued and can be assessed as (signs of) learning. Third, we offer a pedagogical prototype containing practical teaching guidelines.

This research presents an innovative use of digital story telling (DST) for sustainability in management education (SiME) applications. Using grounded theory, we analyze 63 student generated DST films on the Anthropocene to propose an experiential learning framework based on five key learning domains: the Planetary Boundaries (PBs), scale issues, (time and place), complex governance (levels of approach), social justice (humans and animals), and environmental justice. This learning framework will help instructors introduce and conceptualize the Anthropocene to business students while promoting cognitive, behavioral, emotional, experiential and creative learning needed to manage business sustainably while becoming less impactful key drivers and amplifiers of planetary change.

Earth system science (ESS) has identified worrying trends in the human impact on fundamental planetary systems. In this conceptual article, we discuss the implications of this research for business schools and management education (ME). We argue that ESS findings raise significant concerns about the relationship between business and nature and, consequently, a radical reframing is required to embed economic and social activity within the global sustainability of natural systems. This has transformative implications for ME. To illustrate this reframing, we apply the ESS lenses of social-ecological interdependence, multiscalar relations, environmental governance, and environmental values to the ME functional domains of institutional purpose, social context and engagement, pedagogical practice, curricular design, and research focus. Our work contributes to the literature on business education for sustainability and the business-society-nature nexus. We explore and apply key ESS findings and concepts, discuss normative implications of these ideas, and offer guidance on transformational pathways for business schools and ME.

Economic growth is a two-edged sword. Expanding economies and industries create wealth and employment, but global economic expansion is having unprecedented deleterious impacts on vital planetary systems. Despite this, the core strategic goal of all economies and many businesses continues to be the pursuit of ongoing economic growth. To resolve this paradox, a reconceptualization of firm-level growth is presented. I describe and discuss the organizational characteristics of the growth paradox and follow this with a metatheoretical review of economic, organizational, and ecological perspectives on growth. From this review, a typology of firm-level strategy is developed that radically reconceptualizes business growth as developmental activity primarily concerned with social?ecological flourishing. The features of this typology and its implications for business strategy are discussed according to three principles that emerged from the analysis: multidexterity, resilience thinking for design, and inclusive balance (embeddedness). Together, these strategy principles form the prerequisite management competencies needed for the development, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable business strategies. Transformative firm-level responses to the growth paradox are needed if sustaining forms of organizational growth are to be achieved and this paper presents a novel integrative framework for informing those strategies.

These opening quotes highlight two metatheoretical aspects of scientific concepts that are the focus of this chapter. First, complex concepts and theories are constituted by a kind of multilayered history in what they mean and how they are used. Second, those constitutive layers are always situated in normative contexts of human meaning making and goal seeking.

Research indicates that religious values and ethical behavior are closely associated, yet, at a firm level, the processes by which this association occurs are poorly understood. Family firms are known to exhibit values-based behavior, which in turn can lead to specific firm-level outcomes. It is also known that one’s family is an important incubator, enabler, and perpetuator of religious values across successive generations. Our study examines the experiences of a single, multigenerational business family that successfully enacted their religious values in their business. Drawing upon intergenerational solidarity and values-based leadership theory, and by way of an interpretive, qualitative analysis, we find that the family’s religious values enhanced their cohesion and were manifested in their leadership style, which, in turn, led to outcomes for the business. Our findings highlight the processes that underlie the relationship between religious values and organizational outcomes in family firms and offer insights into the role of solidarity in values-based leadership. 

Moral dilemmas are ubiquitous aspects of organisational life. Tensions underlying many fundamental aspects of business, for example, between transparency and privacy, sustainability and growth, innovation and compliance, are not extraordinary occurrences. This paper aims to improve the understanding of moral dilemmas in organisations and how to develop pedagogical methods for coaching management students to resolve these challenges. We adopt a performative and action-based model of responsible management education. In exploring this performative approach to working with moral dilemmas, the project takes family business as a setting of special relevance for disclosing ethical tensions and the dilemmas emerging from those tensions. Family businesses are sites that intensify moral quandaries and disclose loyalties and values that highlight the need for responsible decision-making and action. The research will generate a series of outcomes ranging from classroom exercises to conceptual innovations for improving responsible management education about moral dilemmas.