Business as an Agent of World Benefit – Global Forum
Summary
In 2008, the John E. Fetzer Institute and its partners committed to support three Business as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB) Global Forums. These forums bring together corporate and thought leaders to develop actionable next steps for businesses seeking to respond to social issues.
Approach
On October 22, 2006, the United Nations Global Compact, with 4,000 corporations from around the world, and the Academy of Management, with 19,000 business school professors from over 90 countries, partnered with Case Western Reserve University to establish the Global Forum for Business as an Agent of World Benefit (www.bawbglobalforum.org).
The Business as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB) Global Forum is a network and movement that promotes positive leadership development in the field of management. The intent is to create business organizations that magnify positive human strengths.
The forum is a call for inspired action, bringing together theory and practice. Executives from leading corporations, management school professors, leaders from civil society, and youth leaders meet together once every two years to create action plans that are refined and implemented until the subsequent forum. The project includes the development of a consortium of organizations that will lead, think through, and provide funding for the work of the forum and its resulting action groups.
The BAWB Global Forum will take place every two years in different regions of the world. Since the implementation of this commitment, a BAWB Global Forum was held at the Case Western Reserve University in June 2009, and in Slovenia in 2010. The 2011 forum will be held again at Case Western Reserve University.
Background
This commitment will support the next three Business as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB) Global Forums, scheduled for 2009, 2011, and 2013, as well as regional forums to be held during alternate years in 2010 and 2012.
First Milestone:
– Business as an Agent of World Benefit – Global Forum, was held in Cleveland, Ohio, June 3-6, 2009
Summary of Activity:
– Organizing and holding the 2009 Business as an Agent of World Benefit Global Forum. Plenary sessions, group dialogues, and parallel sessions are all designed to result in specific action by the end of the forum.
Planned products to emerge from the Forum include:
-World Inquiry: a web-based global dialogue whose aim is to shift consciousness.
-Research papers: the last forum produced 400 papers.
-Book-agreed with Yale Publishing.
-Mini-documentaries available on DVD or the web
-Special academic issue to be conducted in partnership with a major peer-reviewed journal