Question

Is the business as an agent of world benefit (BAWB) an academic fad or a change in business principles? Why?

Answer 1

BAWB is a factor for change in business principles because:-

Business as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB) is a global inquiry into the human strengths, positive experiences, and hopeful future visions at the intersection of business and society. It is both a formal and an informal process. Formal inquiry is expected to foster an informal and on-going world dialogue. The formal inquiry process addressed in this case study occurred in a three-month pilot phase of what is imagined to be a 5 to 10 year series of semi-structured conversations about the positive intersection of business and society.

The explicit organizing approach for BAWB emerged towards what Dee Hock (1999) coins as chaordic – an intentional combination of chaos and order. The objective in chaordic organizations is to build a community based on shared purpose that calls forth people’s highest aspirations. The community is held together through a shared intention or purpose, operationalized with clearly articulated principles or statements of foundational belief about acceptable structure and conduct intended to unite the community. People become aware of needing to act on behalf of the good of the whole, the larger potential community as well as those currently named within it. A relationship is conceptualized and then an actual structure is documented that explicates relational detail such as eligibility, ownership, voting, governance, and other by-law elements. We held this model in aspiration. We formed a community based on shared beliefs and yet wrestled throughout the pilot with clearly articulating and documenting shared behavioral principles. The authors are noting this because the process caused both fervent activity and some mixed expectations and confusion. However, we are not recommending that community formation and developing behavioral principles occur sequentially. Advantages of momentum exist to simultaneity – moving forward while building the conceptual architecture and infrastructure. However, by simultaneously designing and building, not all activities can be expected to comply with whatever principles and documented relational structures eventually emerge.