Alumni Debate: Discussing the classroom and work experiences in management for a sustainable future

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A deep reflection on management for a sustainable future is critical as a new generation is entering a turbulent world of work with an ever-increasing need for sustainability-oriented decision-makers. The higher education system should spearhead this reflection, as it prepares students to become managers and leaders of tomorrow.  At the same time, universities and business schools undoubtedly should engage with different stakeholders that can inform and support higher education institutions to better equip young people to meet the needs of sustainability in their day-to-day work environment.

We wanted to reach out to young professionals in order to understand their needs and learn about their views on the role of higher education in bridging the gap between sustainable and current management practices: Have they benefited from what they learned at university? What would they have wanted to hear in the classroom about management and sustainability? When pursuing their career, what do they miss in current management practices? Is their organization able to deal with global sustainability challenges?

To find answers to these questions, on 28th March 2019, oikos organized an alumni debate that was attended by our former members onsite in Geneva as well as online. After leaving universities or Business Schools, oikos alumni start their careers in various fields and carry along with their oikos experience. They work for international organizations, start-ups or SMEs, multinational corporations, in government or for NGOs. The alumni debate gathered participants from Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Georgia, India, Netherlands, and Switzerland. The informal setting provided a safe space for the professionals shaping today’s world of work to share experiences and learn from each other.

The unique mixture of people allowed for an enriching debate. The alumni expressed their views on sustainability in management and tried to pinpoint the strengths and shortcomings of management education. We started with each alumni presenting their organization/company and sharing their stance on the subject. They talked about how and to what extent their company was considering sustainability in its actions and management practices and answered sharp critical questions posed by fellow attendees.

oikos alumni almost unanimously expressed that their knowledge on sustainability came from their own curiosity, through engagements with oikos or talks with like-minded people who further inspired them to deepen their understanding of the subject. Despite their diverse educational backgrounds, participants from Switzerland to India seemed to agree that, during their education, they had learned only key sustainability concepts, like the triple bottom line.

Some of the alumni also shared that making a decision on a right bachelors or masters program was challenging for them. An even bigger challenge, however, came when they needed to make a decision aligning their values with their job. The key questions our members asked themselves was: “Should I work for a traditional multinational company and try to bring the change towards sustainability from within or should I work for/create a start-up with sustainability at the core of its business model?”

According to the alumni, some of the things they would have appreciated to learn more about during their studies are: how to bring the change in companies, campaign within an organization, create a convincing storyline and pitch concrete actions to stakeholders (e.g top management).

There is an unsurprising expectation that the relationship between the classroom and the world of work has to be symbiotic, since the two domains influence and shape each other. There has, however, always been certain divergence, as the education system does not always meet the demands of the time. In recent years, the divergence might be best exemplified by the lack of leaders who are ready to respond to the sustainability challenges in the real work environment. Different initiatives, therefore, were brought forward to overcome the discrepancy.

The fact that the World Economic Forum (WEF) has developed the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work perfectly shows there is a need of developing interactions between the education and the business world. WEF ‘seeks to ensure that talent is developed and deployed for maximum benefit to the economy and society […] by driving action, especially through collaboration between business, government, civil society, and the education and training sector, at the global, industry and regional level’.

Recently, at the WEF 2019 at Davos, the United Nations Global Compact presented a report on ‘Business School Rankings for the 21st Century’, where they laid out concrete recommendations for international accreditation and ranking systems to evolve and help align business school education with the needs of our century. Currently, several initiatives try to improve existing or create potential new rankings.

In 2007, the UNGC launched an initiative to specifically tackle the topic of responsible management in the higher education system: the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). PRME aims to raise the prominence of sustainability across the globe and enable business students to deliver change.

In parallel, the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) aims to integrate ‘responsible leadership and practice in organizations and societies worldwide’. It has developed the 50+20 movement which ‘seeks to learn of new ways and opportunities for management education to transform and reinvent itself by asking critical questions about the state of the world, the emerging societal issues, the dominant economic logic, the purpose of business, the crucial role of leadership, and the challenges facing management education’.

These initiatives show that the world of work and education are getting close to each other. In this process, the experience of bewilderment of current or former students with their education has to be considered as well. oikos and organizations like ours ensure that the voice of the student is heard even when they leave the walls of their home universities.  Now, we believe, it is out turn to lead, discuss, find and implement solutions that could bridge the gap between sustainability and management.

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oikos International

posted May 17, 2019

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oikos Newsletter May 2019

The May edition of our newsletter is here. Learn about our global alumni contest, meet people who are working on the FutureLab 2019, get to know our exceptional member Paula Heeß and alumnus William Barrault.

Read how oikos Cologne welcomed over 600 students to a discussion with Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former finance minister of Greece, and watch LEAP webinar on leadership featuring Mark Wade, oikos advisor and leading expert of sustainability.

Check out the whole newsletter here

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oikos International

posted May 15, 2019

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oikos LEAP Meeting 2019

oikos LEAP Meeting 2019 will take place in Leysin, Switzerland between 25th and 31st of October.

More information will be available soon.

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oikos International

posted May 13, 2019

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oikos Conference: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development in Georgia

oikos Tbilisi is hosting a student conference on sustainable development, its accompanying challenges and opportunities on June 22. For more information in Georgian, please click here.

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oikos International

posted May 13, 2019

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Sustainability Week

oikos Witter/Herdecke is taking lead on organizing a series of events as part of sustainability week at their university. This year’s theme is “Change of values: individual, work, society”.

During studies and in everyday life, we already deal with topics such as sustainability, environmentally conscious behavior and social responsibility in a variety of ways. But what concrete values ​​do we want to pursue in the future and what path should we take to make them real? In order to point out new perspectives and alternative courses of action on an individual, social and professional level.

Sustainability Week Program:

Tuesday, May 21 – individual
• Workshop “Psychology in Environmental Protection – Starting Points and Barriers” https://www.facebook.com/events/309989699897380/
• Unique dress exchange party https://www.facebook.com/events/273913316844712/

Wednesday, May 22 – work
• The sustainable exhibition of possibilities https://www.facebook.com/events/383214988984979/

Thursday, May 23 – Society
• Workshop “Me & the others – communication strategies on sustainability” https://www.facebook.com/events/327119561283952/

• Perspective n: Discussion round on the transformation potential of alternative economic schools of thought https://www.facebook.com/events/590763581399740/
Friday, May 24th
• Film screening of “The Green Lie” (Werner Boote, 2018) https://www.facebook.com/events/2269095036485108/

Detailed descriptions of the individual events can be found under the link https://oikos-international.org/wittenherdecke/projekte/wdn2019/.

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oikos International

posted May 13, 2019

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ChangEDucation

We invite you to ChangEDucation: 6th annual WU Sustainable Transformation Day, which will take place on May 14 (10:00-17:00), at WU’s Learning Center.

Come join us and bring a friend! Please also share this with anyone who you think may find the event interesting. Non-WU participants are very welcome! We seek to promote cross-campus and beyond-campus, local and international collaboration, and we believe this year’s thematic focus on Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Quality Education – goes far beyond our university’s walls. For the first time ever, half of the workshops as well as the panel discussion (16:00-17:00 FS1) will be held in English!

All details regarding the program and the registration (the latter is only needed for workshops; you do not need to register for the open forum or the panel discussion) can be found on our website: https://www.wu.ac.at/star/events/6-wu-nachhaltigkeitstag?no_cache=1#c525145

We look forward to greeting you on May 14. Let’s ChangEDucation together!

Learn more here.

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oikos International

posted May 13, 2019

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Global Contest: Design the alumni network of your dreams

What is the Alumni Global Contest?

It’s a global, inclusive and collaborative contest where every member of our community can participate and create a vision of the alumni network.

Upload your vision for the network and let the oikos community decide on the winners.

oikos will cover FutureLab participation fee for the winners of the competition.

Follow us on our facebook & Linkedin page for regular updates!

Also check our oikos Alumni Facebook & Linkedin group

Not a fan of social media ?
Register a personal call with Benoît, oikos VP of alumni network, to get more info!

Background information

oikos has a long (hi)story: it’s 32 years old now. Throughout the years, oikos has changed a lot, and even more recently. Last year, the previous oikos board decided to questions the status quo and rethink our governance model.  

As a result (to spare you the details and hours of work), we updated our constitution and governance. The novelty of the new model lies with where and how we interact with our community.

How we include our community?

We launched something close to what is known in the agility language as “Squad”. In oikos, we decided to call them “Working Groups”. What’s known as the Agility “Squad Lead” is here rather the “Working Group Facilitator”, a role currently assigned to a board member, but we aspire to the community to take that role in the close future.

As alumni, how do I benefit today from the new governance model?

There are two ways:

First, we are now more organized around the Working Groups. So is the Alumni one. Click here to know more about it.  

Second, more importantly, we have launched the Alumni Global Contest: design the alumni network of your dreams!

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oikos International

posted May 13, 2019

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oikos FutureLab 2019

The oikos FutureLab 2019 will take place in Geneva, Switzerland on 1st and 2nd November. This year we focus on how to “Act Together for Sustainability”.

About FutureLab

The oikos FutureLab is our annual flagship event to gather the global oikos family of student members, alumni, advisors, faculty and partners. It is not only a meeting to share perspectives on the future, but also a “laboratory” to design initiatives and engage the oikos community in pursuing them.

Learn more here: https://oikos-international.org/programmes/futurelab/

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oikos International

posted May 5, 2019

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30 seconds with Paula Heeß

Take 30 seconds to meet Paula Heeß, an amazing oikee from oikos Bayreuth, Germany. For over two years now, she has contributed to the work of our organization at local and international levels. She is a busy bee at oikos working as a member of the oikos Re-Structuring Working Group, FutureLab 2019 organizer, LEAP coach, and regional volunteer. She is a spirited, understanding and an all-around great person.

I first heard of oikos in 2016 when an oikos St. Gallen alumnus recommended the organization to me after he learned that I would study in Bayreuth. I was very curious about oikos since it had an interface with my business studies but also brought a new aspect to it. At that point in my life, I didn’t really know much about sustainability, and I didn’t reflect on the ecological footprint of many of my actions. But from my very first day as a member of oikos this changed…

Right at the beginning, I was very motivated and passionate about the work oikos did, and I felt very comfortable being part of this team. Day after day and event after the event, I became more and more involved in sustainability topics, gained knowledge on different aspects and shifted my way of life towards more sustainability. Now looking back at Paula of 2016, I am almost a bit ashamed of how little I knew about this urgent global situation.  I do my best to help others not to make the same mistake. I try to improve myself a little more every day and to be a role model for others in my personal environment.

I would not have all this passion if it wasn’t for oikos. I have attended several international and national oikos meetings where I met inspiring and like-minded people. Moreover, I was lucky to participate in the LEAP Advanced Track 2017/2018 which helped me deal with my personal struggles and made me a more self-confident and authentic person. Since I wanted to give something back, I became a LEAP Coach one year later. What I really like about the LEAP meetings is that a lot of people contribute to it and help each other get better in different fields. I believe the biggest strength of oikos is our great community with so many talented people.  Therefore, I’m part of the oikos Restructuring Working Group where we try to find ways for leveraging the power of our oikos network. I am certain of the fact that we can increase our impact if we collaborate more and our Working Group tries to make this possible.

I am very glad that so far, I’ve been able to experience oikos in a lot of different ways be it at a local level in Bayreuth or at an international level with LEAP, the German-speaking region, our Working Group, the FutureLab Team, and all the international meetings. I wish everyone to have equally enriching experiences with oikos and I hope that we will always continue striving for a better world!

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oikos International

posted May 2, 2019

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