ICSB Reflections

As transparency increases and the global population stands firmly and united in their demands to promote a just and green economy.

In December of 2019, ICSB provided a message to its entrepreneurship community, indicating the foreseeable “End of the Status Quo.” ICSB was expecting the need for a great upheaval of our past societal structure to meet the needs of an advancing world. With the growing demand for employment opportunities, attention to global health trends, and humanitarian justice, we can no longer ignore how our status quo has failed us.

Altering Perspectives with Humane Entrepreneurship

In the introduction to our paper, “Humane Entrepreneurship: How Focusing on People Can Drive a New Era of Wealth and Quality Job Creation in a Sustainable World,” Dr. Ki-Chan Kim, Dr. Song-Tae Bae and I posed the question, “Where — exactly — is the wealth of nations?” 

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals seem to be the most united and comprehensive guide in which our global community might simultaneously survive and heal its inequalities that have been plaguing our world. Resulting from historical injustices, the world is far from equal. As mentioned earlier in this series, the concept of Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt), regarded on a large scale, poses our only survival mechanism to enable the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In a fully connected and ever-changing world, what does knowledge mean? The global public has access to seemingly all the information that one might desire to know. However, despite this possibility, understanding and information are still somehow disconnected from each other. There seems to be only a select few who can decipher data in a way that presents that data. Yet, again, this translation often does not reach the general public or even the practitioners and professionals that might use it.

As I am transitioning into a new leadership position, I am confronted with the higher truths of leadership and how they unfold within an entrepreneurial orientation and, further, a humane entrepreneurial orientation (as found in the theory and practice of Humane Entrepreneurship, or HumEnt). Leadership grasps the critical importance of creating workplace climate and culture, thus determining the state of the Humane Entrepreneurship at any given enterprise.

Challenging us to “re-think” everything, Norris Krueger spent time with us on Thursday afternoon instead of his usual time spent generating the next best entrepreneurial theory. Sitting in the “hot seat,” Krueger is considered the Nikola Tesla of entrepreneurship research today. His presentation demanded that we re-think our mindsets, ecosystems, and methods, in addition to re-thinking why we are necessitating this re-think.

As the world retreats inward, both business practices and consumer habits have significantly shifted. Consumers are starting to recognize the value of being able to expend their resources while concurrently awakening to the troubles that small businesses globally face. As for businesses, many have also reflected on their values and practices, deciding where to make cuts and how to demonstrate employee-value at this moment. At large, we have all been influenced by this global reset.