Academics and practitioners engage in conscious capitalism discussions
Gathering like-minded people key to creating a powerful movement: Strong
Tuesday June 9, 2009 -- Jennifer Higgs
A recent Conceptualizing Conscious Capitalism conference was the first devoted to conscious capitalism in an academic setting and led to interesting discussions between practitioners and academics, says Michael Strong.

Strong, CEO of FLOW, says being among a like-minded group who were optimistically looking at conscious capitalism was inspiring.

“At a time when business is being bashed severely, and in many cases for very good reason, it’s all the more important to have gatherings of people focused on business as a tool for positive change and to have people thinking about and citing examples of it as a way to move things forward,” he says.

“It’s only when we have more and more leaders of these companies gathered together and in some sense formally aligned, will we really create a powerful movement that changes the world.”

Many academics come from a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perspective, which is different than a conscious capitalism perspective, notes Strong. A lot of innovation at the conference was exposing academics to the conscious capitalism framework, he says.

CSR is primarily reactive, as intellectuals and activists tell companies how to behave and the companies try to satisfy these external demands, says Strong.

“Conversely, conscious capitalism is an approach that comes from within the corporation where the corporation has a deeper purpose and is already committed to a stakeholder model and the corporation is actively using its organization to fulfill some deeper purpose,” he tells Axiom News.

Therefore conscious capitalism is more authentic because it comes from within, he says, adding there is also a lot more creativity.

“For us, conscious capitalism is a lot more exciting, a lot more proactive (and) has far more transformative potential,” says Strong.

The May 27-29 conference was hosted at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and included presentations from academic and business leaders.

Strong says he found a debate between Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior lecturer Peter Senge the most interesting item, as they spoke from differing perspectives. Mackey was optimistic about capitalism as a force for making the future better whereas Senge was more skeptical, notes Strong.

Bentley University professor of marketing Rajendra Sisodia and The Darden School Elis and Signe Olsson professor of business administration R. Edward Freeman were co-chairs of the event. Both discussed how their business schools are already aligned with conscious capitalism in terms of deeply integrating ethics in business education.

The event built on the first practitioner-centric conscious capitalism conference which was held in Austin, Texas, November 2008. Another practitioner focused conference will be held in Austin Oct. 20-23, 2009.

FLOW has designed a conscious business alliance document for those who want to be associated with the movement to formally sign on and create a powerful coalition, says Strong.

“Instead of each company trying to determine that this is what we are about, we want to have this very public movement of businesses associated with conscious business lives,” he says.

Watch www.flowidealism.org for more information about the upcoming conference, and to learn more about the business alliance document e-mail contact@flowidealism.org.

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Conscious capitalism conference to convene thought leaders

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