At some point way back in history, my wife and I were raising three elementary school aged kids. They each participated in the annual “Odyssey of the Mind” competition, designed to promote creativity among students. The central ideology of the program was “If it doesn’t say you can’t, you can.” My wife coached both their teams (I actually know how to do math—two of our kids were on the same team). Seeing the incredible amount of time and effort she put into that, I quickly opted out of coaching, and volunteered to be a judge at the local level on the day of competition.
As I write this column, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is more than a month old, with no readily available resolution in sight. Unquestionably, the greatest toll is being felt by Ukrainian residents, who are suffering from incessant shelling, forced migration to safer locales, and death. As many have noted already, this presents the rest of the world with humanitarian and moral crises that we must attend to. I certainly acknowledge these concerns, and wish I had something useful to say about them, but I don’t feel qualified to do that.
I have previously mentioned the idea of “degrowth” in my thoughts about our approach to global climate change and resource depletion. I first ran into this concept in the summer of 2019, when I attended the Alternative Economic and Monetary Systems (AEMS) in Vienna. At that point in my thinking, my opinion was, “Well, of course we have to shrink our impact on the climate and natural resources. That means we all have to do with less.” Easy enough to say for an affluent resident of the global West, who while certainly not rich by US standards, doesn’t miss any meals, either.
You may have seen the signs around campus announcing First Amendment Rights training at UNI. I am a staunch believer in the First Amendment. The amendment is a key freedom setting America apart from totalitarian, authoritarian, and even other democratic governments. I encourage you to complete the training; it doesn’t take long, and you’ll learn some interesting aspects of the First Amendment.
On November 17, 2021, prior to the US House of Representative’s vote to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, delivered a fiery speech on the House floor, part of which attacked a fellow Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, from Minnesota. US Representative Lauren Boebert, from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, was elected to her post in 2020. Boebert has quickly gained a reputation for “ugly and unsavory” actions, and using politics to promote her personal brand.
“Ideas matter.” As I have noted in previous blog posts, this was a mantra chanted by my dissertation advisor, Jon Shepard, during my Ph.D. program at Virginia Tech. Jon, trained as a sociologist, and by then, Chair of the Management Department in the business school, was referring to the vital importance of our thinking on the ways we structure our organizations, institutions, and societies. He was conveying that the ways we live, the rules we observe, the social structures we create, are all derived from someone’s ideas—they are NOT preordained or natural law.
Decades ago, my sister and her friend were sharing gossip about their junior high classmates. My Mom overheard them and admonished them: “Don’t gossip.” The lesson still resounds, as the friend has recollected to me recently.
Internet shopping precludes trying things on before purchasing. Free shipping has become the industry norm. As with any resource, “free” shipping leads to wasteful behavior. Customers order two or three sizes of a particular style, since they don’t pay directly for shipping. Retailers hope that maintaining customer goodwill will be beneficial.
Periodically, my wife will give me homework assignments. Not the “honey do” jobs around the house that most partners get—she knows I create more problems than I ever fix—but reading or writing chores, just like I give my students. Her most recent dictate was to read a 30-year-old article from the Harvard Business Review, “What’s the Matter with Business Ethics?” by Andrew Stark. Because business ethics is my home field, I decided to comply. My study of business ethics began in the mid-1990s, not long after the article was originally published, so it also served as a way for me to review…
Federal judges rule on cases that can affect the profitability of particular companies and even whole industries. Imagine a judge handling a case with a large retailer. What would you think if this judge owned shares of stock in this large retailer and even bought or sold shares during the trial? You would be shocked and suspicious.
