Sustainability, Democracy and Three Challenges to Global Judgment Integrity Capacity

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Abstract

Threats to natural and human sustainability abound: de-naturing’ our planet and dehumanizing global stakeholders, in part due to managerial overemphasis on economic results, that shifts sustainability risks onto the public and future generations; the relative weakness of current forms of democratic capitalism to adequately address global sustainability threats; and, the lack of a robust theory of human nature that synthesizes scientific findings and restrains dehumanizing policies. The author interprets these diverse causal factors as aspects of the erosion of global judgment integrity capacity, which must be reclaimed and redeveloped to ‘re-nature’ and ‘re-humanize’ large segments of our planet constructively.

The author makes three recommendations at three levels: (1) at the conceptual foundation level, the development of global human nature complexity skills is necessary to reverse the widespread, facile absorption of ideologies that dehumanize people and provide the rationale for de-naturing’ the planet; (2) at the macro-politico-economic level, the development of global democratic-capitalist complexity skills is necessary to avoid the imposition, military or otherwise, of one type of democratic capitalism onto the world when a sophisticated balance of all four types (incumbency democracy/investor capitalism; procedural democracy/regulatory capitalism; ecological democracy/community capitalism; and critical democracy/entrepreneurial capitalism) can best foster human and natural sustainability; and (3) at the microeconomic level, the development of global managerial moral complexity skills, in balancing the competing organizational values at work and at home, to implement sustainability on a daily basis.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalInnovation: Organization & Management
Volume6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2004

Keywords

  • de/re-humanizing
  • de/re-naturing, sustainability
  • democratic capitalism
  • global judgment integrity capacity
  • managerial/organizational values
  • moral complexity skills

Disciplines

  • Business
  • Business Administration, Management, and Operations
  • International Business

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