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Sustainability PhD programs of study ... Re: Pinstripes

  • 1.  Sustainability PhD programs of study ... Re: Pinstripes

    Posted 11-09-2005 17:31
    RMIT Business Faculty has a number of PhD completions focusing on sustainability/CSR/environment. Mine was completed in 2003 - see: http://intergon.net/phd for most of my thesis in MSWord format.

    I am trying to get a list of all the PhD thesises that were completed in recent years concerning sustainability - wait out

    Lionel
    PS - RMIT=Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
    Research Fellow - lionel.boxer@rmit.edu.au
    Centre for Management Quality Research
    Read The Sustainable Way - see http://intergon.net/tsw
    Luncheon 1230 15 Nov Naval and Military Club
    $45=lunch+copy of The Sustainable Way

    >>> anastasia.orourke@YALE.EDU 10/11/2005 4:33:59 am >>>
    I am going to sidestep Dina's questions for now, and just to add that I hope
    the Pinstripes' next iteration includes an assessment of Doctoral Programs
    in business schools on environment/csr. It seems to me there is a
    disconnect - business schools are mainly hiring PhDs from business schools
    but very few business schools have PhD programs that are geared towards
    studying these topics. Who will be the next generation of teachers in
    b-schools on environmental and/or CSR?. While I agree it's ultimately better
    to integrate environmental and social issues into the different disciplines
    as they stand, I am not convinced that those teaching these disciplines are
    able to adequately do so. For one thing, in their own doctoral training,
    were they ever taught anything on the topics?
    Regards
    Anastasia

    Anastasia R. O'Rourke | Ph.D. Candidate | Yale University |Ph. +1 203 432
    5216 (office) | + 1 203 215 1575 (cell) | anastasia.orourke@yale.edu |



    -----Original Message-----
    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    [mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU]On Behalf Of
    Koehler.Dinah@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
    Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 10:17 AM
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Pinstripes


    I cannot disagree more.

    Environmental issues are social issues, as society (writ large) suffers
    from pollution. Consider the huge impacts of particulate matter
    emissions on lung function and premature death. These were the main
    source of social benefits in cost benefit analysis of the 1990 Clean Air
    Act Amendments. When ecosystems break down, water quality decreases, and
    thus drinking water and/or fisheries are affected, among other impacts.
    Mercury emissions from power plants end up in water, and because they
    cannot be broken down readily are passed up the foodchain
    (bioaccumulate) to high human health threatening concentrations in tuna.
    Thus, the human system (say "society") and the environment are tightly
    interlinked. ONE, by its name, addresses questions of anthropocentric
    nature.

    Now, the question to the ONE community is, do you measure environmental
    performance in terms of pollution/emissions? Concentrations of
    pollutants in the environment? Ecosystem disfunction? And/or adverse
    human health outcomes? (Or is ONE research limited by available
    databases or availabe knowledge?) These are questions for society, and
    for social/human quality of life. It has seemed to me for a long time,
    that the outcome of concern with the most traction for our human species
    is to determine adverse human health outcomes, as we are (biologically,
    emotionally and politically) most concerned with the survival and
    well-being of our species. As a species on top of the food chain, if we
    suffer, no doubt other species suffer too.

    I think the ONE community is better served by applying systems thinking
    and focusing on integrated systems which underlie environmental problems
    - many if not most of which have social causes. EPA has for many years
    focused on single media problems, but solutions need to be multi-media.
    There is a gradual shift in the agency to apply more multi-media
    policies. ONE should also think along disciplines, not within
    disciplines.

    Dinah Koehler, Sc.D.
    Economics and Decision Sciences Research
    National Center for Environmental Research
    8722F, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
    Washington, DC 20460
    202-343-9687
    202-233-0678 (fax)

    Courier Delivery Address:
    USEPA, NCER
    Room 3319E Woodies Bldg
    1025 F Street NW
    Washington, DC 20004-1409



    Joseph Sarkis
    <jsarkis@CLARKU.
    EDU> To
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    Environment Subject
    Discussion Re: Pinstripes
    <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.
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    11/09/2005 07:00
    AM


    Please respond
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    and the Natural
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    David,

    This is one of the concerns I have about the whole issue of the role
    environmental issues should play within sustainability. The difficulty
    we
    are having is something that was mentioned over a decade ago at one of
    the
    AOM meetings early in ONE's life where the debate was what makes the
    environment different than other SIM issues. We are continuing to
    struggle
    with that and the term sustainability has not been much help on this
    issue
    and has caused a lot of this murkiness. And I know others have argued
    for
    the fact that you can have both and should have both, but it seems to me
    at
    the expense of environmental issues. Politically (and more generally
    from a
    society perspective) these issues are linked. This could be something
    that
    hinders environmental progress. Because there are those who would
    support
    environmental issues, but may be deterred because of the connotations of
    being a 'blue state' topic. See a recent article in the New York Times
    on a
    short example of this:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/politics/07air.html?emc=eta1


    Overall, it seems this is a SIM award and not a ONE award. This is a
    marginalization of the environmental issues faced by organizations and
    society. SIM seems, to me, to be focused primarily on anthropocentric
    issues, environmental issues play a role, but a more peripheral one.
    Unfortunately, what I thought was primarily an ecological focus by
    WRI/ASPEN
    is now much more focused on social issues. Isn't money making a social
    issue
    too? It addresses poverty. Thus, all our finance courses are socially
    conscious...let me mark down 8 courses...there I feel better.

    -Joe S.







    ==============================================
    Joseph Sarkis
    Professor of Operations and Environmental Management
    Graduate School of Management
    Clark University
    950 Main Street
    Worcester, MA 01610-1477

    Phone: 508-793-7659
    Fax: 508-793-8822
    URL: www.clarku.edu/~jsarkis
    jsarkis@clarku.edu
    ==============================================


    -----Original Message-----
    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    [mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Levy
    Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 10:16 PM
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Pinstripes

    Rankings can always be useful to push schools in a good direction, but I

    find the new system is weaker and less useful in the way that it puts
    environmental and social content together. I have a lot of students ask
    about environmental content in MBA programs, and I used to point them to

    the Pinstripes reports, but it's lost its value for this. The new report

    tends to neglect the niche players in enviro mgt - or at least, hard to
    identify them. With a broader view of social responsibility, I also
    would be a bit concerned about the potential to massage the numbers - I
    think about our courses, and the temptation to emphasize the social
    content for particular reporting purposes.
    For next time, they should go back to reporting environmental programs
    and courses separately from the social issues courses! - at least make
    clear which schools have specialized grad programs, concentrations, and
    how many dedicated courses in each area.

    David

    --
    David Levy
    Professor, Department of Management
    University of Massachusetts, Boston
    100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125, USA
    Tel: 617-287-7860
    http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/