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Dear All,

Please join us online on Tuesday, 17 October, at 4pm BST, for the first R:ETRO seminar of this term, hosted by the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation.

Helet Botha, (University of Michigan-Dearborn) will be giving a paper entitled "Simone de Beauvoir & Grand Challenges: An Existentialist Ethics That Can Overcome Barriers to Trust When Death, Danger & Vulnerability Loom Large." 

Abstract:

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of what it takes to address grand challenges effectively.  Managers' capacity to trust is an important part of this puzzle. Trust motivates collaborative efforts, especially when solutions are inherently uncertain as is the case with grand challenges. Existentialism "deals in" uncertain futures and thus offers valuable perspectives on the lived experience of managers facing grand challenges. In this manuscript, we first draw upon Beauvoir's feminist existentialism to develop an alternative, phenomenological account of the problem that is managerial trust. We then demonstrate how Beauvoir's conception of moral agency offers one solution to this problem. Ultimately, we show that part of what it takes to address grand challenges effectively is for managers to operate from an existentialist ethics - one that motivates collaboration when death, danger and vulnerability in relation to others loom large.

Click here to register.

I hope to see many of you there!

All the best,
Rita