Can business do good while doing well? This was the question George Serafeim set out to answer over a decade ago, when he first began his research into understanding the impact of business on society. At the time, ESG issues were seen as “soft” and business leaders were skeptical that contributing to social change would do anything but hurt their bottom line. But the more he looked at the data, the more Serafeim realized the question was not “can it be done?” but “how?” In…
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global disruption on a scale unprecedented in modern history. While there are useful parallels to be drawn with previous pandemics like the Spanish flu epidemic, financial downturns like the 2008 Great Recession and geopolitical upheavals like World War II, none match the scope and shape of the human and economic toll of COVID-19 and none can predict all of the changes this crisis will set in motion. In COVID-19: The Great Reset, authors Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret set out to the explore the transformations that are occurring at all levels, from the macro to…
When modern portfolio theory arrived on the scene in the 1950s, it was considered revolutionary. It changed the way that investors perceive risk, return and portfolio management and permanently altered the investing world and financial markets.
“It’s time for a new way to think about investing, one that can contend with the complex challenges we face in the 21st century,” authors William Burckart and Steven Lydenberg write in the introduction to their new book, 21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change.
“Tell me which of the pressing issues of our time keep you awake at night, and I will tell you how the old rules of profit maximization and short-term thinking contribute to those problems,” Judy Samuelson writes in the introduction to her new book, The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World. The rules are changing. The COVID-19 pandemic and other recent crises have made it clear that business and society are more intertwined than ever before, and the old notions of “what is good for business” are no longer sustainable for society – or…
