This book presents conscious business as a constantly expanding and powerful approach to reinvent and shape organizations in a human and beneficial manner. In particular it examines the core characteristics, main drivers and challenges of conscious businesses in Germany. The book offers a structured overview of the current situation of the concept and outlines important issues that need to be considered in order to make independent decisions. Four case studies of successful conscious companies – differing in terms of their size, industry, legal form and international orientation – reveal concrete best practices and provide evidence for the approach’s ability to deliver business paradigms that are simultaneously purposeful and profitable.

Presents techniques for organizational success that involve embracing such qualities as integrity, authenticity, accountability, and honesty.

Practicing business with a conscience leaves no sector untouched. It trickles into how we treat our employees; approach our work in general; address stakeholders; engage in accounting, financial, and production management practices; implement and manage information technology; communicate on a direct and indirect basis; and market what we stand for. Business has encountered an interesting evolution in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, with social media as a catalyst aiding greater understanding and improvement regarding the critical value of soft skills, workplace diversity, change readiness, moral responsibility, sustainable awareness, and a general socially responsible mindset. This amalgamate spirit of business as we envision it in both the near and far future has found its way in all segments of business education, research, and practice. Adhering to the global trend of increased responsibility and evoking a constructive change in the narrative of business, this Research Companion serves as a critical reference work for business scholars and practitioners in various settings. It brings together contributing scholars from multiple business areas, from a variety of cultures and locations of the world, in order to achieve the compilation of a reference work that will find an expansive appeal. Including insights from the broad business spectrum ranging from internal managerial practices to strategic applications, including international sensitivity, this volume highlights the urgency for increased awareness in business decision-making on all fronts. It will be of great value to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of corporate social responsibility, business ethics, leadership, organizational studies, and entrepreneurship.

The contributions to this book are original articles, representing a cross-section of current philosophical work on consciousness and thereby allowing students and readers from other disciplines to acquaint themselves with the very latest debate, so that they can then pursue their own research interests more effectively. The volume includes a bibliography on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science and brain research, covering the last 25 years and consisting of over 1000 entries in 18 thematic sections, compiled by David Chalmers and Thomas Metzinger.

The idea that business is only about the money doesn’t hold true in the twenty-first century, when companies around the world are giving up traditional distinctions in order to succeed. Yet our expectations for businesses remain under the sway of an outdated worldview that emphasizes profits for shareholders above all else. The Power of And offers a new narrative about the nature of business, revealing the focus on responsibility and ethics that unites today’s most influential ideas and companies. R. Edward Freeman, Kirsten E. Martin, and Bidhan L. Parmar detail an emerging business model built on five key concepts: prioritizing purpose as well as profits; creating value for stakeholders as well as shareholders; seeing business as embedded in society as well as markets; recognizing people’s full humanity as well as their economic interests; and integrating business and ethics into a more holistic model. Drawing on examples across companies, industries, and countries, they show that these values support persevering in hard times and prospering over the long term. Real-world success stories disprove the conventional wisdom that there are unavoidable trade-offs between acting ethically and succeeding financially. The Power of And presents a conceptual revolution about what it means for business to be responsible, providing a new story for us to tell in order to help all kinds of companies thrive.

A practical approach to business transformation Fit for Growth* is a unique approach to business transformation that explicitly connects growth strategy with cost management and organization restructuring. Drawing on 70-plus years of strategy consulting experience and in-depth research, the experts at PwC’s Strategy& lay out a winning framework that helps CEOs and senior executives transform their organizations for sustainable, profitable growth. This approach gives structure to strategy while promoting lasting change. Examples from Strategy&’s hundreds of clients illustrate successful transformation on the ground, and illuminate how senior and middle managers are able to take ownership and even thrive during difficult periods of transition. Throughout the Fit for Growth process, the focus is on maintaining consistent high-value performance while enabling fundamental change. Strategy& has helped major clients around the globe achieve significant and sustained results with its research-backed approach to restructuring and cost reduction. This book provides practical guidance for leveraging that expertise to make the choices that allow companies to: Achieve growth while reducing costs Manage transformation and transition productively Create lasting competitive advantage Deliver reliable, high-value performance Sustainable success is founded on efficiency and high performance. Companies are always looking to do more with less, but their efforts often work against them in the long run. Total business transformation requires total buy-in, and it entails a series of decisions that must not be made lightly. The Fit for Growth approach provides a clear strategy and practical framework for growth-oriented change, with expert guidance on getting it right. *Fit for Growth is a registered service mark of PwC Strategy& Inc. in the United States

Advisor of Leadership at Google and former vice president of leadership at LinkedIn claims that the biggest driver of motivation is the chance to serve a larger purpose beyond our careers and ourselves, rather than salary, benefits, bonuses, or other material incentives; companies that are able to successfully focus their people, their teams, and their culture around meaning outperform their competition. Fred Kofman's approach to leadership has little to do with the standard practices taught in business school and traditional books. Bringing together economics and business theory, communications and conflict resolution, family counseling and mindfulness mediation, Kofman argues in The Meaning Revolution that our most deep-seated, unspoken, and universal anxiety stems from our fear that our life is being wasted--that the end of life will overtake us when our song is still unsung. Material incentives--salary and benefits--account for perhaps 15 percent of employees' motivation at work. The other 85 percent is driven by a need to belong, a feeling that what we do day in and day out makes a difference, that how we spend our time on earth serves a larger purpose beyond just ourselves. Kofman claims that transcendental leaders, wherever they are in the hierarchy, are able to put aside their self-interests and help others to feel connected with others on a team or in an organization on a great mission and part of an ennobling purpose. He argues that every organization involved in work that is nonviolent and non addictive has what he calls an "immortality project" at its core. And the challenge for leaders is to identify and expand on that core, to inspire all stakeholders to take part.