Reflections from My Time Leading NBS

One of the things that excites me most is what can be achieved through collective action.

My personal research agenda explores how organizations can work together to create more circular and regenerative supply chains. I believe it’s only through developing collective, coordinative intelligence that supply chains can pivot to become a source of strength and resilience for communities and ecosystems—instead of a source of destruction.

My belief in the power of the collective is also what made me so excited to lead NBS. In 2021, when founding director Tima Bansal passed me the reins, I knew NBS’s global network of researchers and business leaders was already a powerful force for good. I wanted to create spaces where they could learn from and support one another. I wanted to help these already powerful change-makers to strengthen their impact.

Now, after 5 years as NBS Director (and almost 15 years working at Ivey Business School and Smurfit Business School), it’s time for my family and me to return to our home country of Italy. As I pass NBS leadership to the very capable Oana Branzei, I find myself reflecting on the last 5 years. I’m realizing how much NBS’s activities, staff, and community have taught me about collective action, and how our individual efforts can be woven into a functional and synergistic whole. I wanted to share a few of these reflections with you—the community that helped me to grow.

Below are a few initiatives the NBS team ran during my tenure and what I’ve learned from each. (Full credit for the execution of these activities goes to NBS’s amazing staff—past and present—Abby Litchfield, Maya Fischhoff, Lexi Wright, Chelsea Hicks-Webster, Light Naing, and Felix Cai.)

Reflection 1: Sustainability educators need interdisciplinary, peer-to-peer learning platforms

In 2024, NBS organized a series of 5 virtual events, where 450 educators from 50 countries helped one another better integrate climate change into their business pedagogy. Many partner organizations helped us to disseminate information and recruit participants, including PRME, ClimateCAP, Open Climate Curriculum, Sustainability in Academia, GRONEN, and others.

Through panels and peer-to-peer sharing, attendees helped one another learn about:

• Carbon management

• Sustainability mindset

• Climate policy

• Climate literacy

• Navigating the teaching support ecosystem

(92% of attendees said they were somewhat or very likely to use what they learned in their own classroom. If you these topics could help you, too, you can find the recordings here.)

Through this series, I was exposed to many meanings of “business sustainability” and to how these meanings shift across geographical and cultural contexts. I also encountered different teaching methods—from case studies to simulations to games. The experience left me in awe of the many grassroots educational efforts underway around the world.

Yet, despite these diverse and inspiring teaching efforts, I continue to be shocked by daily news of war, irresponsible AI development and deployment, and instrumental narratives of energy scarcity, all which reflect contradictory perspectives on the means and ends of business sustainability. As sustainable business educators, we have much more work to do. And we must do that work collectively, working with colleagues from all business functions.

To enable genuine progress—defined as achieving net positive functional gains in social-ecological systems, rather than zero-sum games with winners and losers (e.g., McMullen 2024; Kubiszewski et al., 2013)—business scholars need interdisciplinary, peer-to-peer learning platforms. Such platforms can help us weave sustainability into every subject of business education, from operations and supply chains to strategy and marketing. In doing so, we should also borrow as much as possible from ecology, biology, sociology, and other sciences.

Reflection 2: Academics define success individualistically—and that needs to change

“Sustainability issues can feel overwhelming. But they get more manageable when you have tools to tackle them and a group to support you.” That was the conclusion of a day-long workshop we ran on “Systems Change for Sustainability: Connecting and Collaborating on Grand Challenges.” The workshop was part of “Responsible Management Education Week” in New York.

The workshop brought together over 100 business school faculty and staff committed to sustainability. Our goal was to demystify systems change by providing structured ways to address complex issues. The day also built community, as participants filled the room with passion and energy. Such connecting is an essential part of enabling change; when many individuals focus on different elements of a problem, their collective efforts can change the system.

From this experience, I hold a fond memory of co-designing the workshop with my friend and colleague, Dr. Jason Jay. We built the workshop around Repenning’s (2017) model of the System Change Problem Statement and the importance of scoping problems down into manageable tasks. At the time, I was using this model in a program called “Collective Action for Regenerative Agriculture,” so I was familiar with the tools.

When we engaged the room, full of esteemed colleagues and deans, I realized this model was largely unknown and untested among academics. This points back to the importance of peer-to-peer communities of practice. We can make more difference in the world if we blend our perspectives and competences.

But my reflections also ran deeper. There is also something important about scholars being unfamiliar with this particular model. The model was focused on identifying a specific societal problem to solve through one’s research. This orientation, itself, is rare in academia. Our training and incentive structures push us to prioritize knowledge creation over knowledge utility, and individual success over collective wellness. So, perhaps it was only natural that these scholars weren’t used to asking, “what problem does my research solve for others?”

This isn’t just a philosophical issue. Our definition of success shapes how we do research. When novel insight and individual career success are centred, our approach to engaged scholarship can become extractive. Data collection, knowledge creation, and top tier publication can get more focus than empowering the communities and ecosystems that provided the data.

Our definition of success also impacts the way scholars relate to one another. We often compete instead of collaborate.

My key takeaway is that we, as academics, need to redefine success as knowledge utility, achieved through collective endeavour. Within academia, that might inspire the creation of more spaces for peer-to-peer learning, mutual support, and lifting each other up. Within our research, it might lead to using non-extractive approaches to engaged scholarship, where our partners’ goals are centred. Solving societal problems could become the catalyst and reason for knowledge creation, not an afterthought.

Reflection 3: Collaboration doesn’t start with a common goal

In 2024, the NBS team wanted to understand how we could best support the high-impact work being undertaken by sustainability research centres around the world. Through surveys and interviews, spoke with 25 members of our Sustainability Centres Community to understand their goals and challenges. The challenges they described included:

• Defining a clear and compelling impact strategy.

• Engaging the right partners.

• Attracting enough funding.

To help mitigate these challenges, NBS piloted a new initiative called Centre Collaboration Incubators. These Incubators are a facilitated process to help a pre-selected group of research centres from around the world, working on similar topics but having complementary resources and capabilities, to scope a collaborative project and apply for joint funding.

We were shocked by how much interest there was in the program—37 centre leaders and scholars from 21 countries applied to the pilot. These applicants listed more than 25 different sustainable business topics they wanted to research collaboratively!

As I write this article, the pilot is half complete. We welcomed 9 members from 7 countries, all wanting to research regenerative food systems.

Throughout this project, I’ve often wondered: what is the glue that binds people together? We tend to assume that this glue must take the form of a shared goal or interest—a “north star,” as some systems thinkers put it. What I learned in this project is that such “convergence on ends” (to use Weick’s terminology) may be neither necessary nor sufficient for actors to come together and work with one another.

According to Weick, convergence on ends unfolds after “convergence on means.” Weick holds that actors first need to believe that interdependence—working together—is the only way to achieve their individual ends, which may in fact be quite different. The recognition of interdependence then motivates the search for a meaningful, overarching purpose. The purpose does not come at the expense of individual needs, but can be achieved despite their divergence.

In the context of the Incubator, we did see that participants’ individual needs were quite different. Some aimed to learn new methods; others wanted to secure a large research grant; others still wanted to feel part of something bigger and visible under the NBS brand. But in our setting, convergence on means and convergence on ends were not sequential. Rather, they appear to be happening simultaneously, in a reinforcing feedback loop. This project has taught me that Weick’s model may require adaptation. I hope to formalize some of these observations in future studies.

Reflection 4: Nature is a thoughtful teacher.

In Fall 2022, Tingting Yan, Wendy Tate, and Andreas Wieland, Co-Editors-in-Chief of the Journal of Supply Chain Management, reached out with an important question: “In three years, the journal will mark its 60th anniversary. We would like to spotlight a phenomenon of critical importance in supply chain management—what should that be?”

I saw an opportunity to focus attention on an emergent and still poorly understood phenomenon: the development of supply chains that actively regenerate both society and nature. In other words, systems of collective organizing designed to be net positive. To characterize this new paradigm, I brought together a group of senior scholars from across management sub-disciplines and socio-cultural backgrounds: Sergio Lazzarini (Brazil), Michael L. Barnett (USA), Miriam Wilhelm (EU), Ralph Hamann (South Africa), Chien-Ming Chen (China), Oana Branzei (Canada), Kevin J. Dooley (USA), and Martina Linnenluecke (Australia).

Three and a half years later, the special issue on regenerative supply chains is now complete, bringing together seven articles.

Along this journey of empirical and conceptual exploration, I met an Indigenous elder who told me: “You seem concerned about our collective future.” I replied that yes, I focus my scholarly efforts in that direction. He answered: “Good. But know that land and community will not be restored by work that happens only in front of a screen.”

Taking his words to heart, I reconnected with nature and with the people who inhabit and care for it. One thing I learned is that nature is negentropic: it uses solar energy to form and sustain highly functional, ordered structures—communities of life that operate harmoniously across different spatial and temporal scales.

As I learned more, I began to wonder if humans were truly part of this order-building process, called functionality. Functionality refers to “the quality of being useful, practical, and right for the purpose for which something was made.” To be functional, living and non-living resources must be in the right place, at the right time, to fulfill their role. Waste is the opposite: a valuable resource in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and under the wrong conditions. Could it be that the kind of order that we are building (i.e. our production and consumption systems) isn’t truly functional?

Consider bees’ natural role as co-evolved pollinators, maintaining floral reproduction through 120 million years of ecosystem-specific adaptation. Their mutualistic relationship with flowering plants demonstrates functionality through synchronized needs: nectar-seeking meets pollination requirements. Contrast this with industrial pollination systems that transport hives across U.S. states to service monoculture almond groves – a practice that stresses both pollinators and their original habitats.

Regenerative supply chains counter this dysfunction by aligning economic activities with social-ecological rhythms and capacities. Regenerative supply chains enhance resource functionality and achieve net-positive outcomes through two mechanisms: 1) transforming degraded resources into value streams, and 2) scaling and scoping operations within ecosystem thresholds. INVERSA exemplifies this approach. The company uses invasive species, like Lionfish in the Gulf of Mexico, Dragonfin in the Mississippi River, Pythons in the Everglades, to produce artisanal leather goods. Their model creates triple alignment: artisanal hunters gain livelihoods, local communities access sustainable protein sources, and conservation partners ensure INVERSA’s operations restore hydrological and biodiversity functionality.

I hope you will find the articles in the special issue—including my two conceptual pieces on the principles and structural dimensions of regenerative supply chains—useful.

Where I’ll go next

Soon, my family and I will move to Italy, where I’ve accepted a position at LUISS University in Rome (Italy). That said, you won’t be rid of me! I look forward to the next chapter, where I can support NBS as a member of its Sustainability Centres Community Advisory Board.

Special thanks to Chelsea Hicks-Webster for her editing support on this article. Her conversation and edits helped me distill and clarify these reflections.

References

• Kubiszewski, I., R. Costanza, C. Franco, et al. 2013. “Beyond GDP.” Ecological Economics 93: 57–68.

• Martin, Roger L. “The High Price of Efficiency.” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2019.

• McMullen, J. S. 2024a. “Real Growth Through Entrepreneurial Resourcefulness.” Academy of Management Review 49, no. 4: 746–774.

• Weick, K. E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Chapter 4. McGraw-Hill.