Review: A Company of Citizens
The answers to a motivated workforce may lie in ancient Greece.
Social Issues - Articles
15 Minutes with Kevin Johnson
SSIR Academic Editor Jim Phills sat down with former NBA superstar Kevin Johnson to discuss how he's revitalizing his old inner-city neighborhood.
Podcast
Dechen Tsering - Human Rights and Sex Trafficking
One of the greatest human rights abuses is sex trafficking. Millions of women and girls each year are tricked, trapped, bought, sold, and forced into service in sex industries. In this audio lecture, Dechen Tsering explores the causes of trafficking and the techniques used by traffickers. She advocates a holistic approach to stop this grave violation against women and describes the work Global Fund for Women undertakes in Southeast Asia and around the world toward this end.
Podcast
John Sage - Social Enterprise, Fair Trade and Coffee
Combining idealism with a genuine love of business, John Sage cofounded the social enterprise company Pura Vida, one of the largest distributors of fair trade organic coffee in the world. In this University podcast, he discusses his mission to improve the lives of people in coffee-growing regions. Sage explains how Pura Vida works at the intersection of the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, showing how the two can be blended to generate both revenues and social good.
Podcast
Carol Browner - Environmental Sustainability and Global Warming
When it comes to environmental sustainability issues, former EPA head Carol Browner asserts that failing to halt global warming will make us the first generation to bequeath to the next generation a problem that can't be fixed. In this audio lecture, warning of the perils that could await, she urges her Stanford Graduate School of Business audience to seek nonpartisan, business friendly solutions to the looming crisis.
Podcast
Alex Counts - Microfinance: Controversies and Promises
Microfinance is bringing the world's poor the kind of service that used to be reserved for bank customers in developed countries. Drawing on the work and philosophy of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Alex Counts talks in this audio lecture about microfinance's social and financial impact to an audience of Stanford MBA students.
Podcast
Joe Simitian and Michael Kirst - Financing California Schools
How is California, home of the technology revolution, preparing the next generation of students to lead the charge of innovation? In this University podcast, Senator Joe Simitian and Professor Michael Kirst argue that school financing in California is neither adequate, efficient, nor equitable. Speaking at the Stanford School of Education, they discuss the challenges of financing California's K-12 schools in a rapidly changing environment with diffuse accountability and dilute authority.
Faith in Fair Trade
How Lutherans are transforming their love of coffee into global good.
Green Fire
A Chilean firewood certification program spares both the air and indigenous business.
Podcast
Marc Freedman - Social Entrepreneurship and the Encore Career
Social entrepreneurship is now a path for many in the second half of life, proving that retirement can be a time of creativity, invention, and contribution, not decline. In this audio lecture, social innovator Marc Freedman discusses the huge untapped resource in potential retirees who are finding new ways to use their experience to tackle important social problems. Freedman shares the story of the creation of The Purpose Prize, a three-year initiative to invest in these new pioneers.