Marc Le Menestrel

From Unethical Business to Ethical Selves: How to eat to be yourself? (Monday June 12th 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-31T09:47:48Z

Each participant prepares something about the Food Industry (a fact, an experience, a photo, a video, something to eat or drink, anything...) that he/she finds of relevance in the context of his/her learning process.

We share our contributions and experience how such issues can have a direct implication for our life and, most importantly, for our own behavior.

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Voicing your values (Thursday 8th of June 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-31T09:44:19Z

How to disobey when appropriate?

Watch this 40 min video about the Milgram Experiment.

Reflect on it and look for additional information about the experiment and obedience in general.

Assignment:

Describe for yourself who you tend to be when you fail to act upon your own values and reflect about how you would resist to obedience when it means acting contrary to your values. Write one sentence that empowers you to be the one you want to be in these situations.

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Business, Corruption and the Individual (Tuesday 6th of June, 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-31T09:42:10Z

Summary

As a newly appointed manager of a pharmaceutical company in China faces the issue of kickbacks to Doctors in order to boost sales, he is not very sure about the practices and the consequences of carrying out what could be interpreted as a form of corruption. How should he behave in such a situation? Why? We follow this case study with a discussion on corruption, its perception, methods and consequences.

Required reading

Butler, Charlotte & de Bettignies, Henri-Claude. “Blue Monday (R)”, Insead and CEIBS Case Study, 2009.

Watch this 40 min video about the Milgram Experiment.

Reflect on it and look for additional information about the experiment and obedience in general.

Assignment: Answer the two questions at the end of the case.

Advice: Think a bit by yourself and then browse the Internet to learn about what happened in the recent years to pharmaceutical companies in China about corruption and use it to build a more refined assignment.

Optional Readings

De George, Richard. “ Ethics, Corruption, and Doing Business in Asia”, in Asia Pacific Journal of Economics & Business, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1997), pp. 39-52.

Anand, V., Ashforth, B.E., and Joshi, M. (2004) “Business as usual: the acceptance and perpetuation of corruption in organizations”, Academy of Management Executive, 18 (2): 39-53.

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Corruption & Obedience (Case Study and Discussion) (Seminar 9, June 7, 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-31T09:32:59Z

Summary

Required reading

Butler, Charlotte & de Bettignies, Henri-Claude. “Blue Monday (R)”, Insead and CEIBS Case Study, 2009.

Watch this 40 min video about the Milgram Experiment.

Reflect on it and look for additional information about the experiment and obedience in general.

Assignment: Answer the two questions at the end of the case.

Optional Readings

De George, Richard. “ Ethics, Corruption, and Doing Business in Asia”, in Asia Pacific Journal of Economics & Business, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1997), pp. 39-52.

Anand, V., Ashforth, B.E., and Joshi, M. (2004) “Business as usual: the acceptance and perpetuation of corruption in organizations”, Academy of Management Executive, 18 (2): 39-53.

Slides of the Session

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Business and Global Environmental Issues: The Oil Industry and Climate Change (Seminar 7 with Discussion, May 24, 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-15T14:37:14Z

What strategy can a major company design and implement in the face of global environmental issues? In this case-study about oil industry and climate change, we identify different types of strategies and implementation tactics, with a specific emphasis on communication strategies.

We then discuss in details the strategies of three multinational oil corporations in the face of climate change: ExxonMobil, TotalFinaElf and BP Amoco. We emphasize the similarities and the differences among strategies, in particular in the communicational and managerial dimensions.

Finally, we discuss how the Peak Oil theory can help us to understand the strategies of Oil companies.

Preparation (required)

Please fill in a survey about decisions that have implications for the natural environment. It is important that you do it well and it takes about 45 minutes.

Case-Study (Required

van den Hove, S., Le Menestrel, M. & de Bettignies, H.-C. (2002): “The oil industry and climate change: strategies and ethical dilemmas.” Climate Policy 2(1): 3-19.

Preparation 300-500 words

How do you think oil companies influence the policy of climate change today?

Optional readings

George Monbiot (2014). It's simple. If we can't change our economic system, our number's up. The Guardian, Tuesday 27 May 2014

James Murray & David King (2012). Oil's tipping point has passed. Nature 481, 433–435.

David J. Murphy (2012). Fossil fuels: Peak oil is affecting the economy already. Nature 483, 541-541

Pedro de Almeida & Pedro D. Silva (2011), Timing and future consequences of the peak of oil production. Futures 43.

Alexandra Witze (2007). Energy: That's oil, folks... Nature 445, 14-17

Michael Lardelli (2007). Scientists need to confront economists about peak oil. Nature 446, 257-257

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Goals and Success (Monday 8 of May 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-03T11:40:25Z

Video: “The Parable of the Sadhu” – Harvard Business School.

Through a case study depicting a Wall Street financial analyst facing a dilemma in mountaineering, we discuss whether success lies in the mere attainment of goals.

We then introduce criteria of ethical behaviour. These philosophical perspectives provide us with foundations to propose an open form of ethical rationality that combines considerations based on self-interest with ethical values.

Reading

McCoy, Bowen: “The parable of the Sadhu”, in Harvard Business Review, Vol. 75 N°3, May-June 1997, pp. 54-61.

Preparation: For you personally, is success the mere attainment of your goals?

Video to watch: TED Talks: Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

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Being, Thinking, Dreaming: The art of Learning (Tuesday 2nd of May, 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-05-03T11:24:20Z

Review of the course so far

We review the course so far, the key concepts and the expectations so as to improve the opportunity to learn.

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Guest Speaker Aniol Brosa (April 18, 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2017-03-31T11:16:39Z

Note that I have modified the previous session description with an assignment and a video: available here.

In this session, Aniol Brosa, serial entrepreneur, we walk you through the dilemmas, failures and/or doubts when starting-up a company. Pointing out not only the professional side of team building, strategy definition and execution/growth management but also the personal challenges when reality happens to be far from expectations, either on the positive or the negative side of it.

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Essay methodology for critical thinking and writing

Estève Giraud — 2016-07-18T10:11:00Z

Writing the weekly essays for the course is a real challenge. It requires you to be on top of the assigned readings, and preferably of the suggested ones. External serious sources are also valued, and we ask you to write a clear, synthesized and well argumented opinion. Of course, all of this has to fit in a calendar already busy with other courses assignments, work or internship, and personal life.

For many students, this appears to be a tedious process through which it is hard to get the desired outcome: a good grade.

If you scrolled this page with the hope of finding a short and easy recipe to get a good grade in your IBP assignments, this might be a disappointment. However, if you are looking for a practical exercise which will help you to build intellectual muscles, which can help you to write your assignments more and more efficiently over time; this article is for you.

To practice properly, you need to start working at least two days before the day you write the essay you will submit.

On the first day, you should simply try to write your opinion as clearly as possible, and then read the assigned readings making an analysis of the opinion and arguments of the authors to enrich that opinion.

On the second day, imagine you are a completely different person, take the opposite opinion to yours, and argument for it.

On the third day, write now what will be your refined and expanded opinion, using your writing from the two previous days.

The attached pdf "IBP methodology of essays" gives you a detailed explanation.

Surely this will seem like a long process to many of you, and you might want to do it all in a row to save yourself time. According to my experience, this is not the most efficient way to do it because the brain needs time to think through complex political, economical and social issues, weight arguments and select the right words. You might want to think about this exercise like a workout routine: discipline and regularity foster your strength and flexibility.

Dreaming and Deciding your life (Thursday 4th of May, 2017)

Marc Le Menestrel — 2016-06-09T17:10:26Z

In this session, participants formulate their own vision of success. To this end, they experience an integrated form of decision-making where the heart and soul enrich the cognitive processes.

Reason alone is not sufficient for taking the best decisions. In a world of profound transformation, a purely intellectual approach may even crowd out our most important values and lead us to unexpected negative consequences. At the individual level, or at the company level, it is becoming a must to integrate our values, emotions, imagination and intuition into our decision making.

Teaching to take better decisions becomes experiential as participants are actors of their learning process. Intimate dialogues, respectful conversations, meditation and day-dreaming techniques are typical examples of processes that open minds and hearts towards taking the decisions that a situation may require. Guided visualization exercises are especially useful to clarify and empower our dream beyond our goal and to ensure continuity and value of the process.

Preparation

Take 15 minutes of your time that you spend in a place where you feel safe and comfortable. Remembering people, places or experiences of your past, connect with who you were before becoming the student you are now and ask to yourself, “What were my dreams about university?”. Write down a few words about them.

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