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This article aims to analyze the anthropocentrism vs ethics of care positions of a group of undergraduate students at a private university in Mexico to test gender variable differences in their perspectives. There are two hypotheses: (1) there is a statistically significant difference between male and female genders related to anthropocentrism vs ethics of care positions, and if so, (2) the differences are attributable to women having a more ethics of care position than men. Participants were 561 undergraduate students from a private university in Mexico (257 female, 304 male). The findings demonstrated that both hypotheses were supported by the ethics of care, where the individual rights perspective is set aside to seek collective and holistic well-being.

T-tests were performed to test gender differences in anthropocentrism and ethics of care.

The results showed statistical differences based on gender (sig.000) and that women are less anthropocentric (or more oriented toward an ethics of care than men (female:1.64 and male:1.94). Ethics of care of female position is more defined than that of men. As a conclusion, men are more oriented to anthropocentrism, which reflects a lack of environmental connection by not assuming themselves as part of it and by defending the right of resources exploitation. On the contrary, women tend to respond from an ethic of care that means a more harmonious relationship with nature. In addition, women tend to assume a relationship with the environment, without hierarchy or supremacy towards it, and tend to reject the demand for the exploitation of the planet's resources as part of a right that human beings have historically assumed.

One of the limitations of this study is that it has been carried out in a university educational context with exclusively undergraduate students. It would be interesting to validate these anthropocentric vs ethics of care positions in different university groups, including professors and academic managers. Studying this concept in diverse contexts such as business, government and civil society would also be engaging. In addition, the authors recognize that the study is limited by its small population, which means that a balance between men and women or disciplines could not be guaranteed. However, the authors believe that although the results may not be considered exhaustive or conclusive, the results shed light for possible new studies in which the population is expanded. This is an exploratory study.

These results have practical implications for universities. In the classroom and in the university environment, students can learn to question the way they relate to the environment. Anthropocentrism (more accentuated in men) is assumed to be separate from the environment and with the right to its exploitation. Contrary to anthropocentrism, it is necessary to explore other positions such as the ethics of care or feminine ethics, more pronounced in women. Universities can develop environmental sustainability projects under the leadership of women, without claiming to be exclusive to them. In this way, the ethic of care approach can be put into practice and thus begin the necessary change for a new environmental relationship perspective.

Universities are required to provide an educational orientation towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) particularly those that respond to the climate crisis. To this end, it is necessary to promote a new environmental awareness that critically question anthropocentric models based on the supremacy over the environment. The ethics of care or feminine ethics, contrary to the previous position, assumes that the person is part of the environment and is oriented to its care and healing of the damage caused to restore this network of the human being with nature. The originality of this study lies in demonstrating how women exhibit a different relationship with the environment, oriented to the ethics of care, and how their posture shows a difference with anthropocentrism, which is stronger in men.

This chapter addresses one of the most crucial areas for critical thinking: the morality of turbulent markets around the world. All of us are overwhelmed by such turbulent markets. Following Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2004, 2010), we distinguish between nonscalable industries (ordinary professions where income grows linearly, piecemeal or by marginal jumps) and scalable industries (extraordinary risk-prone professions where income grows in a nonlinear fashion, and by exponential jumps and fractures). Nonscalable industries generate tame and predictable markets of goods and services, while scalable industries regularly explode into behemoth virulent markets where rewards are disproportionately large compared to effort, and they are the major causes of turbulent financial markets that rock our world causing ever-widening inequities and inequalities. Part I describes both scalable and nonscalable markets in sufficient detail, including propensity of scalable industries to randomness, and the turbulent markets they create. Part II seeks understanding of moral responsibility of turbulent markets and discusses who should appropriate moral responsibility for turbulent markets and under what conditions. Part III synthesizes various theories of necessary and sufficient conditions for accepting or assigning moral responsibility. We also analyze the necessary and sufficient conditions for attribution of moral responsibility such as rationality, intentionality, autonomy or freedom, causality, accountability, and avoidability of various actors as moral agents or as moral persons. By grouping these conditions, we then derive some useful models for assigning moral responsibility to various entities such as individual executives, corporations, or joint bodies. We discuss the challenges and limitations of such models.

This chapter presents a spiritual or wisdom-based approach to development, its rationale, conceptualization, methods and examples of applications. The politics of being proposes that societies explicitly make the fulfillment (‘being’) of all its members – humans and non-humans – their main goal, which should guide the development and implementation of public policies. It stands in opposition to the current development paradigm focused on economic growth or ‘having’, and rooted in a set of modern western values – individualism, materialism, reductionism, anthropocentrism, etc. By nourishing our relational nature, the politics of being can address the root causes of the meta crisis the world is facing, reconciling human flourishing with sustainability and supporting the cultural evolution that is needed. It proposes a dialogue between wisdom and science, the two main areas of knowledge, to guide its design and implementation. It conceptualizes ‘being’ as the actualization of our truest ‘being’ and our highest ‘being’. This means that societies should provide the right conditions for their human members to express themselves and fulfil their healthy aspirations, as well as to develop human virtues and qualities. Wisdom traditions and spiritual teachings offer relevant insights into the nature of human fulfilment and the process of spiritual evolution that can be applied to societies. They emphasize the cultivation of spiritual values and qualities such as love, peace, happiness, life, mindfulness, mystery and the understanding of interconnectedness. In recent decades, these qualities have become areas of scientific research and been at the core of social change and development initiatives. Together they can serve as the foundations of the politics of being and allow to identify actionable public policy agendas in many sectors mainly based on existing examples.

The objective of this chapter is to identify the key characteristics of Global Services businesses that will thrive and achieve success in the future. These factors are integrated into three main pillars, which we refer to as the Triple-Win. The first and most obvious pillar is technology as a tool. The second pillar is the design and sustainability of the business model, without which the previous factor would be merely a cost and not an investment. And last but not the least, there is the purpose which gives meaning to the proposal, focusing on the human being and their environment. The DIDPAGA business model sits at the intersection of these three elements.

In Chapter 1, we critically reviewed the foundations of the free enterprise capital system (FECS), which has been successful primarily because of its wealth and asset accumulation potentiality and actuality. In this chapter, we critically argue that this capacity has been grounded upon the profit maximization (PM) theories, models, and paradigms of FECS. The intent of this chapter is not anti-PM. The PM models of FECS have worked and performed well for more than 200 years of the economic history of the United States and other developed countries, and this phenomenon is celebrated and featured as “market performativity.” However, market performativity has not truly benefitted the poor and the marginalized; on the contrary, market performativity has wittingly or unwittingly created gaping inequalities of wealth, income, opportunity, and prosperity. Critical thinking does not combat PM but challenges it with alternative models of profit sharing that promote social wealth, social welfare, social progress, and opportunity for all, which we explore here. Economic development without social progress breeds economic inequality and social injustice. Economic development alone is not enough; we should create a new paradigm in which economic development is the servant of social progress, not vice versa. Such a paradigm shift involves integrating the creativity and innovativity of market performativity and the goals and drives of social performativity together with PM, that is, from market performativity to social performativity.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. That is, without critically inquiring into the knowledge of life, which is well-being and valuable, life is not worth living. Critical thinking questions existing theories and their unexamined and obsessive assumptions and generalizations, constraints, and the so-called “best” practices of the prevailing system of management and tries to replace them with more valid assumptions and generalizations that uphold the dignity, uniqueness, and inalienable rights of every individual and the community. In our diverse and pluralistic cultural environment, the promise of a truly generative dialogue among occidental (western) and oriental (eastern) cultures and civilizations holds great hope for the future. Critical thinking can facilitate this dialogue such that all of us have a meaningful place in this universe. In this chapter, we explore introductory working definitions of critical thinking so that we can early enough understand its demanding domains, moral calls, and ramifications in its current critical applications. Specifically, in Part I, we examine the structured layers of our thinking and reasoning to dismantle them progressively, and in Part II, in support of our claims, we explore complexity and chaos theories as a new resource for critical thinking.

The purpose of this paper is to share the story-net approach and to situate it as one that benefits from blending story as Indigenous methodology with non-corporeal actant theory (NCAT). The authors hope it will serve useful in building storytelling communities where Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars are working to heal together from colonial trauma, reveal the inner workings of historical and ongoing colonial projects, dismantle the agency of colonial projects, and welcome heartful dialogue into the centre of MOS discourse.

The authors employ a storytelling approach which includes mapping the story-net territory and identifying the plot points along the journey. The authors use the story-net approach to story the approach.

This approach served helpful when engaging within story archives and with storytelling collectives comprised of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons, peoples and knowledges. The authors found four key premises, which help to narrate the ontology, epistemology, methodology and axiology of the story-net approach and six plot points, which help in mapping the lessons learned from engaging with stories, storytellers, story listeners and the socio-discursive contexts surrounding story-net work.

The authors story an approach that can be useful to support emerging Indigenous scholars while engaging with their non-Indigenous colleagues to do story-net work. This approach may be useful to navigate the tensions to create safer, more humane, inclusive, relational, strengths-based and trauma-informed spaces for engaging with Indigenous stories, storytellers, story listeners and discourses, as well as, to plot the points of contention so as to set the stage for deepening respectful research relations.

This paper aims to study the Colombia Buen Vivir and how indigenous social enterprise strategies inform and contribute for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by reaching sustainability and the well-being in the community.

Using participatory video research (PVR), this work draws upon evidence from a multiple case study of five indigenous communities (Curripaco, Puinave, Yanacona, Misak and Wayuu). Ethical approval was obtained from the five indigenous social enterprises (ISEs) in Colombia.

What emerged from the findings is that the SDGs were addressed before the SDG Agenda in 2015. Moreover, the findings revealed that the cultural values of indigenous people had not been contemplated in the SDGs.

The cases respond to a particular context (Colombia); therefore, this invites us to be cautious when extrapolating the results to other regions.

This work addresses a research gap that points to the lack of studies that focus on ISEs and the SDGs in developing countries. Further, this work sheds light on the role ISEs play in the quest for communities to achieve sustainability and well-being.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explore whether the SDGs embed sufficient ways of knowing and doing by the Latin American Buen Vivir of ISEs.

The predominant neoliberal structure of capitalism and tourism as the fuel of capitalism exposes growing problems of injustice, unfairness and inequality. Places and communities around the world are currently expressing the need for radical changes in placemaking to be able to think, plan and act differently. This theoretical contribution adopts a humanistic management (HM) perspective of placemaking to promote places where people enjoy living, working, interacting and having meaningful experiences. Tourist destinations are relevant places to discuss the application of HM principles in practice and promote humanistic destinations and the humanisation of placemaking. This chapter concludes by arguing for an interface with eco-centric and posthumanist transformative approaches to promote holistic value-based placemaking and regeneration of places.