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Highly publicized scandals and increased stakeholder activism for sustainable development have resulted in calls for more responsible global leadership. At the same time, emerging economies characterized by weak institutions, political instability, and a shaky rule of law have gained in importance for global business. Under the lens of responsible global leadership, we highlight the challenges that global leaders face in addressing the needs of diverse, cross-boundary stakeholders, with a particular focus on Western multinational enterprises (MNEs) doing business in emerging markets. We identify three prototypical approaches that MNEs and their leaders take in responding to calls for responsible global leadership, focusing on the tensions and possible trade-offs between globally integrated and locally adapted approaches. We discuss the implications in view of managerial decision making and behavior and offer recommendations for how organizations may promote responsible global leadership.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has resulted in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) work environment for employees. This environment has created a situation that has brought fairness into the fore, especially with respect to how employees should be managed to ensure that organisations function smoothly. This is more important in the public sector, which has become the focal point for policy development and programme implementation to meet the exigencies of the time. At the same time, ensuring organisational fairness, demands that leadership is conscious about the needs of employees and to treat them fairly. What sort of leadership then is needed in such an environment? The chapter advocates for responsible leadership as better leadership style in enhancing organisational fairness in this environment.

In this chapter, the author explains the three components of Trilogy of Taoist Leadership – responsible business, responsible management and responsible leadership. The concepts of business, management and leadership are defined from multiple angles, including an etymological perspective. The historical origins and evolution of these three areas are explored to provide a comprehensive understanding. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the interconnections among the trilogy's components and illustrates how the trilogy can contribute to the development of sustainable organizations.

In this concluding chapter, we discuss insights and reflections from our invited contributions on the COVID-19 pandemic and derive areas of meaningful future research to advance the global leadership domain. Specifically, we call for (1) strengthening the link of the global leadership domain with related research fields, (2) expanding our view on what are necessary global leadership competencies, (3) moving beyond individual global leadership toward a more collective and collaborative understanding of the phenomenon, (4) further enhancing the growing field of responsible global leadership, (5) examining the various competing tensions that global leaders need to balance, and (6) engaging in greater reflexivity among global leadership scholars ourselves.

The Covid-19 crisis has coerced organisations and business schools to rethink and reflect their practices about well-being and purpose individually and collectively. While this discourse was existent within academic and professional sphere, it was rather muted or isolated in the quest of pursuing traditional indicators of progress in terms of economic productivity. It is within this context we revisit our past interaction with the leader who has been advocating for responsible leadership which encompasses well-being and purpose amidst Covid-19. Arianna Huffington is the Founder and CEO of Thrive Global, which is a platform to help corporations in promoting individual and collective well-being. Formerly she was also the Co-founder and the President and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. In 2014, she received the Tesla Sustainable Leadership Award, after which one of the authors had an opportunity to interview her for the Sustainable Leadership Blog.¹ A staunch advocate of issues like climate change, gender equality, work-life balance and youth empowerment, Arianna exemplifies the commitment to articulate and implement purpose-led corporations, proposing the People–Planet–Profit approach to leadership . By shedding light on Arianna’s perspective this chapter suggests reflective pointers for decision-makers in management education, these are follows: (a) business schools can lead integrating sustainability in their purpose and practice; (b) relevance of the spiritual dimension and its significance in business schools and organisations; and (c) proposing a holistic view in comparison with a traditional view of business education. Finally, we also posit that her practice as role model for responsible leadership during Covid-19 reflects consistent adherence in her past and present discourse about responsible management issues. Thus, her insights can help leaders of public, private and social organisations to grapple with complex organisational issues arising due to of Covid-19.

In this interview, Dr. Günter K. Stahl reflects on his career trajectory as a globally renowned educator and how he pivoted from being a global mobility scholar to one of the pioneers of the responsible global leadership domain. For Dr. Stahl, the ethical component is an integral – and essential – part of any meaningful definition of leadership, and he illustrates this conviction with several examples from his research and corporate practice. Building on his trailblazing work in this domain, Dr. Stahl also identifies critical areas for future research that can help address our societies' grand challenges. He further draws on his deep involvement in designing and delivering postgraduate and executive education programs to discuss how educators can better incorporate these ideas into impactful educational interventions, which he refers to as “consciousness-raising experiences,” thereby inducing lasting positive change in participants.

Dr. Stahl is a Chair and Professor of International Management and Director of the Center for Sustainability Transformation and Responsibility (STaR) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna). Prior to joining WU, he served for eight years on the faculty of INSEAD, and he is an Academic Fellow and/or Visiting Professor of several renowned institutions, including the Centre for International HRM at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, the Centre for Global Workforce Strategy at Simon Fraser University, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Hitotsubashi University.

Dr. Stahl is an expert on purpose-driven leadership, the drivers of corporate responsibility and irresponsibility, grand societal challenges and their implications for strategy and management, and the changing nature of global work. His research has been published in leading academic journals, profiled in a wide range of media outlets including the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, and been recognized by prestigious awards including the Carolyn Dexter Award of the Academy of Management, the JIBS/Palgrave Macmillan 2020 Decade Award for the most influential article in international business studies over the past decade, the SAGE/Journal of Leadership Award for the most significant contribution to advance leadership and organizational studies, and the Academy of Management Best Paper in International Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Sustainability Award.

Dr. Stahl is also an accomplished teacher who has won numerous Outstanding Teacher and Program Director awards, including six CEMS Course of the Year Awards for the most highly rated course in the CEMS network worldwide, the Award for Teaching Excellence in the Executive MBA Program of HEC Université de Genève, and the Outstanding Teacher Award of the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management Executive MBA Program. He serves on the advisory boards of several for-profit- and nonprofit organizations, and he has been involved in consulting and executive teaching for a variety of industrial and professional services companies, as well as for organizations in the nonprofit sector.

In this chapter, the author underscores the crucial role of the international community in promoting and facilitating responsible management education in business and management schools, as well as higher educational institutions. The chapter highlights the initiative on the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), which has been supported by the United Nations and adopted by hundreds of schools and universities worldwide. The author explains that PRME aims to equip students with the necessary knowledge, skills, mindset and capabilities to bring about rapid and scalable improvements to society. Given that today's students are tomorrow's business leaders, policymakers and organizational heads, investing in responsible management education is crucial. This chapter emphasizes that responsible educational efforts can produce better citizens and future leaders, enabling them to create the world that we aspire to live in. This chapter underscores the importance of global collaboration and commitment to promoting responsible management education. When working together to prioritize ethical and sustainable practices in business and management education, we can foster a new generation of leaders who are equipped to drive positive change in the world.