Vision of Humanity"

“We are all actors of our world story,” Associate Professor of Management Dr. Patricia Márquez said at the “Opportunity of Peace for Business and Markets” presentation held on Thursday, Feb. 9. The focus of the seminar was a “new business imagination,” calling for domestic and international peace.

“Requisite to this progressive imagination are new concepts, paradigms, solutions and forms of empowerment. Students are the agents of change,” Márquez said. She encourages us to look beyond the surface level and search for new and innovative forms of change.

Australian IT entrepreneur and keynote speaker Steve Killelea picked up the baton from there. He is the owner of the two publicly traded companies Software Products and Integrated Research. Re-channeling peace into mainstream business was at the crux of his talk. Through his research, Killelea devised a way to determine the peacefulness of a country through what he calls the Global Peace Index (GPI).

Currently, the GPI is the only method for quantifying positive peace. The GPI is a useful tool in globalization, as certain problems—like loss of biodiversity, climate change and natural disasters—require the cooperation of peaceful actors to fix.

“Peace is a prerequisite for the proliferation of society,” Killelea said. “It’s in everyone’s best interest that societies achieve a base level of peace to promote an optimal business environment. This optimal business environment is characterized by a resilient, strong economy in a peaceful and socially cohesive region. ”

“Measuring peace is a new frontier but by studying it, we can better understand its fabric,” Killelea said. Currently, Iceland is the most peaceful nation, followed by New Zealand and Japan according to Killelea. The U.S. gets a “medium” grade due its high incarceration rates, availability of arms and involvement in foreign wars.

“The Eight Structures of Peace” used to a country’s GPI include a sound business environment, a well-functioning government, equitable distribution of resources, free information flow, low levels of corruption, high levels of education, equal rights and good relationships with neighbors. Peace must be achieved to maximize output by maximizing human potential.

The bottom line for Killelea is that our current business climate is a product of the failure of the Western world. Peace makes economic sense, and it’s time to turn sense into cents.

Source: The Vista
Author: Nick Dixon