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Wharton Faculty in the Global Classroom
Bill Gates thinks that business
and government can
do more to help the world’s
poor. In his plenary address
at the World Economic
Forum (WEF) in Davos,
Switzerland in January,
Gates offered his expanded
version of corporate social
responsibility, which
would harness the self-interest
of free markets to benefit
the world’s neediest people.
Gates calls his new idea
“creative capitalism.”
Listening to Gates that
day were Wharton professors
Howard Kunreuther
and Michael Useem, who
joined more than 2,000 of
the world’s leading business
and political figures at the
38th annual WEF meeting.
“This event has come
to serve as one of globalization’s
best classrooms,”
said Useem. “For me and
many others, Davos constitutes
an unrivaled personal
window into the global
issues of the moment.” At
the WEF, Useem moderated
a session on “The Rising
Influence of Minority
Shareholders” and served
on a panel about “The
DNA of Effective Boards.”
Kunreuther participated in
three panels: “The Threats
of Biotechnology,” “Global
Risk,” and “Organizational
Risk and Resiliency.”
Based on their seminal
research at Wharton’s
Risk Management and
Decision Processes Center,
Kunreuther and Erwann
Michel-Kerjan, managing
director of the Risk
Center and a WEF Young
Global Leader, along with
Wharton professor Witold
Henisz, were asked to develop risk scenarios for the
WEF’s Global Risks Report
2008. This is the third
consecutive WEF global
risk report to which the
Wharton Risk Center has
contributed. “The WEF
is interested in mitigating
global risks — in preventing
the domino effect of
a catastrophic event,” says
Kunreuther. “Because of interdependencies
between
nations and industries, catastrophic
hazards are only
going to get worse.”
Indeed, the Global Risks
Report 2008 warned of the
highest levels of political
and economic uncertainty
in a decade, expressing fears
about a U.S. recession and
its effect on world economies,
the future security of
the food supply, and concerns
about energy supplies
and the need for cleaner energy.
For more information,
see www.weforum.org.
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