Impact: Where Business and Ethics Meet

In our last episode on conscious capitalism, we consider socially responsible investing and impact investing. We explore the shareholder's influence in promoting socially and environmentally conscious business practices and supporting small business initiatives that strive to achieve social good in developing markets.

In our last episode on conscious capitalism, we consider socially responsible investing and impact investing. We explore the shareholder's influence in promoting socially and environmentally conscious business practices. In this short preview, we hear from Amit Bouri, CEO of the Global Impact Investing Network.

Corporate leaders are increasingly aware that businesses can provide a positive (or negative) impact on the environment and community. But how can conscious companies prioritize social benefit while still pursuing profit? In part 2 of our series on conscious capitalism, we hear from Eileen Fisher, Patagonia, and other leading thinkers in the field.

In part two of Impact's three-part series on conscious capitalism, we focus on the companies. How do corporate leaders effectively prioritize social benefit while still pursuing profit? In this short preview, we hear from Eileen Fisher and Patagonia.

Part one of this three-part series on conscious capitalism examines the role of the conscious consumer. In this episode, hear the story of a victim of capitalism at its worst--and how one shopper is helping him tell his story. We also explore if and how consumers can use purchasing power to influence corporations' behavior.

In the next Impact podcast, we hear the dramatic, stranger-than-fiction story of a victim of capitalism at its worst--and how one shopper is helping him tell his story. Here's a short preview.

Design thinking has emerged as a new tool in humanitarianism. Proponents of the trend believe it can solve the problem long plaguing the aid community: that great ideas fail to be adopted in poor communities because they don't always take context into account. But are design's more inclusive methods still a kind of neo-imperialism? Is there a different way?

We investigate the complex world of tax avoidance, starting with the mining industry in Zambia. Activists, documentarians, and economists give perspectives on how corporations avoid taxes and how this practice is now entrenched in business and government.

Corporate leaders' influence reaches beyond the walls of their businesses. How do they use that power, and what are the ethical, business, and political consequences? Discover how BP's John Browne and Shell's Mark Moody-Stuart influenced politics in oil-producing countries and how Browne and Apple's Tim Cook weighed in on LGBT issues. *This podcast was amended on August 3, 2015; see transcript.

In this last installment of our three-part series on workplace ethics in collaboration with EthicalSystems.org, we take an honest look at cheating. According to experts Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino, we all do it. But why? And, more importantly, what can make us stop?

In this second podcast in our collaboration with EthicalSystems.org, we examine negotiation. Turning again to behavioral science for insight, we learn that transparency and prioritizing joint gains can keep negotiations above-board, and might help companies avoid the pitfalls that beset Dell Computers a few years ago.

This is the first in a series of podcasts in collaboration with EthicalSystems.org to explore behavioral science in the workplace. In this installment, we're turning to the financial industry, specifically Deutsche Bank and the Federal Reserve, to explore how the financial system is beginning to apply behavioral economics to incentivize ethical decision-making.

This month on Impact, we're taking a close look at a huge issue--legacy. In this case, we're examining how it relates to contemporary philanthropy and the social sector in general. Specifically, we examine the $37-billion Gates Foundation's dual legacy in promoting global health, and in shaping the social sector at large.

Even if universities are not for profit, budgets loom large in higher education--and global markets hold revenue potential. In this episode, we look at three ways universities are involved in global markets and how this can create ethical considerations and unintended consequences.

By using a single organization, SaveLIFE Foundation in India, as a case study, this episode of Impact explores how NGOs in emerging markets adopt business language, metrics, and strategy, and what that says about our society's approach to humanitarian work.