Foreword Welcome to Issue 26 of Fifty Four Degrees. Professor Claire Leitch Dean, Lancaster University Management School FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 5 Sometimes you shape the world around you; sometimes it shapes you. As a leading international management school, we endeavour to stimulate change. Our researchers work in fields that touch upon businesses the world over, and in areas that affect billions of people. Our cutting-edge work on sustainability, social justice, innovation, health, and technology tackles issues at the forefront of modern society. We do not shy away from difficult discussions, provide potential pathways forward that others may never have considered, and go to the heart of organisations to ensure we learn from and impact each other. But no matter how forward-thinking we are, sometimes things will happen far beyond our control. Our researchers in sustainability have certainly encountered that in the last two years, as political shifts in the USA, in particular, have made that topic more contentious than it was previously. The same can be said for those in our School who work on the area of refugees, those who consider trade arrangements at home and abroad, and those investigating gender and race issues. Changes on a global scale, set in motion by individuals or political movements, force us all to think again. Just a few months ago, a new war in Western Asia did just that. Likewise, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Brexit, and many other examples. In this latest Fifty Four Degrees, we can see that Ziad Elsahn understands all of this. His work looks at how geopolitics can affect business operations on many levels, and what they can do to avoid falling victim to shifting winds. Whether it relates to supply chains, AI, international customers, or partnerships, Ziad shows us what can happen when a political shift directly impacts your organisation. One of our PhD researchers, Lewis Nicholas, looks at how companies deal with politics from a slightly different angle. His research focuses on corporate political activism. This is where businesses take a stance on contentious issues – be that race relations, gender, government or even the environment – in the public realm. Lewis’s insights on the actions of the likes of Ben & Jerry’s are intriguing, and show that there are organisations out there who want to shape politics, not just sit back and go where the currents take them. There is no suggestion those businesses would act dishonestly to achieve their wider goals, which cannot be said of some hedge fund managers in the early 21st century. Olga Kolokolova shows how they managed to manipulate markets back then, and what has changed to mean they no longer do so. It is an engaging look into an area few of us will ever have direct contact with – unless we win the lottery! All of us feel the effects of inflation, however, and Lorenza Rossi’s piece shows how our beliefs about what the economy is doing and is going to do can have an impact. We might think only governments, economies, and possibly some of the biggest companies in the world can have any meaningful effect on inflation, but Lorenza’s research reveals that is not the case. While we may sometimes be powerless to affect things, it seems we can equally on occasion have an influence without realising it. There is much more for us to consider throughout this edition as well. From the qualities to decent work, to the rise of electric cars, the problem of a lack of diversity in the cybersecurity sector, and the challenges facing young people as they try to get their first jobs. There is even space to look at the rise of Games Workshop and what its example can teach us, the trend of entrepreneurs putting lifestyle before work, and the transformation of the Uzbek cotton industry over the last decade. The last is a fascinating study on how a whole country changed a system that many assumed was there to stay, moving away from forced labour and international isolation to become a world leader. They took the bull by the horns and made the change themselves, rather than waiting for someone to do it for them. Subscribe online at lancaster.ac.uk/fiftyfour SUBSCRIBE
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