--- id: "pisquared:interview/singh-jasjit" type: "Pi-Squared interview" title: "Anita McGahan in conversation with Jasjit Singh" url: "https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/singh-jasjit" date: "2024-09-09" people: ["Anita McGahan","Jasjit Singh"] summary: "Prof. Jasjit Singh has been at INSEAD since 2004, where he is now a Professor of Strategy and the Paul Dubrule Chaired Professor of Sustainable Development..." recording: "https://vimeo.com/1007827370" source: "Pi-Squared (pisquared.theburnescenter.org), The Burnes Center for Social Change" licence: "none stated" --- # Anita McGahan in conversation with Jasjit Singh Jasjit Singh, Professor of Strategy and the Paul Dubrule Chaired Professor of Sustainable Development at INSEAD · 9 September 2024 ## About the guest Prof. Jasjit Singh has been at INSEAD since 2004, where he is now a Professor of Strategy and the Paul Dubrule Chaired Professor of Sustainable Development. His focus areas are Sustainability Strategy, Inclusive Business, Innovation, Impact Entrepreneurship, Impact Investing, and Impact Evaluation.

Jasjit has written numerous widely-recognized research articles, practitioner articles and case studies. He is an associate editor at Management Science, and also serves on the editorial review boards for Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science.

Jasjit earned a PhD in Business Economics (Strategy) at Harvard Business School and an MA in Economics at Harvard University, having earlier obtained a BTech at IIT Delhi and a dual MS at Georgia Tech. ## Reflections from the interview Jasjit started with the broad issue of whether corporations should pursue justice. He said, it depends on who you ask. If you’re a manager, you have to be careful not to put your job at risk. He frames the issues from the point of view of the people making decisions. The biggest issue is not that business people are greedy, but we’ve created a monster system because people get penalized for doing “good” at a certain level. At the societal level, we need companies to act responsibly, but if individual decision-makers don’t get support, they can’t succeed. Jasjit and Anita then engaged in a conversation about the role of corporations in solving big problems. We need to agree on the problems before we can design solutions. Why are we getting into woke arguments? We go too fast, basically, into the agenda for conversation before we figure out what we agree about regarding the problems. Then we can break down problems and start to launch solutions in companies and other organizations. It’s been a mistake to promote an agenda just to show that you do good for society and you make more money. It’s backwards. The starting premise has to be broader where we start with the problem more holistically. So how do we get going? Jasjit talked about a global semiconductor company that sought ways to work with the government to hit commitments to climate targets. Companies can lead the conversation, but it’s not rewarded in profitability without governmental support. Social-washing and green-washing isn’t deliberate, in Jasjit’s mind. People end up overpromising as a sincere consequence of their attempts because they have insufficient information and support. We rely too much on customers and employees as agents of change in a reality that is too complicated – and the conversation is not sophisticated enough – to allow those agents to be successful. You’re responding to pressures in part because the source of the metrics, data, and conversation is too narrow. There are many things we can do to break through the barriers. Jasjit started by talking about the students in our classrooms. We need to make sure that the MBAs we teach are sophisticated in a nuanced understanding of the world and of the issues. The incentives they face will be risky, sure, but they need to know much more about the scale of the problems and the solutions that are available. Many businesspeople are passionate about doing the right things but can’t get there. Jasjit cited Hans Rosling’s book, for example, describing fundamental facts about the world that most people don’t know – or get wrong. Patagonia is a great case on how to succeed on this. Jasjit recently wrote a case on Climeworks, a company in Switzerland founded by two engineers that wanted to work on direct carbon reduction tech to pull carbon out of the air and put it in the ground. This company cannot be created in isolation without public policy. A critical piece is to support policy that increases the carbon price and creates understanding of when carbon offsets actually work. This company has to create sophistication about what it means to solve the climate crisis by improving beyond the low-price offsets that are offered as a tack-on to a plane ticket, for example. There’s a positive side to lobbying, which is the cultivation of real conversations between people who want to make a real difference in both the private and public sectors. Benefits at scale is hard and requires this level of sophistication. Jasjit’s last word: You’re smart! You can meet ROI requirements for your employer. What will make your career valuable? It’s doing something worthwhile en route to that achievement. First, educate yourself on the broad issues. Go into the sciences, humanities, and policy and see the big issues. Then go into how you can act effectively in companies as a vehicle for making an impact that matters. ## Related resources - [Jasjit’s Research Profile at INSEAD](http://faculty.insead.edu/jasjit-singh) - [Jasjit’s Recent Paper with Matthew Lee](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4395042) - [Jasjit’s Most Highly Cited Paper](https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.1040.0349) ## Recording Video: https://vimeo.com/1007827370 ## Category [Resources](https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/category/resources) * * * Original page: https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/singh-jasjit · Licence: none stated