Nuevas Tecnologías en la Educación

It is hard to know which of our campaigns have been the most successful…but in terms of empowering the staff, instilling in them the belief they are the most powerful people on the planet, Stop the Burning, our campaign to save the

rainforest, probably had the most impact. It was an issue that captured everyone’s imagination, involved the whole of my personal family and the whole of The Body Shop family . . . the rainforest Indians, the true custodians of the forest, had taken the brunt of this destruction. They had been thrown off their land, murdered, decimated by diseases against which they had no immunity, and used as cheap labour. The loss of plant and animal life was incalculable—the rainforests

provide the sole habitat for half the species of the earth, many of which still wait to be discovered. (Roddick, 1992, p. 187)

For us, what was initially a four-year project is now a total lifetime commitment which we will never abandon. No species faces extinction without a fight even if that battle is against the massed might of western consumerism. Our job now is to show that there is an alternative and it’s so incredibly simple. It is just a basic exchange of resources carried out in a traditional manner—a token of friendship and respect. (Roddick, 1992, p. 213)

4.5.6

Phase 6: Contemplative Period - World View and Reflections on a

Way of Life

In her final chapter entitled Towards a New Age, Roddick delivers her ultimate message to entrepreneurs who will read her book:

I think the value of money is the spontaneity it gives you. There are too many exciting things to do with it right now to bother about piling it up, and in any case

it is ennobling to give it away. It makes you feel better, and if you feel better you are better, spiritually. Make no mistake about it—I am doing this for me . . . . I believe that young people of my daughter’s age, the children of the hippies, are going to come forward with a moral code, with a passion, a zest for the moment, and prove to be planetary citizens, the ones who will keep this planet alive. My generation has certainly not done much to keep it going.

Business can make a contribution by facing up to moral choices about profits and responsibilities. In The Body Shop we intend to continue to proselytize our values in hope that one day the cosmetics industry will wake up and realize that the potential threat of The Body Shop is not so much economic as simply the threat--- if that it can be called---of good example. (Roddick, 1992, p. 256)

Anita Roddick used her autobiography as both an educational resource on business as well as a call to action for change in both environmental and Third World trade issues. She was an early example of ethical consumerism in that her alternative products stimulated people to think about what they were purchasing, and the social and environmental effects of their purchases. She is a “good” character by Frye’s (1957) classifications and she too falls within the literary genre of Comedy. She prompted change in a dated, wealthy society and enhanced the quality of life for customers, suppliers and inhabitants of the planet.

4.6

Chapter Summary

In this chapter, I presented selected citations from four autobiographies written by iconic entrepreneurs. Their times, places, and circumstances varied, however a number of resonating particulars emerged: they used entrepreneurship to first enhance their own condition, then to improve the lives of customers and employees; and, finally, in three cases, to make a profound difference in the world. The evolution of each entrepreneur exemplifies the themes in the scholarly sources summarized in Chapter Two: the nature, ethical dilemmas and ethical decision making across the entrepreneurial cycle of

similarities in themes will be discussed further in the next Chapter. The use of Frye’s (1957) Poetics, his six phases of literary plot, allowed for focused presentation of the lives of each entrepreneur. Having established their plot, the overall character of each entrepreneur was evaluated and the literary genre could be deduced. The exemplary entrepreneurs are all “good” characters and three of their life stories fall within the literary genre of Comedy, where a good character succeeds and changes an outdated society. While not applied directly, the ethical theories, virtue, duty to others, consequences of actions, and moral ecology do manifest respectively, as argued in Chapter Three, in character, literary plot, literary genre, and Poetics. The use of

autobiography in combination with Frye’s (1957) Poetics, is an interesting and potentially fruitful means to meet the educational aims of knowledge about the world, moral

imagination and inspiration. In the next chapter, I draw together the three literary sets presented: the scholarly sources, Frye’s Poetics and the autobiographies in order to explicate further Poetics as a grounding foundation, instructional approach and authentic resource to teach ethics to entrepreneurs, to pursue an understanding of human nature in the pursuit of freedom through economic change and to answer the primary ethical question, What is a good life?

Chapter 5

5

Major Ideas, Limits, and Significance

The purpose of this chapter is to draw together major ideas informing the research aims of my dissertation: first, to characterize the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial setting, and entrepreneurial cycle; second, to summarize significant perspectives contributing to authentic education in ethics for entrepreneurs; and, third, to identify limits as well as to provide introductory reflections about the significance of my work.