Dr. Michael’s Schluter’s Relational Thinking May Offer Some Answers.

In mid-November, Dr. Michael Schluter, an economist, author, speaker and social entrepreneur talked at MIM Business School. For us, Dr. Schluter’s peacebuilding experience and approaches are especially valuable. It was hem who back in 80 – 90 initiated peacebuilding in the South Africa. The work in South Africa led to a peace initiative in Rwanda after the genocide there and a peace process between North and South Sudan.

This time he discussed the integrated reporting (IR) paying special attention to the role of the IR as an instrument enabling businesses to obtain the social license to operate.
"It's important not only for stakeholders, it's about everybody".

The IR framework helps to assess 6 types of capital:
1. Finance
2. Human
3. Intellectual/informational
4. Natural/environmental
5. Manufactured
6. Social/relational.

Dr. Schluter paid special attention to the role of the relations in economic and social life. In particular, he discussed the need and tools to evaluate the relational capital. He told the audience about the relational proximity, and how it matches with the key categories of the relational analysis, e.g. communication, time, information, power, and purpose.

Dr. Schluter paid special attention to the situation in Ukraine. One of his advises was to start improving our lives without waiting for the governmental efforts as they are always limited. He talked about the individuals’ responsibility for the place where they lived. In a word, his advice was to become more competitive and help make the country better at the same time.