The Generative Power of Hope

Frederick Bird is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Concordia University in Montreal, where previously he held a Concordia University Research Chair in Comparative Ethics and taught in the Departments of Religion, Sociology and Management. He is also an adjunct professor in Political Science at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Canada. He recently organized and co-authored a book on The Practices of Global Ethics. He organized and led an international research project examining the practices of international businesses in developing countries. This project resulted in the publication of 4 books and 2 special issues of the Journal of Business Ethics, which he co-edited. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 10 books including The Muted Conscience: Moral Silence and the Practice of Ethics in Business (1996), Good Management (1995), Peace is Everyone's Business (2021), The Practices of Global Ethics (2016), International Businesses and the Challenge of Poverty in the Developing World (2004), and Voices from the Voluntary Sector (2011). He recently published articles on "A Defence of Objectivity in the Social Sciences, Rightly Understood," "What is the Business of Business? Time For a Fundamental Re-Thinking," "The Practices of Mining in Developing Countries and Inclusive Wealth Development," and "The Crisis of Economic Growth: An Inescapable Ethical Challenge." In the early 1960s, Bird helped to organize a student civil rights movement in the area of Boston and in the mid-1960s he organized anti-poverty programs in downtown San Francisco. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (Modern European History), Harvard Divinity School, and the Graduate Theological Union.