A man harvests coffee in Santuario municipality, Risaralda department, Colombia, on May 10, 2019. (Photo: Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

The Big Idea Series /

Preparing for the Era of Uncertainty

The Power of Community Partnerships in Times of Crisis

When building peace and building business go hand in hand.

by

and

Jennifer Oetzel

by

and

Jennifer Oetzel

November 17, 2021 · Long read

01

A New Crisis Playbook for an Uncertain World

02

What Covid-19 Taught Us About Doing Business During a Crisis

03

Building a Culture That Can Withstand a Crisis

04

6 Types of Resilience Companies Need Today

05

The Power of Community Partnerships in Times of Crisis

06

Spotting a Modern Business Crisis — Before It Strikes

Summary.

The Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC) is one of Colombia’s largest and most important businesses. But in 2008, coffee prices were crashing and long-simmering conflicts between the government and insurgents ignited into all-out war in several coffee regions. Instead of ramping up armed security at headquarters or withdrawing from precarious areas, FNC’s CEO, Luis Genaro Muñoz, decided to implement a 10-year plan of community engagement and peacebuilding trainings. The FNC case illustrates how partnerships with their communities can deliver economic advantages to companies, as those that fully embed typically gain a legitimacy that improves their security and profitability and those of their employees. The idea that a company truly cares about the welfare of its workers and their community can be powerful, especially in places where people have been ignored or even victimized by their own government.

Rodrigo Lopez plucked the deep-red coffee cherries with his calloused hand, dropping them a handful at a time into a burlap bag. Nestled nearly a mile above sea level, Lopez’s farm in the Andes mountains of Colombia has the perfect climate and soil for coffee. Lavazza buys his exceptional harvests for its finest espresso-quality Italian roasts; his decent harvests become Folgers.

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Jason Miklian is a senior researcher at the Centre for Development and the Environment, at the University of Oslo. He has published extensively on the topic of business and peace, including award-winning articles based on fieldwork in Bangladesh, Colombia, India, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Considered a top global expert in the field of business, peacebuilding, and crisis, he sits on numerous boards and high-level expert panels. Miklian has also written for or been cited in an expert capacity by the New York Times, the BBC, Foreign Policy, The Economist, and other news organizations, and he is a coauthor (with Scott Carney) of The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation (HarperCollins, forthcoming).
John E. Katsos is an associate professor of business law, business ethics, and social responsibility at the American University of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, and a research affiliate at Queen’s University Belfast. As a scholar, he has published dozens of academic and media articles, as well as reports for boards and international organizations. He has done fieldwork in Iraq, Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong and is considered one of the world’s leading researchers on business in crisis zones. As an educator, Katsos teaches undergraduate, graduate, and executive students in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa how to manage more ethical and sustainable organizations for a better world.
Angelika Rettberg is an associate professor in the political science department at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia), where she leads the research program on armed conflict and peacebuilding and the MA program on peacebuilding. Her research focuses on the private sector as a political actor and specifically on business behavior in the contexts of armed conflict and peacebuilding.
Jennifer Oetzel is a professor at the Kogod School of Business at American University. Oetzel’s research and teaching focus on social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Specifically, she looks at how companies can reduce business risk by promoting economic, social, and environmental development as well as peacebuilding in countries where they operate.