Global Change Center’s 2019 Distinguished Lecture Series: How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate, Dr. Andrew Hoffman

Andrew Hoffman, a leader in using organizational, network and strategic analyses to assess the implications of environmental issues for business, will visit Virginia Tech on Friday, March 22.

He will give a 3:30 p.m. distinguished lecture, “How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate,” at the Lyric Theatre in downtown Blacksburg. The lecture is free and open to the public and will be followed by a book signing in the theatre’s main lobby.

Dr. Andrew Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. His research uses organizational behavior models and theories to understand the cultural and institutional aspects of environmental issues for organizations. He has published over 100 articles/book chapters, as well as 14 books, which have been translated into five languages. In this work, he focuses on the processes by which environmental issues both emerge and evolve as social, political and managerial issues, including:

* the evolving nature of field level pressures related to environmental issues
* the corporate responses that have emerged as a result of those pressures, particularly around the issue of climate change
* the interconnected networks among non-governmental organizations and corporations and how those networks influence change processes within cultural and institutional systems
* the social and psychological barriers to these change processes
* and the underlying cultural values that are engaged when these barriers are overcome

The Lyric Theatre is located at 135 College Ave. in Blacksburg. Doors will open at 2:30 p.m. Metered parking is available on the street as well as in the Kent Square garage. Anyone parking on the Virginia Tech campus before 5:00 pm will need a permit. For more information, please contact The Global Change Center (540-231-5400).

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The Global Change Center’s Distinguished Lecture series brings some of the world’s leading scholars to the Blacksburg community to discuss critical environmental and societal issues in an open forum. The GCC seeks to raise awareness about climate change and other global problems that threaten the environment and society.