NMSU Resources
Modules & Cases
NOTE: All materials developed with much appreciated
support of the NMSU Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative.
Video Series
Contact: Grace Ann Rosile.
Entire videos and instructor notes (PDFs) are provided below.
Preview. Offers an ethic of business practice that is relationship-based and community-oriented, fostering a harmonious web of life which includes the natural environment. In this brief film, tribal drumbeats, scenes of the vast outdoors, and colorful personal reflections from native and non-native scholars present a fascinating view of American Indian tribal values and indigenous cultures.
Also available are six additional, related @ 10-minute video teaching modules with instructor notes.
Intro. A 30-minute educational film that offers an ethic of business practice that is relationship-based and community-oriented, fostering a harmonious web of life which includes the natural environment.
PDF: Intro: Tribal Wisdom for Business Ethics
Module 1, Marketing Strategy: Dr. Bruce Huhmann. Gifting as a marketing strategy, relationship marketing, and creating buyer trust (instead of buyer beware) with disclosure and honesty. Huhmann cites business examples including Domino’s Pizza, Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Proctor & Gamble. Huhmann also briefly explains the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative at NMSU’s College of Business.
PDF: Module 1: Marketing Strategy.
Module 2, Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Dr. Don Pepion. Aspects of indigenous cosmology and related quantum concepts.
This indigenous experience is rooted in a living dynamic view of the world, and emphasizes ceremony in fostering respect for, and harmony with, this world.
PDF: Module 2: Indigenous Ways of Knowing.
Module 3, Indigenous Trading Disclosure and Barter: Dr. Cal Boardman. Alternative bid-ask processes, traditional barter practices, and the role of trust and disclosure in building trading relationships cross-culturally. Boardman uses simple examples — like selling your used car — to convey abstract concepts and their impacts on relationships. Boardman suggests there is contemporary relevance for historical American Indian trading practices.
PDF: Module 3: Indigenous Trading Disclosure and Barter
Module 4, Storytelling: Drs. David Boje and Gregory Cajete. Boje discusses the differences between indigenous ways of storytelling versus euro-western ways. These differences are demonstrated in Cajete’s telling of a traditional American Indian story called Coyote Loses His Eyes. Indigenous storytelling teaches attunement to the environment, respect for community, and other traditional values, in a living, participative process.
PDF: Module 4: Storytelling.
PDF: Module 4: Storytelling & Venn Diagram.
Module 5, Entrepreneurship: Dr. Joe Gladstone (dissertation on American Indian entrepreneurs), Yolanda Martinez (singer/songwriter/drum maker, entrepreneur), Dr. Dan Stewart (DarDan Enterprises), and Alicia Ortega (Junior Strategist, Blue Stone Strategy Group). These academics and entrepreneurs share approaches to incorporating tribal values into business ventures.
PDF: Module 5: Entrepreneurship.
Module 6, Life-Enhancing Relationships: Dr. Gregory Cajete and Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees. Cajete discusses the “mutual reciprocal relationships” which humans can learn from observing the natural world, and use as a model to create balance and harmony in human society. TwoTrees discusses her work with corporations seeking to understand their position within the natural world which is not “human-centric,” and where relationships are more important than profits. She says “The trees are breathing us.”
PDF: Module 6: Life-Enhancing Relationships.
Password required for some documents. Contact Bruce Huhmann for assistance.
- Carruthers, Garrey. 2013, Jan. 23. Tribal Ethics (minute marker 10:28). KRWG TV News, Your Legislators.
- Grayshield, Lisa. 2015. Native American Elders Speak: Ethical Issues in Healing Trauma
- Prindeville, Diane-Michele. 2002. Women’s Evolving Role in Tribal Politics: Native Women Leaders in 21 Southwestern Indian Nations. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University
- Rosile, Grace Ann and Cal Boardman. 2011. Antenarrative Ethics of Native American Indian Trading. In Garder, C. and D. Carlon (Eds.) Proceedings for the Standing Conference for Management and Organizational Inquiry. Presented April 16, Philadelphia, PA
- Verbos, Amy Klemm, Lisa Little Chief Bryan, Joe Gladstone, Deanna Kennedy, and Daniel Stewart. 2010. Hidden Elephants: A Dialogue to Engage Difference and Create Connection through American Indian Values. Presented at the Organizational Behavior Teachers Conference (June 16-19). Albuquerque, NM
Modules & Cases
Modules
- Clarkson, Gavin. 2014. Doing Business in Indian Country
Cases
- Calk, Rusty and Cindy Seipel 2012. BBB Oil Enterprises Case
- McGuckin, Thomas. 2012. Tribal Indian School versus City of Azure
Other Resources
- Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama: Native American Code of Ethics
Other Works
- Cooper, Thomas W. 1998. A Time Before Deception: Truth in Communication, Culture, and Ethics. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers
- Tsosie, Rebecca A. 1996. Tribal Environmental Policy in an Era of Self-Determination: The Role of Ethics, Economics, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Vermont Law Review, Vol. 21, p. 225