
Attendees of the RSB Lab run Newton Trilateral Workshop
On the 11th -15th of November 2016, following a successful Newton Fund application, the RSB Lab held a Trilateral workshop in Cape Town, South Africa.
Giving Voice to Values
The aim of the workshop was to introduce early career researchers to the ‘Giving Voice to Values’ (GVV) approach as a strategy to develop values-driven leadership in various contexts (government sectors, business, NGOs).
Giving Voice to Values is an approach to research developed by Harvard Business School academic Mary Gentile. It is part of an action research approach where the researcher becomes part of the process instead of observing or impacting from the outside.
The workshop
The trilateral cross-cultural and trans-disciplinary workshop brought together researchers from South Africa, Egypt and the UK and from the disciplines of leadership studies, philosophy, applied ethics, organisational studies as well as from the healthcare sciences (doctors, pharmacists, dentists).
The idea was to illustrate how the GVV research methodology can bring researchers together across disciplines to contribute towards giving values motivated action more prominence in society and business. The healthcare sector was used both as an example and as a specifically identified focus for further research.
In addition, various strategies for acquiring funding for research projects and for publishing research were shared by the mentors facilitating the workshop.

Attendees on a trip to a local township
Outcomes
The workshop was experienced very positively. The positive outcomes from the workshop are the following:
- Understanding the connection between philosophy, ethics and organisational studies. In other words seeing how philosophy can be applied philosophy (or applied ethics)
- Being introduced to GVV as a research methodology specifically interested in bringing to light the inherent values in an organisation
- Being more empowered to supervise students doing research in applied ethics
- Making contact with researchers and institutions that could be collaborated with in research projects, as well as in the supervision of students