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A decade ago, the German Advisory Council to the Federal Government on Global Environmental Change (Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Bundesregierung für Globale Umweltveränderungen - WBGU) published its main report. This attempt to take stock in 2011 made an impact and provided orientation on both a national and international scale. The WBGU report did not hold back: It aimed to show the urgent need for change in terms of sustainable development through the interplay of politics, economy, society and nature. The central message was: We need a "social contract for a Great Transformation", and it must be implemented by 2021. How is the report to be assessed today? We will summarise the positions of the WGBU report, cite its merits, and comment on them critically and constructively. Our approach examines the five main themes of the report: the global social contract; global governance using the example of the Paris Climate Agreement; acceptance by those involved and affected; the urgency of economic, political and social action; and the concept of the Great Transformation. In our critique, we suggest ways to constructively elaborate on the ideas laid out in the WBGU report, ideas that were not thought through to the end. Our focus lies particularly on how to deal with time and the concept of the Great Transformation. In doing so, we will also address the significance of technical advances, innovation and our own ignorance. The title of the report uses the term "Great Transformation" which acts as a leitmotif throughout. Put forth by Karl Polanyi (1941/44), this term, as used in the WBGU's parlance, is intended to address the far-reaching changes that a regulatory state would have to undertake, along with the participation of the global citizenry, in order to overcome the ecological crisis of the coming decades. In our conclusion, we argue that the idea of a uniformly planned and comprehensively attainable transformation of the current situation is inadequate. Instead, we have observed that different actors in different places have worked at different speeds not on a Great Transformation but on a multitude of social-ecological transformation processes. The effectiveness of such movements - which often emerge spontaneously - has grown to the present day. This gives us hope.

A decade ago, the German Advisory Council to the Federal Government on Global Environmental Change (Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Bundesregierung für Globale Umweltveränderungen - WBGU) published its main report. This attempt to take stock in 2011 made an impact and provided orientation on both a national and international scale. The WBGU report did not hold back: It aimed to show the urgent need for change in terms of sustainable development through the interplay of politics, economy, society and nature. The central message was: We need a "social contract for a Great Transformation", and it must be implemented by 2021. How is the report to be assessed today? We will summarise the positions of the WGBU report, cite its merits, and comment on them critically and constructively. Our approach examines the five main themes of the report: the global social contract; global governance using the example of the Paris Climate Agreement; acceptance by those involved and affected; the urgency of economic, political and social action; and the concept of the Great Transformation. In our critique, we suggest ways to constructively elaborate on the ideas laid out in the WBGU report, ideas that were not thought through to the end. Our focus lies particularly on how to deal with time and the concept of the Great Transformation. In doing so, we will also address the significance of technical advances, innovation and our own ignorance. The title of the report uses the term "Great Transformation" which acts as a leitmotif throughout. Put forth by Karl Polanyi (1941/44), this term, as used in the WBGU's parlance, is intended to address the far-reaching changes that a regulatory state would have to undertake, along with the participation of the global citizenry, in order to overcome the ecological crisis of the coming decades. In our conclusion, we argue that the idea of a uniformly planned and comprehensively attainable transformation of the current situation is inadequate. Instead, we have observed that different actors in different places have worked at different speeds not on a Great Transformation but on a multitude of social-ecological transformation processes. The effectiveness of such movements - which often emerge spontaneously - has grown to the present day. This gives us hope.

This study examines the role of Islamic Civil Society Organizations (ICSOs), specifically Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), in addressing COVID-19 in Indonesia. In contrast to previous works, it focuses on their constructive criticism against the Indonesian government, which has undergone political absolutism leading to misguided policies in addressing COVID-19 Pandemics. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Civil Society Organizations, this study shows that the two ICSOs constructively criticized the state for its inadequate, inconsistent, and contradictory policies on handling Covid 19 pandemics caused by political absolutism in the parliament. The results enriched the debate on Islamic Civil Society theories, shedding light on their voluntary and inclusive nature and their intricate relationship with government.

The effects of justice and dispositional attribution on reactions to negative supervisory feedback were examined in two studies. Study 1 showed that criticism delivered with greater interpersonal fairness resulted in more favourable dispositional attributions about the supervisor, more acceptance of the feedback, and more favourable reactions towards the superior and the organization. The beneficial influence of just interpersonal treatment was general across various feedback contexts, although the magnitude varied. Study 2 clarified the causal ordering: just interpersonal treatment reduced negative dispositional attribution, which in turn increased feedback acceptance and improved attitudes towards the supervisor. Study 2 also distinguished the consequences of perceived fairness in the formal procedures applied to forming the feedback, as opposed to interpersonal treatment during its delivery.

Voicing criticism seems to be a difficult task for employees in international organisations (IOs), as numerous anecdotes in the literature suggest. This observation is alarming, since internal criticism is an indispensable resource for organisational learning processes. So why are IOs apparently not using this resource to its full potential? The present article is the first to provide a comprehensive answer to this question by combining insights from organisation theory with an empirical case study of the UN Secretariat. My general argument is that 'criticism from within' is ambivalent. It can be a resource for, but also a threat to IOs: internal criticism can endanger an IO's external reputation as well as destabilise the organisation from within. Based on this theoretical understanding, I identify and empirically examine three specific reasons for the UN Secretariat's weak criticism culture: (1) Criticism is suppressed due to a widespread fear of leaks resulting from external pressures. (2) Criticism is avoided as a strategy of self-protection in the face of (inevitable) failures. (3) Constructive criticism is difficult to express in settings where organisational hypocrisy is necessary.

Within environmental sociology realist critiques of the use of social constructionist approaches abound. This paper challenges features of the realist critique and emphasises the appeal and utility of social constructionist approaches for the study of environmental issues. We start by outlining the criticisms levelled at social constructionism, particularly the claim that the approach amounts to a denial of the existence of environmental problems and provides no contribution to managing them. We argue that this characterisation of `extreme' constructionism is problematic in two senses. First, in that it bears little resemblance to the mild approach actually used in the majority of empirical studies and, secondly, that it is a misleading characterisation of a more radical constructionism. We conclude that the utility of constructionism can be formulated in terms of two distinct approaches. One refrains from making overt moral and political claims, and treats such claims as topics for analysis; such an approach can, however, provide resources for social criticism. Another adopts an overtly political or environmentally motivated stance towards the issues investigated. Underlying these suggestions is our conviction that a particular model of engagement is implicit in many realist critiques and that others are possible, and perhaps, preferable.

The needs of students engaged in enterprise education programs are of ever growing importance. This paper considers the pedagogical challenges that confront the designers of such-programs. It is argued that it is the designer's mindset that will most likely determine the program's outcomes. That, regardless of where such programs reside, their development should be guided by a learner-centred approach. The recently developed hic et nunc framework, provides an example of such a student-centred approach. The process through which student learning outcomes occur is argued to be essentially Darwinian in nature. Taking into account both knowledge and skills, it is also argued that assessment of desirable learning outcomes should occur in visible interaction spaces. That the failure to eliminate invisible interaction spaces from such programs is an invitation for criticism from those who favour a more traditional lecturer-centred approach to teaching and learning.

Constructive technology assessment (CTA) is a member of the family of technology assessment approaches. developed in particular in the Netherlands and Denmark. CTA shifts the focus away from assessing impacts of new technologies to broadening design, development, and implementation processes. Explicit CTA has concentrated on dialogue among and early interaction with new actors. The idea has been taken up by actors other than governments (consumers, producers). CTA implies a modulation of ongoing technological developments, and an understanding of the dynamics of such modulation is used to identify and briefly discuss three generic strategies for CTA: technology forcing, strategic niche management, and loci for alignment. Modulation activities are to be located in the broader issue of how our societies handle new technology at all. The established division of labor between promotion and control should be mitigated by sociotechnical criticism. This underlines the need for reflection on role and value profile of CTA agents.