Inclusivity and Resilience in Theory and PracticeResearch Representative: Professor VAFADARI M. Kazem, APU
Summary of Research
The importance of social connectedness, optimism, and community learning as features of community
resilience have recently been highlighted. But social capital ….. resilience …..depends to a large extent
on these features being established over a long period of time. This has implications for those trying
to increase the resilience of communities as it highlights that resilience needs to be considered as partof long term community development plans, rather than part of quick fixes or short-term preparations
for natural disasters. This means that there is a need to refine our pedagogy. It is imperative that
Universities and other organizations redefine the pedagogy of learning systems, processes and contents
across formal and non-formal education sectors that support the creation of sustainable societies. We
propose to research and implement through pilot testing the most appropriate and effective ways to do
this by developing the following:
1. An International Leadership Development Program
What we are proposing here is to take a small group of selected students (Japanese, internationalstudents) and mentor them by our group at APU (6 months to one year) to give them specific skills(research, inclusive development and management, presentation, discussion, negotiation, etc.) andinternational sensibilities (such as trying to understand the other person, to think for yourself, to beable to think and communicate properly in the business and community context, to be flexible, and soon) that can help the internationalization of companies and society. Research will be done by thestudents as part of their training on what kind of people companies want to hire after the CoVID19
pandemic and on how to increase inclusivity in the workplace, for the purposes of strengthening theacceptance of inclusivity training at APU and in Japan. This set of programs will be presented andoverseen by Ms Wendy Holdenson, Chief Operating Officer, Mitsui Australia.
2. Personal and Business resilience and inclusivity videos
Mr Leigh Bennett and Associates will oversee the development and translation for the local Japanesemarket of an 8 Module Personal Resilience Self Coaching Program. This will be 8 short videos withslides (8-10 minutes) each with 2-3 follow up tools to put into place, reflection, personal growth tasks,etc. These modules are designed to enable future and current business leaders to tap into their diverse
personalities, abilities, and qualities, and accept these diverse values as a member of the community.
This will enable them to convert diversity and inclusivity into organizational power and, in turn, help
solve the issues facing businesses and society.

3. Webinars and Workshops
The videos will also be material for a series of workshop webinars designed to develop a newpedagogy for the way APU and other education and training in resilience and inclusivity. Prof. DrLoretta Chen and Prof. Dr Vafadari will coordinate, with Dr Rouault, this part of our research. Dr
Vafadari recently co-hosted the Resilience and Recovery of Small Tourism Entrepreneurs andCommunities Webinar (ICTA). These events will show participants how to develop:•Esprit de Corps•

Resilience amongst teams/communities/groups•

Mutual confidence and co-dependency (inclusivity)•

Agility in handling future rapidly changing environments•

Shared spirit amongst teams working individually from remote locations•

Monitoring productivity of subordinates/team as a leader•

Ability to handle inter-personal issues of subordinates/team by increasing emotional intelligence•Develop pro-active vision and ability to think on their feet

The business training component will be heavily oriented to the needs of the local community but will
be reliant on and provide information and experience to our Faculty, students, and community
representatives. The workshops will enhance the branding of APU in the local community as they will
be oriented towards resilience, leadership and inclusiveness issues in the community now and in thefuture. It will also provide us with the opportunity to undertake active community-based research onresilience and inclusivity.
4. Creating research and disseminating the results
Finally, the purpose of this CIL project is to research and develop practical lessons from academic,
business, and community attitudes and ways of doing things that will serve the interests of thecommunity at large as well as APU. Thus, the results are applicable to all three areas of Inclusive
Leadership in research, education, and practice. Each of our themes seek to further extend ourunderstanding of the benefits of inclusivity and diversity in developing social and business capital in
the community and passing that back into the pedagogy of research, learning and training. Each will
be accompanied by a research modality that will provide data on the effectiveness of our approach topractical management for resilience based on inclusivity and the need to cultivate not just a diverse
workplaceandcustomer/industrycontacts

but

also

an

inclusive

approachtotheuniversity/Business/government network as a whole. There is growing recognition that leaders andteachers have a critical role to play in achieving this. Our group is focused on how to develop thepractical management and leadership skills that will ensure that inclusivity is promoted in the context
of the pedagogy of education and training. However, while the language of diversity and inclusive
leadership is increasingly used in the management literature there is little readily available practicalguidance that is:•

Evidence-based, drawing on the latest international and national research and practice indeveloping the pedagogy of inclusiveness;•

Business-focused, demonstrating the connection between inclusive leadership and both businessoutcomes (e.g. innovation, performance) and individual outcomes (e.g. feelings of belonging anduniqueness); and•Comprehensive, clearly describing and connecting the three inter-related concepts of diversity,inclusion and inclusive leadership, and describing not just the characteristics of an inclusive leader
but importantly also the knowledge, skills and behaviors they require to build that inclusion.

The results of this research will be published in the academic literature, presented in webinars andworkshops and will be disseminated to the community through social media on an ongoing basis
throughout the course of our work.