Professor Lindon Robison is a member of faculty at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, USA. He holds degrees from Utah State University and the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. He has worked for the US Government as an agricultural economist and has been a member of visiting faculty at Brigham Young University and the University of Minnesota, US and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. Professor Robison has won many academic awards, served on numerous research committees and editorial boards, consulted widely, and authored numerous journal articles, reports, book chapters and books.. Dr. Bryan Ritchie is Associate Professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State University, and Associate Director for External Strategy at the Office of Bio-based Technology and Office of Research and Graduate Studies. He is a Co-Director of the Michigan Center for Innovation and Economic Prosperity. Dr Ritchie holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Nevada, an MBA from the Marriott School, Brigham Young University, and a PhD. in political science from Emory University, all in the US. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Asian Business. Dr Ritchie has received many awards and fellowships and has been widely published. He is an entrepreneur, starting and running several high-tech companies and consults on political economy to US Naval operations.
'Social relationships shape who we are, what we value and how we make our way in the world, yet paradoxically the social sciences have often struggled to incorporate this reality into how we understand human behavior and inform policy priorities, focusing instead on individuals or institutions. Robison and Ritchie correct this imbalance by revisiting Adam Smith's notion of sympathy, using it to outline a fascinating new framework for restoring social relations to the center of our deliberations of business, politics and community life' - Michael Woolcock, World Bank