CSR Archives - GlobalFocus

Hardwiring_social_responsibility

– SILVER WINNER OF THE 2019 EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE AWARDS – Thailand is facing the challenge of innovating in the global economy while suffering severe structural inequality, an ageing population and poor governance. However, Thai businesses know well that more needs to be done to boost human capital, broaden access to education and skills, and ensure…

Positive_learning_on_carbon_neutrality

A leading Canadian school helps students to live their sustainable curriculum. By Simon Pek, Rick Cotton and Mackenzie Ford. Growing a world-class, competitive business school and being a leader in sustainability may seem like two juxtaposed goals but the University of Victoria’s Peter B Gustavson School of Business, in Victoria, BC, has found a…

While poverty is falling, the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider and more and more people are being excluded from the means to better themselves. Yuwa Hedrick-Wong and Howard Thomas look at ways to include them. The widening gap To advance inclusive and sustainable growth, we need to address the puzzle…

Launched in 2012 by Ben Emmens and Abi Green, the Conscious Project has one clear aim: to help individuals and organisations think about what they are doing, and do it better or, in other words, to be more conscious. The Conscious Project works with organisations that seek to be more conscious, those who want…

– GOLD WINNER OF THE 2018 EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE AWARDS – The Hanken & SSE Integration Program Business Lead® is a fast-track for unemployed educated immigrants and refugees into business life. The programme is offered in collaboration with the largest Social Impact Bond in Europe. Finland received over 30,000 asylum seekers in 2015. Among them were…

Businesses face an increasing range of human rights issues that can directly impact their core business strategies. But, argue Dorothée Baumann-Pauly and Michael Posner, business education needs to catch up with this emerging field At last year’s EFMD annual conference in Berlin, Germany, Paolo Boccardelli, dean of LUISS Business School and the conference co-chair, outlined 10 global trends that will have an…

Last year’s Rio+20 UN summit may have been something of a disappointment but there were still some significant and positive outcomes say Anthony Buono, Jean-Christophe Carteron and Matthew Gitsham. A little over a year ago, roughly 50,000 people – government leaders, corporate executives and civil society groups including NGOs, youth movements and higher education institutes…

Business schools from emerging economies need to embrace UN PRME, argues Umesh Mukhi, and suggests some ways they could do it. One of the most important questions asked among management educators in the last five years has been “how can business schools change their practices?” The United Nations Principle for Responsible Education (UN PRME) initiative…

The 50+20 vision has ignited a flame that illuminates a path towards the future of management education. John North and Hamid Bouchikhi describe the latest steps on the journey. With the dry winter months encroaching on large parts of sub-Saharan Africa it is not uncommon to spot and often smell wildfires or veld fires as…

David Grayson provides more detail on how Cranfield School of Management in Britain is incorporating sustainability. There has been an increasingly vocal debate in recent years about whether management education is fit for purpose. The publication of the 50plus20 report in June 2012 by an international group of business school academics published under the auspices…

How can we make managers globally responsible leaders attuned to the needs of sustainability? CB Bhattacharya explains how one school is trying. The clamour for business schools to educate their graduates not only as managers but also as responsible leaders is increasing in volume. There is a cry for academics and executives to change mindsets…

Can business schools present a new vision of management education for the world? Katrin Mufff believes that through the 50+20 initiative they can. The World Business School Council of Sustainable Business, WBSCSB was founded at;the Academy of Management in August 2010 as a think tank. We intended it to serve as a platform for action…

Ulrich Hommel, Mollie Painter-Morland and Jocelyne Wang summarise the results of the Third EFMD/EABIS Global Deans Survey on ‘Sustainability and the Future of Management Education’. Business schools play a key role in driving the sustainability agenda within management practice. They do so not only by shaping and preparing the next generation of business leaders but…

Raymond Saner and Lichia Yiu argue that despite worrying times, initiatives such as the sustainable development goals, responsible business conduct and business diplomacy management can provide a winning formula for shared prosperity We easily get overpowered today by bad news, ranging from terrorist attacks through desperate mass migration to deep-seated corruption in business and politics.…

The world is facing many complex issues that threaten our collective wellbeing and prosperity. Cecilie Hultmann asks how these risks will affect the future business landscape. And can they be turned into opportunities for business innovation? Despite the tremendous progress seen over the past century in many aspects of human development, our current economic, political…

Philippe de Woot argues that we need to transform our creativity into real progress for humankind, and shows how social innovation can open the door for new methods and practices. Innovation and creativity are essential to the dynamism of an economy. Faced with the growth of emerging countries, the competitiveness of developed countries mainly depends…

Alexandra Santos and Mathabo le Roux explain how a UN initiative is encouraging business schools to prepare students for tackling poverty and other development challenges equipping managers to help the world. The United Nations recently announced sustainable development goals (SDGs) intended to galvanise worldwide action on poverty reduction, food security, human health and education, and…

Kenneth W Freeman and Howard Thomas outline some of the crowdsourced ideas about the future of business schools and other institutions that emerged from the first Business Education Jam. For four days last autumn, researchers, scholars, students, executives and thought leaders engaged in an unprecedented online brainstorming session about the future of management education. The…

‘Robber Baron’ or ‘Robin Hood’? Dan Pontefract argues that some, if not many, organisations have forgotten what they once stood for. It is time, he says, to review, refocus, recreate and thus redefine their true purpose. The purpose of an organisation (and business itself) has long been discussed. Some leaders— firmly ensconced on the far…

Frank Vidal and André Sobczak assess a study by Audencia Nantes that suggests that small companies are ignoring the benefits of corporate responsibility initiatives. Over the last decade, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has moved from being a fad or fashion to a top priority for business leaders across the world. An increasing number of large…

David Oglethorpe argues that business schools need to embrace social responsibility more enthusiastically than they have done so far. Last year’s EFMD publication Securing the Future of Management Education by Thomas, Lee, Thomas and Wilson made plain that business and management education needed a paradigm shift. The publication drew together a narrative that implied business…

As the Asian economy develops and the environment changes, Alison Lloyd suggests there is a need to bring about a renewal of business education. Business schools are often criticised for failing to provide students with the right competencies, in particular a strong ethical framework. Such failures are often attributed to the lack of integration between…

EFMD-GlobalFocus Mag

Mark Moody-Stuart examines the difficulties of ensuring that the right values are agreed, understood and truly embedded in a large multicultural business organisation. I once attended a large dinner and discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on standards for not-for-profit organisations. The debate was mainly between the leaders of such organisations asking…

EFMD is proud to announce the publication of The Sustainable Business: Resource-Life Extension, the newest addition to its portfolio of sustainability based education and training materials. Available as a free download for businesses and business schools, this latest volume of application exercises is the second workbook in the series and is designed to walk participants…

John North and Anders Aspling detail the work of the first GRLI Management Education Innovation Cohort. In May 2013 a group of deans and directors of business schools and corporate learning and development specialists met at EFMD’s Brussels headquarters drawn by the question: how do we drive change towards management education that serves a world…

Philippe de Woot, in an article based on his latest book, argues that economic actions based on ethical and political dimensions are increasingly essential. If there is a key trend in our time it is that of the progress of science and technology. This trend has become a steamroller whatever the vagaries of history and…

Danielle Steele and Liane Weitert describe how six business schools from around the world have joined forces to make the idea of applied interaction a reality. In 2010, Dr Pierre Tapie, former Dean of ESSEC Business School in Paris, France, questioned what role business schools were playing in solving some of the world’s pressing societal…