Activities

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KEDGE Hosts the 3rd KEDGE-NTU-Nottingham Trent University Symposium, kedge.edu, 03/06/2025

 

 


 

Amsterdam

Johannes Kraak, Professor at KEDGE, participated in the 2024 Career Division Community Conference in Amsterdam, kedge.edu, 30/04/2024

 

 

 

Environnement de travail

Navigating the emotional landscape of work: unveiling how personality shapes our view of workplace promises, KEDGE Insights, Johannes Kraak, 09/04/2024

 

 

 

Johannes Kraak, professor at KEDGE wins the best article prize at the 7th biennial conference of the Africa Academy of Management

Johannes Kraak, associate professor of Human Resources and Organisational Behaviour, and Head of the Sustainable Development Research Centre, won the best article prize at the 7th biennial conference of the Africa Academy of Management, kedge.edu, 16/01/2024

Neva Bojovic, professeure à KEDGE auteure publiée dans la revue scientifique Social Science and Medicine

Neva Bojovic, professeure, membre du centre développement durable, signe un article consacré à la reconnaissance de l’anosmie suite à la pandémie de Covid 19. L’article a été publié dans la revue scientifique Social Science and Medicine, Kedge.edu, 09/11/2023

Corinne Grenier, professeure à KEDGE invitée de l’émission C’est la tech BB ! sur BFM Marseille

Corinne Grenier, professeure à KEDGE et experte sur les questions d’innovation dans le secteur de la santé apporte son éclairage dans l’émission diffusée sur BFM Marseille, kedge.edu, 17/10/2023

KEDGE participates in HRIC 2023 (South Africa)

Johannes Kraak (head of the Centre of Excellence for Sustainability) participated in the 2023 International Week at North-West University (NWU), kedge.edu, 08/06/2023

Presence in the media

Research and development

Our partnerships with companies relate to a wide variety of subjects including:
- Gender equality
- Assessments of social & environmental performances
- Sustainable mass consumption
- Governance of water distribution systems
All of these collaborations aim to generate useful and usable knowledge to help companies understand concrete issues. That is why the centre notably:
- Creates tools such as codes of conduct and other reporting systems
- Helps build carbon strategies
- Helps companies ensure they are complying with environmental regulations

The Sulitest initiative originated during the United Nations conference on sustainable development which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. Kedge Business School and its international partners created the Sulitest Association and an online questionnaire to test and improve knowledge on sustainability and corporate social responsibly (CSR).  
Its aim is to respond to the needs of citizens, political and economic actors, to integrate sustainable development into their everyday lives and their organisations. First intended for students, Sulitest is now supported by a large majority of companies and institutions. Conceived to measure and improve knowledge about sustainability, Sulitest has been used in 643 universities and companies in 58 countries. Approximately 69,000 tests have been taken across in the world.
Recognised as one of the seventeen featured initiatives of the UN partnerships for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Each Sulitest question is aligned with one or more goals from the Global Agenda, creating the largest database on citizens’ awareness and understanding of the SDGs.
 

The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifies companies and smallholders who are working towards better palm oil production in a way that does not harm people and the environment.

Through this collaboration, Breeda Comyns and Simona D'Antone, teacher-researchers and members of the CSR Centre, aim to contribute to improving the fairness of the vote at RSPO.

The RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) is a Multi-Stakeholder Initiative (MSI) whose mission is to create a global certification standard for sustainable palm oil. The RSPO is the leading international organisation working on reducing the environmental and social impacts associated with palm oil production. Its membership today consists of approx.4,000 members representing seven sectors of the palm oil industry.

Multi-stakeholder organizations such as the RSPO play a pivotal role in tacking some of the biggest sustainability challenges, often replacing national governments in the management of complex, transnational environmental and social issues. In order to successfully transform business practices, these organisations need to be legitimate, both in the eyes of the public as well as their members.

From a deliberative democracy perspective, one aspect that can contribute to organisational legitimacy is the fairness of decision making by members inside these organisations. Because of the rapid growth in RSPO membership in recent years, voting at the General Assembly (GA) (highest decision making body of the organisation) has become unbalanced. Decision making based on a simple majority where each member has one vote, results in larger stakeholder groups (i.e. consumer goods manufacturers) exerting greater influence on the decision making process to the detriment of smaller stakeholder groups (palm oil growers).

KEDGE BS researchers Breeda Comyns (Associate Professor in CSR) and Simona D'Antone (Associate Professor in Marketing) who have expertise in the palm oil market and the legitimacy of MSIs, recently conducted a research project financed by the RSPO to evaluate the fairness of voting procedures at the organization’s GA and to propose potential solutions.
Drawing on the results of this research, the RSPO prepared a resolution to change current voting procedures and this proposal was adopted by members during the RSPO GA on November 6th 2019, in Bangkok.
This means that thanks to the results of this research, the RSPO will modify its statutes to improve the fairness of decision-making by members. This should in turn benefit the legitimacy of the organisation.


The reports and information on the project are available via the following links:
(1) Full report : http://rspo.org/files/download/bf99758f07c45ab ; Summary report : http://rspo.org/files/download/8caa83de5856fa8 
(2) Resolution GA16d voted at the 16th General Assembly of the RSPO in November 2019 : https://www.rspo.org/ga16/Resolutions/ResolutionGA16-6d.pdf 

If you would like any further information on this project, please contact
Breeda Comyns breeda.comyns@kedgebs.com  or Simona D’Antone simona.dantone@kedgebs.com 

This is a joint research project with colleagues from KEDGE BS and from Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia. The purposes are to analyse the implementation and progress of anti-fraud and anti-corruption policies in public procurement procedures in Indonesia, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, and the inclusion and promotion of SDGs through public procurement. For this project, we are partnering with the non-profit organisation Indonesia Corruption Watch, and we get the financial support of the French-Indonesian bilateral cooperation through the PHC NUSANTARA program (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs – MAE & Indonesian ministry of research – RISTEKDITI).

The project is led by Julien Hanoteau .
 

Pedagogy and student life

  • Training associated with the centre 

All KEDGE programmes and curricula integrate a CSR component. In the framework of the Grande École Programme, students can choose to have a CSR specialisation. Since the beginning of the 2019 school year, a separate GEP major has been dedicated to this expertise.

  • Research papers

Students also collaborate with researchers on applied research papers, some of which are presented at international industry conferences and occasionally published in field reviews.

  • News related to students

The centre regularly enlists the help of students for cross-disciplinary projects and case studies. These provide them with the opportunity to:
- Establish diagnostics for products or operations (sales, distribution, business models, communications, etc.)
- Recommend changes to develop activities and make them more sustainable in the long term

  • Survey / Carbon accounting in higher education

The survey conducted by the Carbon Footprint Association (ABC), "Carbon accounting in higher education: What are the challenges for courses and students?" was an opportunity for the students who have completed the Carbon footprint ® taught by Anicia Jaegler, to be involved in this study which took place between 2014 and 2019.

Events

Seminars & Workshops

KEDGE/ University of Leeds CSR Webinar series

  • 21 April 2020 – Thomas B. Long (University of Groningen): “(Ir)responsible business model innovation: the case of free floating bike sharing in the Netherlands”
  • 07 April 2020 – Régis Chenavaz (KEDGE Business School): “When Does Eco-Efficiency Rebound or Backfire? An Analytical Model”
  • 24 March 2020 – Frédéric Ponsignon, Fanny Salignac (both KEDGE Business School) & Hugo Guyader (Linköping University): “Shit shouldn’t got to waste: Exploring a circular economy initiative in town”
  • 12 February 2020 - Padmaja Argade (KEDGE Business School): “What motivates Sustainable Entrepreneurs in the Opportunity Identification Process? Insights from India”
  • 12 December 2019 - Ben Robra (Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds): “Degrowth and Organisations: Combining Social Systems Theory with the concept of Hegemony”
  • 20 November 2019 - Carlos Moreno (KEDGE): “Sustainable Supply Chain Network Design in the Dairy Sector”
  • 17 October 2019 – William Young, Phani Chintakayaka, Anne Owen (all University of Leeds) & Ralf Barkemeyer (KEDGE): “Highjacking Sustainable Consumption?”
  • 18 July 2019 – Elizabeth Franklin-Johnson & Katia Richomme-Huet (KEDGE Business School): “Management & Disability”
  • 20 June 2019 - Dr Jannine Williams (QUT Business School): “Care for the self, overcompensation and bodily crafting: the work-life balance of people with disabilities”
  • 03 June 2019 - Dr Abigail Powell (University of New South Wales): “The role of leadership in maintaining the construction sector’s ‘macho’ culture”
  • 29 April 2019 - Dr Jack Noone (Centre for Social Impact, University of New South Wales): “Introducing the Collaboration Health Assessment Tool: Theory, Measurement and Case Study”

Conferences organised

Each year since 2005, the centre has jointly organised the Corporate Responsibility Research Conference in partnership with the Business and Organisations for Sustainable Societies Research Group from the University of Leeds in the UK

  • CRRC 2021: Open University of Israel, Tel Aviv (Israel)
  • CRRC 2020 : Homerton College, University of Cambridge (UK – cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic)
  • CRRC 2019 : Tampere University (Finland)
  • CRRC 2018 : University of Leeds (UK)
  • CRRC 2017 : University of Seville (Spain)
  • CRRC 2016 : Istanbul University (Turkey)
  • CRRC 2015 : KEDGE Business School Marseille (France)

Participation in international conferences

Professor-researchers from the centre participate in many international conferences such as the annual Academy of Management (AOM) conference in the US.
One of the members of the centre is also a member of the advisory board of the International Association for Business and Society (IABS).