Business School hosts global Academy of Business in Society conference

Global conference to draw roadmap for socially responsible and sustainable business

World-leading business schools and major global corporations will gather at Nottingham University Business School for a major summit on corporate social responsibility and sustainable business.

The conference of The Academy of Business in Society (EABIS) takes place at Nottingham University Business School on Tuesday 31 January 2012.  Partly prompted by the global financial crisis, the group was established ten years ago as the largest-ever research and teaching project on the case for social responsibility in business.

EABIS now has more than 100 members worldwide made up of major players in business higher education including Harvard and INSEAD as well as global companies like IBM, Microsoft, Unilever and Shell. The two-day conference will see delegates review the development of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in management education and to develop a roadmap for the future of business schools in both teaching and research. 

Dean of Nottingham University Business School, Professor Martin Binks, said: “As universities and businesses come to terms with the increasingly complex and uncertain economic conditions, we are proud to host this timely and important conference. The business education community has a responsibility to promote sustainable leadership and to equip our students with the skills and knowledge they need to deal with a volatile and complex business environment. We anticipate that this gathering of influential leaders from companies and business schools will shape the future of education and research in this area so that it really can make a difference.”

Director of the Business School’s International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Professor Jeremy Moon, said: “Business schools face a key challenge in thinking about how to educate future business leaders. First, there is the question of how to integrate issues of ethics and morality, responsibility and sustainability into core business programmes. Secondly, there is the question of how to do so effectively such that lessons learned are factored into graduates’ future actions and decisions. These are some of the questions that the conference will be addressing.”

During the EABIS conference, business school Deans and senior executives will work to agree on a new definition of ‘business sustainability’ in the context of the current global financial crisis and significant changes in the global economy. They will also be using their wide expertise and experience to examine the current state of knowledge about sustainability and its application in companies and learning institutions.

The conference will examine and report back on what real progress has been made in the past decade in the global business school industry, the corporate world and in other management training areas. Delegates will also discuss ideas and prospects for progress in the field of global CSR over the next ten years.

Conference proceedings will be published in a Special Issue of the Journal of Management Development.

The Academy of Business in Society

www.eabis.org 

More information is available from Dr Sophia Taylor, Nottingham University Business School, on +44 (0)115 846 6974 

S.taylor@nottingham.ac.uk

or Emma Rayner, Media Relations Manager, Communications, University of Nottingham on +44 (0)115 951 5793

emma.rayner@nottingham.ac.uk

Nottingham University Business School is recognised as one of the world’s top business schools for the quality of its research and teaching on sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The school ranks 1st in the UK and 45th globally in the Aspen Institute’s Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking of MBA programmes that integrate ethical, social, and environmental issues into teaching and faculty research.

Nottingham also ranks 5th worldwide for research in business ethics, according to a 2011 report published in Business and Society (the journal of the International Association for Business and Society).

In a survey and commentary on productivity and prestige in business ethics research conducted among business ethics scholars worldwide, Nottingham University Business School is the only UK business school included in the ranking and is the highest ranked school outside the USA.

The University of Nottingham, described by The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 as ‘the embodiment of the modern international university’, has award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings. It was named as one of the greenest campuses in the world in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking, a league table of the most environmentally-friendly higher education institutions.