Frans Melissen (editor-in-chief)
Antwerp Management School (Belgium) & Breda University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands)
Hello everyone, my name is Frans Melissen. I am Breda University of Applied Sciences’ Professor of Sustainable Experience Design and, together with Lars Moratis, co-Chair in Management Education of Sustainability on behalf of Breda University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands) and Antwerp Management School (Belgium). Through my Sustainable Experience Design Professorship, it is my ambition to contribute to developing, successfully applying and disseminating theories, methods, tools and techniques that could assist organizations, businesses, professionals, and the like, in hospitality, tourism, events and beyond, in designing and staging sustainable experiences. Through my role as co-Chair in Management Education, I aim to develop and share new knowledge and ideas about the state of, strategies for and visions about addressing sustainability in management education. Ultimately, both roles come together in my aspiration to serve as a force for change on the interface of sustainability, education, and business, and thus contribute to a sustainable transformation of wider society. Some might say I’m a scientivist, others would label me as an activist. I’m okay with that. In fact, I’ll take that as a compliment. As co-editor-in-chief of the PRME blog, that’s exactly the perspective that will guide me: how to bring about change in times that we desperately need change, within the management education community and beyond.
Lars Moratis (editor-in-chief)
Antwerp Management School (Belgium) & Breda University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands)
Hi there, my name is Lars Moratis. I am the Chair in Management Education for Sustainability (together with Frans Melissen), a joint initiative by Antwerp Management School and Breda University of Applied Sciences. At both institutions, I am also a Professor of Sustainable Business. In addition to Responsible Management Education, my work has centered around sustainable business models, the Sustainable Development Goals, standardization, and the psychology of sustainability. Being interested in academic work and having an entrepreneurial mindset, I have always had a hybrid profile. I have worked on sustainability from myriad roles. Oftentimes, this hybrid profile has worked to my advantage and stretched my own thinking, although at times it has also proven to be challenging to combine these perspectives. In any case, I try to cherish the constructive tension that is inherent to being a hybrid. I guess this has led to developing a reflective, critical and activist streak – something that I have really tried to nurture over the past years since I think it helps throwing the proverbial stone in the pond of sustainability and (responsible) management education. The PRME Blog can play an important role in this. I hope the ripple effects of provocative blog posts provide many people within and beyond our community with food for thought, challenge the status quo, and foster ideas about what a better world might look – and how Responsible Management Education can contribute. We owe it to our students, ourselves, and the world.
Hari Bapuji
University of Melbourne (Australia)
Hello, my name is Hari Bapuji. I am a Professor of Strategic Management and International Business at The University of Melbourne, Australia. I also serve as a co-editor of Business & Society, a leading journal dedicated to research on issues that matter to both business and society. In my research, I study how businesses contribute to economic inequality in the society and, in turn, are affected by the same inequality. As an academic, I believe my job is to study the problems that affect us and communicate it to all, particularly those who do not have the time and resources to understand those problems. So, I try to write in multiple formats: research articles, case studies for classroom, and articles for managers as well as broader public. Emerging research evidence shows that sustainability can be achieved only with reduced inequalities. So, I believe that the sustainability discourse needs to bring back into its fold topics related to inequality and marginalized populations around the world. I hope that my presence on the editorial board serves as a signal to this need. For more details about my work, please visit www.haribapuji.org.
Sarah Birrell Ivory
University of Edinburgh (Scotland)
I am based at the University of Edinburgh Business School, where I received my PhD, and am now the Director of the Centre for Business, Climate Change, and Sustainability (B-CCaS). I studied at the University of Melbourne and have an MBA from Melbourne Business School. I am originally from Australia where I was born on traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta peoples, and I pay my respects to their elders, celebrate their continuing culture, and acknowledge their ancestors. I have a range of passions, which I hope to bring to this PRME blog. I am passionate about addressing the climate crisis, borne out of respect for nature and our environment. Much of my time is spent helping business and other organisations understand the climate emergency and change their strategies and actions to address it and the ramifications for those least responsible or least able to adapt. I am also passionate about the purpose of business more generally. I believe that business should exist to contribute to a thriving, just, and stable society, by providing appropriate goods and services, in a responsible and sustainable manner. Business should receive a license to operate when they meet these expectations – and should lose their license to operate when they don’t. I also work with the capital markets on their purpose and how they can be better structured to change the purpose of business, and to channel finance at scale to the communities, geographies, issues, and solutions need it. Finally, I am passionate about how we teach our young people, in particular at university, to become independent, empathetic, critical and confident thinkers, given the world they are entering is complex, unstable, and divided. More than ever we need kindness, diversity of thought communicated in respectful ways, a deep commitment to understanding alternative viewpoints and solutions, and a young generation willing to have difficult conversations, question the status quo and urgently offer alternative pathways. My book ‘Becoming a Critical Thinker: for your university studies and beyond’ was written specifically for this new generation as they enter university and the world more generally, to help them to make sense of learning not to repeat and take exams, but to understand, to appreciate differing perspectives, and to embrace their role in a future based on respect, regeneration, and renewal.
Todd Bridgman
Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)
Kia ora koutou, I am Associate Professor in the School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I am also Co-Editor of the SAGE journal Management Learning, which publishes critical, reflexive scholarship on organization and learning. My research interests lie at the intersection of management education, management history and critical management studies. I like exploring the origins of management theories and analysing how they are represented in best-selling management textbooks. I’m interested in how textbooks create boundaries around what we consider the subject of ‘Management’ to be. I’m fascinated by the politics of Management knowledge – what is included in textbooks, what is excluded and who gains and loses from these decisions of inclusion and exclusion. Given the pressing global challenges that we face, it is time that we teach Management differently – to be far more inclusive of peoples, places and views that have been excluded thus far. This recognition and inclusion can help us develop an approach to management education that places community, ethics, justice and sustainability at the core of what Management is about. Before I was an academic, I was a journalist. There is much valuable research produced by academics, but often that research is buried in academic journals and has limited impact. It is important that we have forums which broaden the audience for research. I see great potential for this blog to achieve that, and I am privileged to be part of the editorial team curating it.
Alfredo Estrada
Universidad de Lima (Peru)
Hello, it is a pleasure to greet you, my name is Alfredo Estrada, in the face of such changing and uncertain global scenarios, having a space to write about how we can solve whit actions the problems of the global community, it is a privilege, i am very grateful having this opportunity in which i wish invite you to think about how we all become more empathetic, caring, and responsible citizens. This blog is an excellent option to spread the real meaning of sustainable development and responsible management of people, students, communities. I am convinced that the drivers of sustainable development are the fight against poverty, caring for the planet and respect for diversity. There is no time to waste! I am Phd in Education; Phd © in global administration, I have a master’s degree in business management, university research and a international business management, I have an international certification in dual model education. My research fields are globalization, sustainability, higher education. I am currently Director of Sustainability Center of Universidad de Lima, Perú. Thank you.
Jordyn Hrenyk
Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Tawnshi kiyawow, Jordyn Hrenyk dishinihkaashoon. Hello everyone, my name is Jordyn Hrenyk. I’m a Michif and white PhD Candidate from Métis Nation Saskatchewan, Local #7. I live uninvited on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands in order to attend the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. I recognize with humility that it is through injustice that I have come to live on these lands. As such, I work to live in relation with them sustainably, and I strive to come to know these lands well and to walk lightly upon them. As a scholar, I study Indigenous entrepreneurship through Indigenous research methods and from an Indigenous perspective. Within my research I am focused on Indigenous business values and alternative modes of doing business that better comport with these value systems than mainstream capitalism does. I come to this role as an Editorial Board Member for the new PRME blog with humility as a student, but with a passion for bringing issues of decolonization, (in)justice, (in)equity, and Indigenization to the fore of our conversations in business schools. I believe that the most important way we can drive positive change, is by striving to live and work in alignment with our values, and by influencing others with whom we connect to do the same. Throughout my tenure here, I will seek to invite in voices from the margins of mainstream business school experiences and support these speakers, however I can, to tell their stories in their own words.
Ingvild Sørensen
UN Global Compact (United States)
Ingvild A. Sørensen is Senior Manager of Strategic Development at the United Nations Global Compact in New York. Ingvild’s role includes the development of the UN Global Compact’s programme portfolio, partnerships and supporting leading global companies across a range of industry sectors in their efforts to innovate and achieve higher levels of sustainability performance in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. In this capacity she also leads UN Global Compact’s CEO and Board engagement efforts designed to improve and accelerate the integration of sustainability at the highest level. Prior to joining the UN Global Compact, Ingvild worked at the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN, the UN Department of Public Information in New York, and at Procter & Gamble. Ingvild holds a MSc degree in Advanced Management Practices from the University of Bath, and a BSc degree in International Marketing and Management from BI Norwegian Business School and the University of Mannheim.
PRiMEtime 