BUSINESS BRIEFING
All the latest updates from across AMBA’s global network
Featured among the latest selection of updates from AMBA-accredited schools is a look at how diversity campaigns can sometimes backfire on brands, the main challenges currently faced by businesses in Chile and what can make female CEOs resort to taking big risks. Tim Banerjee Dhoul and Ellen Buchan report
BUSINESS PROFESSORS BEHIND OTHER ACADEMICS FOR BOARD IMPACT ON CSR
SCHOOL : Essec Business School COUNTRY : France
The presence of a professor on a company’s board has been found to positively impact its CSR performance, but not if they are a professor of business. This intriguing finding comes from a study led by Essec Business School’s Charles Cho, published in the Journal of Business Ethics . Academics have become popular choices for board members, with at least one professor on the board at more than 38 per cent of Standard & Poor’s 1,500 firms, according to the study. It reasons that this may be because academics are believed to bring higher standards of professional ethics to the table, through their sense of responsibility as educators towards citizens, future generations and the community. The study sought to determine whether this perception translates into tangible impact, drawing on an analysis of RiskMetrics data over the period 2003-2011. Its results showed a significant and positive association between the presence of academic board members and a firm’s CSR performance ratings. In addition, increasing the number of
professors on a board improved the strength of the ratings. However, these effects were only in evidence when board members were academics from certain disciplines, including engineering, science and medicine. Business professors did not appear to affect the ratings scrutinised. Furthermore, academic board members who also held an administrative role at their institution were found to exert less influence on a firm’s CSR performance. In the study, business professors’ comparatively poor showing is linked to an outdated paradigm that neglects the importance of corporate accountability and the need to train responsible managers. It therefore calls for business schools to continue their shift towards embracing CSR and sustainability issues. Professors on the Board: Do They Contribute to Society Outside the Classroom? was co-authored with researchers at KAIST College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIT) in Seoul. TBD
8 Ambition • ISSUE 4 • 2025
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