At the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, students kicked-off – its first event on Wednesday, 13 January. The lecture, presented by Emeritus Professor Slawomir (Slawek) Magala, focused on critical theory and alternative approaches to knowledge and business.

“The lecture was really interesting and inspiring, I’m definitely going to be there for the other lectures as well!” one of the participants commented directly following the lecture. Professor Magala talked about his role in the historical start of Critical Theory in business curriculum, about the nature of knowledge nowadays, and about current global issues, e.g. the refugee crisis. What made the lecture interesting was the alternative perspective from which Professor Magala looks at subjects, challenging the common beliefs and views on issues. He encouraged everyone to think deeper, about the underlying reasoning, or lack thereof. The key take-away message was that written knowledge in textbooks is not the most important thing we learn at university. What is most important, is activating the skill of critical thinking and the art of negotiation, because those skills represent what

knowledge is today.

Professor Magala’s opinion about this co-curricular lecture series was positive. -“Great to work with interested and intelligent students”, he commented afterwards. If you are interested in more inspiring lectures like this one, stay tuned for the next event in the Sustainability Lecture Series organized by the, soon to be, oikos Rotterdam. 18 February, the subject of Sustainable Marketing will be facilitated by Jan Looman.

See more photos of the event here.

Written by: Eva De Lozanne

On December, 4^th and 5^th ‘les Entretiens de Royaumont’ took place at the Royaumont abbey, near Paris, France. This annual event gathers French CEOs and top managers from several companies since 2003. Subsequent to its success year after year, the event also went to take place in Warsaw, London, Madrid, and Rabat. The goals remain the same in every city: make national CEOs meet to discuss a specific topic, raise awareness and network.

The topic for this year 2015 in Paris was “Et vous, comment êtes vous ‘green’?”, ie. “and you, how are you ‘green?”. French CEO and top managers from companies such as Michelin, Airbus group, Axa, BNP Paribas, KPMG, Air France, Engie, Orange, Mazars, Goodplanet fondation and akuo energy, were all present. Among the participants were also the Prime Minister of Benin’s, Lionel Zinzou; Mongolia’s Minister of Environment, Battsereg Namdag;  the renown French chief cook, Alain Ducasse; the president of the Internationale Automobile Federation, Jean Todt; and so forth.

The talks were on different sub-topics in order to try to tackle the question holistically:

French companies and ‘green’; ‘Green innovation’ ; How did you become ‘green’?; Get engaged ‘green’ for ocean; Get engaged ‘green’ for one’s colleagues; Get engaged ‘green’ for one’s clients; For a ‘green compatible’ economical model; Thinking ‘green’ favours long term; The ‘green’ conviction; Growing, developing and becoming ‘green’; Make French adopt ‘green’; Student engagement for ‘green’  From agreement to action: how to succeed the transformation of our models? and Transform the French society.

oikos was invited to give a talk to express youth voices with regards to the topics mentioned. Axel Bozier, an oikos Reims (France) alumni, Amélie Plateau, oikos Lille president, and Clémentine Robert, oikos international Executive Board Member represented oikos at this event. The feedback after oikos’ talk was very good and we hope for student voices to be increasingly heard, each year, whatever the topic thanks to the help of different student organizations. It is important for CEOs to know what youth thinks and how they act on the tackled topic since students will be tomorrow’s leaders and employees of these companies.

The videos, in French, are not available yet but will be posted on the website soon (http://entretiensroyaumont.org/wordpress/?page_id=5).

To know more about the Entretiens de Royaumont follow this link: http://entretiensroyaumont.org.

A special thank you to Théodore, a French student studying in the University of St Gallen, who thought of oikos to represent the youth voice during the Entretiens de Royaumont!

Watch oikos’ intervention here.

Written By: Clementine Robert 

On December 10th, oikos attented the “Victoires des leaders du Capital Humain” awards, a human resources awards events, organized in Paris by Leaders League, an organization that offers media and business services for leaders. This event gathered HR directors from 500 different companies such as Mazars, PepsiCo France, Air France, Agence France Presse, Novartis Pharma, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Schneider Electric, Groupe Adecco France, Robert Walters, Danone, ID Logistics and so forth.

In the afternoon several workshops took place and were followed in the evening by a networking dinner and awards ceremony.

The workshops were the following:

1. Transformations: What are the tools to face quick and deep changes ?

ͻ Changes should be done quickly, on a large scale within a company, with the collaboration of all the managers and when everything is fine, otherwise it is already too late.

ͻ Matrix structure is now too complex. Classical managerial structures are being destroyed but new structures are not well defined yet which leads to many human resources issues.

ͻ Transformation should be thought by the creative class because they are disruptive and not by those who have the power. The problem for companies is not the creativity of conception but the creativity of implementation. That is why lean management is often not really adapted. Transformation is not having an idea but implementing it!

Conclusion: It is needed to be exemplary in the original HR tasks to be then credible in the transformation.

2. Well being at work and new organizations: love marriage or marriage of convenience.

ͻ Work organization becomes more and more individualistic but still standardized. For instance, home office can be allowed according to the employee’s performance, seniority, etc.

ͻ Trust is the simple motto essential for the well being at work. It is provided by a clear environment, rules, listening, allowing feedback, encouragement of initiatives, etc. Tension between caring and performance. Some companies start to let go a bit and develop its collaborators’ soft skills.

ͻ Social dialogue is very important: the most competitive companies are those which have good social dialogues. To give meaning for the employees is important too.

Conclusions: Employees should be put back at the core of the company.

3.Strategies and social relations: new deal.

ͻ To keep trust it is necessary to keep regular social relations.

ͻ It is not easy today to be a union activist: understand the context, make decisions not understood by the employees, educate the employees, etc. Moreover they are less representative which make collective bargaining agreements difficult to get.

ͻ Conciliating social time, economical time and juridical time is hard and changed in 2008.

Social relation should be included in the strategy and should not be a positive element aside. Share the strategy with all the employees is necessary from a social and economical point of view.

ͻ Often changes step by step within a company work better succeed in having greater and bigger changes than to try to change everything in just one time.

4. Diversity, gender equity, and CSR: how to get out of the usual tracks?

ͻ CSR: to set up quantitative goals in volume and value within a delimited time would allow companies to go faster and further on that topic. Good way to leverage motivation among the employees. Digital transformation and CSR can be contradictory in many ways.

ͻ Diversity: provides collective creativity and collective intelligence. The goal today is to highlight the differences which will bring value.

ͻ A diversity policy should survive to three different leaders before being part of the strategy.

Conclusions: Mission accomplished when CR/Diversity department will not exist anymore (everything will be integrated)!

Awards winners:

• Quality of working life: iAdvize
• CSR, diversity, gender equity: Gecina

To know more about Leaders League visit http://www.leadersleague.com.

To know more about this specific award (only in French): http://www.victoiresleaderscapitalhumain.com.

Written by: Clementine Robert