Join our new international project: The Global Virtual Conference on Leadership & Sustainability
oikos International
Author
Dear oikees,
Do you want to develop and apply your knowledge on leadership, while empowering other changemakers globally?
Here is the challenge: to organize a two-weeks Global Virtual Conference, providing a hearty experience and diverse perspectives on Leadership and Sustainability!
The global virtual conference aims to be inclusive and gather different ideas: your exceptional background and vision will be an essential contribution to define the most interactive and enlightening virtual program to ignite change.
Collaborate in a multicultural team and learn how to moderate a meeting, strengthen your skills in digital communication and meet prominent thinkers and practitioners on sustainability.
Skills required: Learn by doing is oikos’ philosophy, motivation and commitment is all we need.
Time commitment: Available for 1 hour per week, virtually.
Financial Times: Nordics lead the way in green business education
oikos International
Author
Julia Köhler of oikos Copenhagen was recently featured in the Financial Times article covering the integration of sustainability into curriculum across Scandinavian countries. Nordic countries are often regarded as leaders in the field of integrating sustainability into various aspects of everyday lives. Therefore, it’s not surprising their business schools have also earned the reputation for implementing the best such practices in research, teaching, student projects and operation management.
The Nordic cultures live on a set of values in many ways distinctive to the region that involve individual’s duty to the society which then translates to local business and governments, impacting their behavior. Among those values, the state of the environment and social issues rank highly and implementing them into the higher education comes as logical next step. That, in turn, leads to creating a curriculum that is aware of the environmental and societal issues while also attempting to tackle them.
The global position of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland as leaders in sustainability and green business makes them particularly appealing to international students. Among them is Julia who studies business with a focus on sustainability who came to Copenhagen from her native Germany in search of quality and affordable education. There she got involved in oikos Copenhagen working hard with other chapter members in spreading awareness of sustainability at her school.
The First Edition of the Positive Impact Rating was Launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 22nd January 2020. The Positive Impact Rating wants to support a fundamental change in the business school landscape with regards to the schools’ societal responsibility and impact. It offers students a tool to select an education that prepares them as responsible citizens and change-makers in the 21st-century.
oikos International is a part of the Supervisory Board of PIR representing student organizations.
The World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2020
The Positive Impact Rating (PIR) is a new rating conducted by students and for students. It is the first time that students around the world assess their business schools on how they perceive their positive impact in the world. The positive impact of business schools goes beyond their contribution to business and the economy; it addresses the need for their positive impact for society.
“Future generations will be grateful for students selecting PIR business schools. Such enlightened leaders are the key for business to achieve a positive impact for the world.”
-Antonio Hautle, Executive Director, UN Global Compact Switzerland.
The larger role of business schools
Business schools are traditionally seen to serve students by developing their management competences and to serve business organizations by providing them with educated talent, insights from research and continuous education for their staff. Business schools thereby support business and the economy. Providing a positive impact for society has not been considered as core to business schools, but demands for it have steadily increased in the past decade as exemplified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This new business school rating responds to these demands.
“Students demand a paradigm shift at business schools. After strongly raising our voice in 2019, the PIR enables us now to act with the schools to achieve that deep change.”
-Clémentine Robert, President oikos International.
What students want!
Students provided an incredibly wealth of constructive comments on how their schools can increase their positive impact. This rating is a further sign that 2019 was the year were the youth spoke up and the global consciousness shifted regarding not only the climate crisis but also social justice.
Students are very clear in what they want their schools to STOPdoing: 1) Stop investing in fossil fuels; 2) Stop treating sustainability & social entrepreneurship as second-class topics; 3) Stop partnering and accepting funds from unethical companies and individuals; 4) Stop hiring professors who do not care about doing good, 5) Stop emphasizing profit maximization, 6) Stop flying students abroad for a course just because it’s cool to do so.
There is also global consensus on what they want their schools to STARTdoing: 1) Make sustainability and social impact training mandatory in curricula; 2) Bring science and facts to the political debate; 3) Reduce CO2 emissions & food waste; 4) Prioritize gender parity amongst students and faculty; 5) Exchange more with other schools and faculties, share good practice and evolve together; 6) Rename the school to underline the social mission of business education.
A tool for collaborative learning and action
The purpose of the positive impact rating is to enable learning at and across schools, rather than creating a competitive ranking. A rating offers the safety of groups rather than individual ranks and intends to foster collaboration. Schools therefore are positioned in five different levels, where they are featured alphabetically. Students and the management of each participating school receive free online access to a dashboard featuring their school’s results across the different areas in comparison with the average of all schools. This allows them to actively work towards increasing their positive impact. Some students have reported that meetings are already scheduled with school management.
Areas
Dimensions of impact
Energizing
Governance
Culture
Educating
Programs
Learning Methods
Student Engagement
Engaging
Institution as a role model
Public Engagement
How to measure the impact of business schools?
The ambition of this rating is to be a lever of change in the much-needed deep transformation of business schools. Rankings have become increasingly important and this rating builds on this phenomenon by offering a new and hopefully better way to assess business schools in the 21st century. The impact of business schools is measured in three areas (energizing, educating, and engaging) which are further divided into seven dimensions (see table). These dimensions include assessing the programs offered and the learning methods used, and how students actively engage. It assesses a school’s culture and governance, which are predictors for becoming a positive impact school. And it looks at how members of the school are seen to engage in public as well as how the school is seen as serving as a role model in the eyes of students.
How the participating schools perform
In this first edition of the Positive Impact Rating, we set out to learn from a varied set of top schools around the world. For this, international student organizations reached out to students at the top 50 schools in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2018 ranking (FT) and the top 50 school in the Corporate Knights Green MBA ranking (CK). 51 business schools participated in the rating.
The Positive Impact Rating features 30 leading schools that have performed well in this student rating. While no school made the top level 5, nine schools are featured in level 4. These “transforming schools” show a positive impact culture, embedded in governance and systems, with visible results in a number of impact dimensions. A further 21 schools feature in level 3. These “progressing schools” show results across some impact dimensions. In the spirit of reinforcing good practice, the rating does not feature schools that were rated below level 3.
The nine transforming schools at level 4 are rated significantly better in the impact dimensions governance (23% higher) and culture (18% higher) than the rest of the schools, showing the importance of these dimensions in the change process.
Among the 51 participating schools, 26 appear in the FT and 19 in the CK rankings. Among the leading 30 schools, there are 13 FT and 11 CK schools. It is interesting to note that there are no top 25 FT schools among the level 4 schools, while level 4 includes three top 10 CK schools. The FT and CK rankings measure quality differently, with the “green” CK ranking a notch closer to measuring impact.
PIR learning = Peer learning
Students around the world are clear in their assessment that schools have much room for improvement when it comes to preparing them for dealing with sustainability challenges in their jobs and for a school reporting on its responsibility and sustainability performance (the role model dimension shows the lowest score). Students also critique their schools regarding their public engagement as well as the low level of student engagement (second and third lowest scores).
The nine top rated schools on level 4 are recognized by their students for including sustainability and societal engagement in their mission and for the degree to which these are seen as a driving force for the school (23% higher than average). These schools are also recognized by their students for having a culture that is aligned with their school’s purpose, for most of their people being highly motivated beyond self-interest and for strongly supporting personal development (18% higher than average).
The full PIR rating report includes best practice examples of those schools that have rated exceptionally well in one or the other of the seven dimensions. These examples are meant to inspire exchange and learning within and between schools, regionally or according to the change priorities.
By students for students
The international student organizations oikos, AIESEC, and Net Impact have joined forces with WWF Switzerland, OXFAM International and UN Global Compact Switzerland to launch this radically new business school rating. Together, these stakeholders represent the environment, society, business, and the next generation. In addition to changing business schools, they want to provide a more relevant selection tool for future students. Many of these future students care deeply about making a positive difference through their professional lives, yet they don’t necessarily know how to find the right business school. This rating is a tool for this next generation of change agents and as such is a response to wide-spread demands for a positive impact of business schools.
The conference on Sustainable Innovation 2020 at ESCP Berlin took place from the 8th to the 10th of January. oikos Berlin has participated actively in the organization and invited the oikos community to the event.
On the first day, 6 guests from different sectors expressed how their organizations are tackling the issue of sustainability, focusing on partnerships to lead business transformation. The conference was an excellent occasion to bring together people from business, academia and civil society organizations. The participants were actively sending questions to the speakers trough an app.
Clémentine Robert, current President of oikos International, gave a speech on how youth student activism is having a long term effect on business and society transformation. She emphasized the importance of business students to lead business change by external and internal leverage, at the local level: “Business transformation starts right here, right now”. Clémentine’s speech as well as those of most guests are featured in a video of the first day talks which you can find here.
The last activity of the conference aimed to set the path for the next two days: taking action. Therefore the participants were asked to write down on a post-it which sustainable action they wanted to accomplish in 2020.
For the oikos community, notably for oikos Berlin, oikos Copenhagen, oikos Bayreuth and oikos International, it was a great occasion to meet each other, boost the team’s energy and develop further cooperation. And of course, a bunch of them came by bus or train, either from Switzerland and from Copenhagen. As Clémentine said, “walk the talk”.
The second day was devoted to the workshops.
oikos animated a workshop on curriculum change, with members of oikos Berlin as moderators and J.Christopher from oikos International as an expert.
Even though, at first, the workshop may seemed less appealing compared to others, it ended up being one of the most dynamics, with students committing to lead curriculum change within ESCP Europe.
Finally, on the last day the students were given the opportunity to present the ideas they have developed during their workshops.
In the end, a career fair gave to the students the opportunity to envisage a career linked to sustainability; curriculum change goes beyond sustainability simply within courses, it gives students the means to develop the critical mindset needed to make conscious decisions.
Once more, we would like to thank oikos Berlin for bringing us together!
Welcome to the January edition of our newsletter! Inside you can find out how oikos kicked off 2020 and take a look at what’s happened in the community in the past month. You can also learn about the upcoming events and opportunities, so mark them in your calendar right away!
In the first newsletter issue of the year we bring you report from the board Strategy Meeting, reveal more details about this year’s Spring Meeting in Baku, introduce the new Management Team members at oikos International and more.
30 seconds with new members of oikos International Management Team
oikos International
Author
This month we welcomed new members to the oikos International team and we’re very excited for them to introduce themself to the community. Meet Marcelo, Giuliana and Stefan
Giuliana Longworth, Case Program Manager
Hi I’m Giuliana!
I strongly believe in the power of movements and actions initiated by civil society and public authorities. It is this belief which has guided my personal and working experiences and what has brought me close to oikos.
Working for two European city networks on sustainability related topics has allowed to deal with public authorities and work on their immense potential impact into the market and society. I’m now looking forward to explore the possibilities of student-led changes in the world as I strongly feel a comprehensive transformation into a sustainable system needs to pass by and through students, future citizens and leaders of the world.
My stronger topics of interests are sustainable consumption, sustainable public procurement, nature conservation and environmental migration. As mentioned I am interested in the public sphere as much as in community-based action. As I enjoy collaborative and horizontal ways of collaboration I very much welcome feedback and notes for improvement as much as new propositions and initiatives.
If you are a student, contact me to use the cases to engage with professors from your university/Business School and together embed sustainability into your classes. If you are a professor, contact me to get the case you need for your class: giuliana.longworth@oikos-international.org
Marcelo Veloso, Leadership and Sustainability fellow
Bom dia, Salut, Ciao, 你好, Hi!
I’m Marcelo Veloso, I hope we can collaborate soon!
Born in a rural area in Portugal, I grew up building tree houses in the woods and participating in world scouting activities.
Combining a bachelor’s degree in Business Management with a master degree in Sustainability appeared as the background needed to tackle inequalities and sustainability issues. The skills acquired served to volunteer and work on different local youth-led organizations related to education for sustainability as Geneva Red Cross, Alternatiba Léman, EDD, Step Into Action and Eduki, in Geneva.
At oikos International, I’m gathering international students and academics to foster innovation in sustainable management and leadership education. Furthermore, I’m advancing cooperation between Switzerland and Brazil in those fields, by working with Swissnex in Rio de Janeiro from March to October 2020.
Hi I’m Stefan and I recently joined the oikos International Management Team as the new Communications Manager.
I come from Belgrade, where I’ve been an oikos chapter member since 2017 and a student of International Relations at the University of Belgrade.
I’ve been devoted to oikos for quite some time now, starting at chapter level where along with the rest of the team I did my part in growing our young chapter. Being part of oikos Belgrade as Media team leader, Head of communication in the organizing team when we hosted last year’s Spring Meeting and also as the Chapter President provided me with so much experience and proved to be(and still is) an amazing learning opportunity.
I’ve been passionate about graphic design and writing for the best part of my life, and being part of oikos Belgrade for the first time allowed me to put it to greater use – in service of a common goal, mission and vision of oikos in promoting sustainability and being a part of the change for the sustainable world of tomorrow. It was only last year when we hosted oikees from around the world in Belgrade that I first came in touch with the international community and it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with it. As I wanted to get involved more I joined the this year’s LEAP program, which by is definitely one of the nicest things I’ve ever been a part of.
And to think just a few months later I’d become a part of the International team – doing the things I love, working with people I love and being a part of the best community in the world – now that’s a dream job!
belief which has guided my personal and working experiences and what has brought me close to oikos.
Bom dia, Salut, Ciao, 你好, Hi!