Robert Strand awarded Nykredit's Research Talent Award

Nykredit's Research Talent Award - DKK 100.000

Robert Strand is assistant professor of Leadership & Sustainability at cbsCentre of Corporate Social Responsibility. Robert has an MBA from University of Minnesota and got his PhD from CBS in 2012.

Robert's research focuses on the role of strategic leadership in corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). He also explores corporate sustainability & CSR organizational structures installed within corporations and the associated key performance indicators (KPIs) deployed to drive initiatives and the effects of these structures and measurements. Robert performs his research in Scandinavia and the U.S. and utilizes these differing contexts for comparative opportunities.

Bagground for his nomination

Robert Strand has two compelling and complementary research streams:
1)  How corporations integrate and formalize their sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts and their effects - including his pioneering research on the establishment of the Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief Officer of CSR positions within top management teams

2)  The development of the "Scandinavian cooperative advantage" concept.

With respect to the first stream, Robert Strand's distinctive, well-established and innovative contribution to the sustainability and CSR literatur offers valuable and timely insights into the very important but neglected question of how sustainability and CSR is managed and used within organizations and the role of leadership when corporations aspire to act for change in relation to sustainability and CSR.

Regarding his second stream, Robert is challenging the field of strategic management to reconsider how a firm is most likely to achieve a competitive advantage, and calls for a shift to consider value creation as a fundamentally cooperative endeavor. THis is particulary relevant in Denmark as Robert i developing the notion that the competitive advantage of Danish and Scandinavian firms more likely lies in their ablilities to effectively cooporate with their stakeholders, not compete against them.

Empirically, Robert Strand's work draws on and compares data from the US and Denmark/Scandinavia, which adds a valuable and highly relevant dimension to the advance of the theory and practice of sustainability and CSR in context.

Work with Ed Freeman

In his short tenure he can already claim a strong publicaion record with two sole-authored international peer-reviewed journal articles published during his PhD tenure, one sole-autored article published in 2013 with the Journal of Business Ethics, and he was recently accepted again for publicaion in the Journal of Business Ethics as first-author for the article "Scandinavian Cooperative Advantage" that he co-authored with world-renowned stakeholder theorist Professor Ed Freeman.

Robert's research appeals to academia and business alike, as evidenced by the hugely successful "Sustainability in a Scandinavian Context Conference" at CBS 10-11 June 2013. Conceived, planned and executed by Robert, it brought together top scholars and practitioners from around the world with the intent to consider the potential development of a research paradigm dedicated to exploring sustainability in a Scandinavian context - and to consider the potential implications for a broader global context. This important event was partly funded by a Danish Ministry of Science Innovation and Higher Education International Network Programme grant.

Sterling educator with excellent results

He is a sterling educator, with excellent results, also when working with post-career students (MBA and executive education). Moreover, he has a huge international network and is a fantastic ambassador for CBS and Denmark in leading international business school communities where he regularly brings large groups of professors and students from North America to CBS, including the Academy of Management, PRME, EABIS (the Academy for Business in Society), AACSB (the Association for the Advance of Collegiate Schools of Business), Net Chapter (the world's largest MBA alumni association (US based) dedicated to the advance of sustainability) and the North American based COrporate Knights "Green MBA" Ranking as the global sustainability ranking for business schools (which has supplanted the Aspen Institute's Beyond Grrey Pinstripes Ranking).

In short, Robert Strand embodies the idea of engaged scholarship, connecting cutting-edge researach with education, practice and sociatal outreach, which is a rare feat for a young scholar who is only about to establish what is set to be a very promising career.