>> Corporate social responsibility has been established as a phenomenon at this
institution, Copenhagen Business School, for quite some years.
But I think it's fair to stay that we started off many,
many years ago out of business ethics.
So we had professors here, at the business school researching and
teaching business ethics.
And this was very sort of a very normative perspective,
very much focused on individual leaders, and
how their view of the world transformed, influenced the companies they worked in.
Where is around?
I would say it's fair to say around the turn of the century.
The CSR phenomenon which had been established in a lot of
corporations also moved into the business school.
And in 2002, we established the CSR center at Copenhagen Business School.
A little bit against the wind, and we're still talking about ethics,
in a very normative, and from a very, there's more point of view.
But also seeing that there were other aspects then individual aspects,
there's the organization behind it, and it's stands, it's cultures,
ideologies, it's activities not least, vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
Whereas today, we've sort of, I can see a lot of colleagues
publishing, teaching, talking now about sustainability.
So from ethics to CSR to sustainability, and to say the sustainability
concept captures more colleagues perhaps than CSR phenomenon.
Because sustainability also embraces all the disciplines,
it invites our friends from the technological university, and
also from the natural science and which science is in particular.
To discuss with us, and to have students talk about sustainability issues.
Whereas CSR is a more strange, and uncommon,
I would say Inconvenient perhaps even, phenomenon for the natural scientist.
They don't really understand that, but sustainability,
they know what that's about.
So sustainability is giving us a language to discuss these
matters with other sciences as well.
So I think that's been in a broad sense move.
>> So it seems sustainability to the degree that that language, or
that expression is capturing more individuals, perhaps there is a little bit
because of the ambiguity to determine the interpretation of it.
For example in the natural sciences you could see where there may be
an interpretation of sustainability that maybe is a little bit different from, for
example, a finance person who may be thinking about the economic sustainability
of the company, but they're using the same expression.
So maybe there's a convenience with the sustainability term that is capturing more
folks, and bringing more people into the conversation, but
we don't all mean the same thing perhaps.
>> Yeah, and this is an ongoing concern exactly, what you're saying,
this is an ongoing concern.
It's even I'll say irritation for a lot of people that what is this thing,
if I sort of talk of CSR, sustainability.
We will also certainly meet a lot of different definitions.
So different disciplines will have their own definitions, and
even within disciplines, there will be disagreements about what do we mean by
the concept of CSR or sustainability.
And it is, as I said, an irritation.
Because we don't really understand the same things about the same phenomenon.
We're not sure at least, if we do that.
We may label them differently, but we mean the same thing.
So what I have, and a lot of other colleagues have sort of discussed for
a number of years is maybe that's the beauty about it.
And this is also what you're suggesting, I guess.
Maybe there's a beauty about us disagreeing about what CSR,
sustainability is all about.
Maybe that is exactly why we keep on discussing it, and
why it sort of seems to be a captive phenomenon.
A concept that will keep on attracting a lot of disciplines,
ongoingly to discuss for us from a business school.
What is the role of business in society?
>> Okay.
>> And I think that, again, as I said before, coming from a sort of a normative,
and moral, and ethical background,
I think we are moved into see as artist's inability being of a much more
profound nature for a business school and what we do with business schools.
Because what we do here is we question, we critique,
we challenge the notion of what is the role of business in society today?
So it's not just about the, you could say the moral point of view,
it's much more profound.
What is the general assumption behind,
what does the business actually contribute vis-à-vis society?
So yeah- >> So would in that then matter would you
say if we were talking about the definitions of sustainability, and
they're contested.
And if I move that question onto, why do we need these concepts,
sustainability, CSR?
It seems to me that, what you're indicating here is that
these concepts provide for a forum for these discussions.
And it's more than just about sustainability, CSR, here you're talking
much bigger about what's the rule of business in the society.
Is that how you would see these sustainability,
CSR is actually encouraging these discussions and
perhaps debates about business in society?
>> Yes, definitely, and I think forum is a good word to use in this