More than half of the researchers at ICOA will, in close co-operation with global corporations and international top researchers, aim to strengthen the transition of corporations to a more sustainable business. The project is entitled GOLDEN and runs until 2015.

2011.06.16 | Martin Damsgaard

For the next four years, the interdisciplinary research center, ICOA, at Business and Social Sciences will participate in the global sustainability project GOLDEN. A number of researchers from the center will be involved in the project.  

The project, in which ICOA is a leading partner, is based at the Center for Research on Organization and Management at Bocconi University in Italy, and is spearheaded by a joint team of international researchers, global corporations and international organizations, such as the European Commission and the United Nations. The many groups will work together in order to pursue the common goal set forth by GOLDEN: To help corporations identify and overcome the various barriers they may encounter on their way towards a sustainable development.

The participating ICOA researchers come from different academic backgrounds, but their main focus will be on the connection between sustainability and business performance, and how sustainability affects the organizational architecture and design of the corporation.

- The project supports several of the goals, which we set for ICOA’s research and knowledge exchange with society in 2010.The fact that we have been included in the project is thus very satisfactory, says Professor Børge Obel, Center Director at ICOA, who hopes that the GOLDEN project will lead to additional international collaborations in the future.

- We take one project at a time, but once researchers and corporations start sharing knowledge through an interdisciplinary co-operation of this caliber, it usually leads to additional projects.

Annual report for the corporation:

As a leading partner in the project, ICOA will collaborate with five to six large, Danish corporations interested in participating in GOLDEN. A total of approximately 100 corporations worldwide will participate in the project once the actual research process is initiated in mid-2012. Pernille Kallehave, Development Manager at ICOA, is responsible for much of the contact with the corporations. She describes the project as very attractive for a corporation. 

- Once a year, each corporation will receive a detailed report, in which GOLDEN’s researchers from about 35 different research centers across the globe will benchmark the corporation’s development and performance against other corporations participating in the project. For a global company this is attractive knowledge with respect to one of the essential future competitive factors, she says.

CODAN part of the pilot phase

The insurance company, CODAN, has entered into a partnership with ICOA and is ready to participate in the pilot phase of the project.

- We think that GOLDEN is an interesting and relevant project. We are particularly interested in the insurance-related questions regarding the measuring of the effectiveness of our initiatives in terms of sustainability. In addition we will assess whether the project can provide us with new knowledge, which we are not already obtaining via our internal and external audit and reporting to GRI (Global Reporting Initative), says CSR Manager at CODAN, Dorte Eckhoff.

Several of the researchers at ICOA, including Professor Kai Kristensen, Professor Jacob Kjær Eskildsen, and Visiting Professor Rick Edgemann from the University of Idaho, have just begun researching the measurements of effectiveness of sustainability.

Facts:

• From ICOA the following researchers are participating in GOLDEN: Center Director Børge Obel, Professor Kai Kristensen, Development Manager Pernille Kallehave, Professor Jacob Eskildsen, Associate Professor Anne Bøllingtoft, Assistant Professor Sladjana Vujovic, Visiting Professor Rick Edgeman and a PhD (the position has not yet been filled).
• Once the research process of GOLDEN starts in mid-2012, approximately 100 companies will be associated with GOLDEN. The following companies have participated in the development of the project so far: Banco Nacional de Peru, ENI, Microsoft, Novo Nordisk, Telecom Italia, Mondragon Group. 
• The founders of GOLDEN are:
  R. Edward Freeman, Academic Director, Business Roundtable, and Professor, Darden Business School, University of Virginia 
  Bradley Googins, Professor (and Former Director, Center for Corporate Citizenship), Boston College 
  Kai Kristensen, Professor of Marketing and Statistics, Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences 
  Gilbert Lenssen, Professor, President of the European Academy of Business in Society (EABIS) 
  Christopher Lettl, Co-Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business 
  Anita McGahan, Associate Dean, Research Director of Ph.D. Programs at the Rotman School of Business, University of Toronto 
  Malcolm McIntosh, Director, Asia-Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith University, Australia 
  Børge Obel, Professor of Organizational Design, Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences.  
  James Post, Professor, School of Management, Boston University 
  Michael V. Russo, Lundquist College of Business. University of Oregon 
  Andrew Van de Ven, Professor , Vernon H. Heath Chair of Organizational Innovation and Change Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota 
  Sandra Waddock, Professor, Boston College 
  Simon Zadek, Research fellow, Corporate Responsibility Initiative, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and founder, AccountAbility 
  Maurizio Zollo, Director, Center for Research on Organization and Management (CROMA), Bocconi University, Italy 

Contact information: 
  
Børge Obel, Center Director and Professor 
Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences 
Interdisciplinary Center for Organizational Architecture (ICOA) 
Mobile phone: 2020 7355 
Office number: 8948 6210 
E-mail: bo@asb.dk

Pernille Kallehave, Development Manager 
Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences 
Interdisciplinary Center for Organizational Architecture (ICOA) 
Mobile phone: 2160 5659 
E-mail: peka@asb.dk

Dorte Eckhoff 
CSR Manager 
CODAN Forsikring A/S 
Gammel Kongevej 60, 1790 Copenhagen V 
Tel: +45 3355 2791 
Mobile: +45 3037 8132 
E-mail: dec@codan.dk