Centre for Unframed Thinking (CUT)

Co-directors of the programme:

Guillaume Bagnarosa

Imen Nouira

Mahabub Rahman

During the last three decades, industrial and human activities have induced serious environmental problems and caused climate change worldwide. The harmful consequences of industrial activities on the environment have motivated stakeholders, especially government regulators and conscious consumers, to put pressure on industrial managers and to encourage or/and impel them to adopt and implement climate-friendly corporate strategies. Firms are thus constrained to rethink their existing business models and strategies to comply with these new environmental challenges, regulations and changes in consumption patterns. Environmental management and green Innovation are recognised as tools helping companies to reduce the impact of industrial systems and human activities on the environment. This programme will include talks, dialogues, debates and workshops across the two streams outlined below.

Green Innovation

Sixty percent of the earth’s natural environment has been degraded over the past few decades. Consequently, environmental degradation has moved from being a peripheral issue to a significant socioeconomic concern in the past decades. Green innovation initiatives are purported to be one of the crucial strategic orientations in dealing with the seemingly inexorable environmental degradation. A concerted effort, however, involving various types of governmental, intergovernmental, industrial and societal stakeholders is essential to develop and deploy effective green innovation activities. This stream explores the strategies, causes, consequences and barriers of green innovation at three broad levels: A) Country-level green innovation B) Industry-level green innovation C) Company-level green innovation. Further, this stream endeavors to shed light on how the interconnectedness between and among these three levels accelerates or decelerates the green innovation activities within a specific country/regional context. Thus, this research stream encompasses a multi-disciplinary topic that necessitates the integration of diverse perspectives such as sociological, political, financial, economic, ecological.

The salient objective of this stream is to develop and disseminate in-depth and comprehensive knowledge and insights about Green Innovation by integrating the varied perspectives of diverse actors/stakeholders that directly and indirectly impact the green innovation activities. To this end, we periodically organise conferences, seminars, symposiums, and roundtables to discuss and debate the critical issues pertaining to green innovation.

Climate Management

Climate change can (and will increasingly) affect our health, food production, infrastructures, safety and work conditions. While several sectors are particularly vulnerable to climate changes, such as agribusiness, tourism or insurance companies; some others like energy and transportation have already initiated their transition to limit the GHG emissions resulting from their activity, hence their contribution to the global warming. Each company within a given sector is characterised by a given capacity to adjust its management decisions to the current and future effects of climate change and a specific necessity to reduce the sources of GHG emissions. Furthermore, from standpoint of governments, the consequences of the climate change such as the rise in sea level, severe drought or floods have already compelled whole communities to relocate to limit the risk of famine. In the future, the number of “climate refugees” is expected to rise and to consequently require resolute government interventions.

This climate management stream focuses on solutions to anticipate the adverse effects of climate change on the economy and will propose appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause. Furthermore, our research stream aims, through a cross-disciplinary approach, to help managers and policymakers to respectively take advantage of business opportunities or to anticipate/mitigate geopolitical risks that may arise.

GICM selected publications by CUT Senior fellows and RSB researchers:

• G. Bagnarosa, M. Cummins, M. Dowling, F. Kearney (2022) “Commodity risk in European dairy firms”. European Review of Agricultural Economics 49, 151–181.
• Crifo, P., Durand, R., Gond, J-P. 2019. Encouraging Investors to Enable Corporate Sustainability Transitions: The Case of Responsible Investment in France. Organization & Environment. 32(2), 125-144.
• H. Ghazzai and R. Lahmandi-Ayed (2022). “Ecolabel: Is more information better”. Environmental Modelling & Assessment 27, 505-524.
• R. Hammami, I. Nouira and Y. Frein (2018), “Effects of Customers’ Environmental Awareness and Environmental Regulations on the Emission Intensity and Price of a Product”. Decision Sciences 49, 1116-1155.
• CD. Harvell, CE Mitchell, JR Ward, S. Altizer, A. Dobson, RS Ostfeld, MD Samuel (2002). “Climate warming and disease risks for terrestrial and marine biota”, Science 296, 2158-2162.
• L. Landweber and A. Dobson (2019). Genetics and the extinction of species: DNA and the conservation of biodiversity. Princeton University Press
• K. Medlock, T. Loch-Temzelides and S. Yu (2021). “COVID 19 and the value of safe transport in the United States”. Nature-Scientific Reports
• Van der Ploeg, R., and T. van den Bremer (2021). “The risk-adjusted carbon price”. American Economic Review, 111, 9, 2782-2810.
• M. Rahman (2023), “The virtuous circle between green product innovation and performance: The role of financial constraint and corporate brand”. Journal of Business Research 154, article 113296

Co-directors of the programme:

Marco Michelotti

Sarah Robinson

Julia Roloff

This interdisciplinary programme, divided into three symposia streams, aims to explore how human organising can support the future development of sustainable organisational systems, advancing the future of humanity. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, social activism, as well as business and organisation studies, the three events will consist of interdisciplinary dialogues, debates and presentations between and by theorists, researchers, strategists, practitioners and activists, focusing on organising past, present and future respectively. We discuss how prevailing studies and theories of organisation, and interest representation have been complicit not only in the development of unstainable business practices and behaviours, but also in excluding alternative theoretical paradigms, negatively affecting efforts to develop (alternative) ideas. We follow how the legacy of such processes in the present-day poses ongoing threats to the development of more equitable and sustainable forms of organising and explore how to legitimize and adopt a variety of perspectives. The programme then strives to advance alternatives by highlighting present good practices and identifying future opportunities for organising against (rather than towards) global extinction and for improving societal and organizational structures. The programme will involve 5-6 CUT Senior Fellows, RSB speakers, and invited guest speakers including academics, activists and practitioners. The broad streams interwoven through the three symposia are as follows:

Sustainable Business Practices

Overconsumption: The use of materials, electricity, water and soil is growing more rapidly than the human population (United Nations 2020). In industrialised countries, the average age of household appliances and electronic devices has shrunken (Ala-Kurikka 2015) contributing to a general trend of consuming more products without improving well-being or lowering poverty levels. Recycling and closed-loop operations are imperfect solutions to address this problem as they still require the use of electricity and water and add to the environmental footprint of humankind.

Social investment and social entrepreneurship: Mission-driven businesses are doted as providing workable solutions on how to make societies more sustainable. In many countries new legal forms such as the société à mission (France) or the benefit corporation (USA) are promoted to make it more attractive to design a business that addresses one or more social and/or environmental objectives with their business activities. With the rise of social ventures, social impact investment is also growing and supported by policy-makers including the European Union.

Alleviating Social and Political Risks

The aim of this stream is to assess and propose solutions for the following risks: labour market risks, social security risks, representational security risks, political and geopolitical risks and health risks. Associated topics also include: migration, the rise of fascist/populist ideologies and the unintended consequences of the widespread adoption of monitoring technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) including, but not limited to, risks associated with singularity theory (Kurzweil 2005). This stream will study how these risks interact and may compound into possible disintegration of social and political institutions that media conflicts and provide a certain degree of societal cohesion.

Re-envisioning Leadership for the Future of Humanity

This stream (re-)envisions role of leadership in addressing the grand challenges of our current and future worlds: How can understanding the significance of leadership in the economic, political, technological and social relations of organisation and society work towards sustainable futures? How can alternative forms of leadership, for example, indigenous leadership, feminist, paradox and pragmatist-inspired leadership shed new light and understandings to guide and develop leaders in pivotal sectors, industries, political parties and social movements

OTAE selected publications by CUT senior fellows and RSB Faculty:

• Kannampuzha, M. and Hockerts, K. (2019) “Organizational Social Entrepreneurship: Scale Development and Validation”. Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2019, p. 290-319.
• Kerr, R. and Robinson, S (2012) “From symbolic violence to economic violence: The globalizing of the Scottish banking elite”. Organization Studies, vol 33 no. 2pp.247-266.
• Mcnamara, T; Meloso, D; Michelotti, M; Puncheva-Michelotti, P (2022) “You are free to choose…are you? Organisational punishment as a productivity incentive in the social science literature”. Human Relations, Vol. 75(2) 322–34
• Monteiro, P. and Adler, P (2022) “Bureaucracy for the 21st century: Clarifying and expanding our view of bureaucratic organization ,” Annals of the Academy of Management vol. 16, No.2 .
• Nyland, C., Bruce, K. D., & Burns, P. (2014) “Taylorism, the International Labour Organization, and the genesis and diffusion of codetermination” Organization Studies, 35(8), 1149 – 1169.
• Roloff, J., Longondjo Etambakonga, C.(2020) “Protecting environment or people? Pitfalls and merits of informal labor in the Congolese recycling industry”. Journal of Business Ethics Volume 161, pp. 815–834
• Simpson, B., Harding, N., Fleming, P., Sergi, V., & Hussenot, A. (2021). “The integrative potential of process in a changing world: introduction to a special issue on power, performativity and process”. Organization Studies, 42(12), 1775-1794.
• Taksa, Lucy (2019): “Remembering and incorporating migrant workers in Australian industrial heritage. Labour Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, 16(1):81-105.

Co-directors of the programme:

Balaji Makam

Antonio Vezzani

Jean-Marie Bonnin

Technological development and innovation influence the evolution of societies and are in turn influenced by the way societies evolve. What are the new emerging patterns of technological development and innovation? How are these related to new attitudes toward innovation? How will they change the perception of what is good or not for society? Could we define a sustainable technological path along with all these dimensions and devise tools to implement it? KiS tackles these questions through a multidisciplinary approach where business and economics considerations are integrated with views from technology assessment and forecasting, ethics, knowledge diffusion, history and philosophy of science, as well as societal and political considerations. To this end, KiS connects the broad range of knowledge held by different stakeholders including academia, industry, civil society and policymakers.

Innovation ecosystems aiming at human-centered innovations

History is replete with examples of new technologies that were introduced too early, that didn’t really meet any need or want, eventually, ill-designed for the intended audience or socially unsuitable. In the context of accelerated technological change and global competition, firms should develop complex innovative solutions that require the interaction of multiple players. In this framework, the integration of knowledge and meaning is a key strategic dimension to keep the edge.
Innovation ecosystems and a meaningful development or application of technologies should not consider people only as the end of the process but incorporate wants, desires and aspirations at the very begin by taking a human-centered approach. A Human-centric stance is important to go beyond GDP in the search of new indicators incorporating well-being, for example, health and safety matter when we evaluate alternative choices. Implementation of human-centered innovation systems is key in this respect and will be a major axis in this CUT programme.

Innovation, ethics and power

A mindful approach to knowledge and innovation will help to rearticulate an old point: innovation has a direction, not only a rate of change. Choices about innovation are complex and often contested (e.g. issues with the acceptance of vaccines), and research on innovation should go beyond the opportunities offered by new technologies to consider the implication, desirability, and possible noxious consequences of some innovations on society at large. That is, bring an ethics-based reflection about the broad implications of innovations early enough in the innovation-diffusion process.
Indeed, in the initial phases of innovation diffusion, positive aspects tend to be overstated and negative ones underrated. New emerging technologies creates new opportunities but also generates new constraints. For example, a digital world is a world where some critical materials will matter and sourcing and recycling will be critical; a world partly driven by AI may limit the set of choices available to humans and induce severe disruptions in the balance of formal and informal power within and across communities and socioeconomic sectors. For a given market structure, including in a free-market economy, innovations can be indeed manipulated, calling for a better understanding of the role of powers in directing innovation.

Technology diplomacy and sovereignty

After decades of free markets, privatizations and unsupervised growth, recent major crises (e.g., financial, climate, COVID, Ukraine war) sparked a rethinking of the current economic model, and the way economies and global players interact. Strategic autonomy of key technologies is gaining momentum, among others because a strong role in world geopolitics, like the defense of democracy, requires a certain degree of autonomy. Nowadays the control of key emerging technologies related to health, climate, and digitalization is a rising policy concern at both national and European level.
Economic and management theories have been developed largely disregarding power and geopolitics. Concepts like power, sovereignty, security or resilience should inform new theories and cross-fertilization from different disciplines is a key factor to advance our understanding of innovation in a globalized world.

KiS selected publications by CUT senior fellows and RSB faculty:

• Alcalde-Unzu, J., J. Moreno Ternero and S. Weber (2022). “The measurement of the value of a language“. Journal of Economic Theory, Forthcoming.
• Filippetti, A., and A. Vezzani (2022). “The political economy of public research, or why some governments commit to research more than others”. Technological Change and Social Forecasting 176, article 121482.
• T. Gajdos, I. Régner, P. Huguet, J. Sackur, J.-C. Vergnaud, M. Hainguerlot, V. de Gardelle (2019). “Does social context impact metacognition? Evidence from stereotype threat in a visual search”, PLoS ONE.
• Kapoor P., Balaji, M. and Jiang, Y. (2022), “Greenfluencers as Agents of Social Change: The Effectiveness of Sponsored Messages in driving Sustainable Consumption”. European Journal of Marketing.
• Rodrigo, S., JM. Bonnin and T. Ernst (2018). “AD4ON: An ITS-based Decision Making Architecture for Opportunistic Networking”. International Journal On Advances in Networks and Services 11 (1-2), 11-21
• Shi C., C. Tercero, X. Wu, S. Ikeda, K. Komori, K. Yamamoto, F. Arai, T. Fukuda (2016). “Real‐time in vitro intravascular reconstruction and navigation for endovascular aortic stent grafting”. The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer-Assisted Surgery 12, 648-657.
• Paré, Zaven (2016). L’âge d’or de la robotique japonaise. Editions Belles Lettres, Paris.

• 28 September 2022: CUTIS – Human Robots: Dr. Zaven Paré (RSB) et Professor Simon Thevenin (IMT Atlantique) (SE)
• 19 October 2022: From the Workshop to the Laboratory: Dr Zaven Pare (CUT senior Fellow) & Dr. Alexander Niess (Rennes SB (EE)
• 24 October 2022: Quelle(s) politique(s) pour faire face à l’inflation en ces temps de crises ?
  Alain Durré, économiste en chef, Goldman Sachs France; Xavier Ragot, Président de l’OFCE ; Professor  Alain Kirman Directeur d’études à l’EHESS (PE)
• 27 October 2022: CUTIS ‘Research on Diversity Management: two perspectives: Professor Lucie Taksa (Senior Fellow CUT- Deakin University, Australia) & Professor Sophie Hennekam (RSB) (SE)
• 4 November 2022: CASA-CUT Conference on Agribusines & Sustainable Agriculture – Climate Change: Professor Guillaume Bagnarosa, Professor Rick Van der Ploeg (University of Oxford and Senior Fellow CUT), Professor François Le Grand (RSB), Professor Imen Nouira (RSB); Professor Dhamir Mannai (co-chair of Advisory Group on Energy Governance at UNDP, Deerfield Cyberdefense, France), Professor Alex Gohin (INRAe France) (SE)
• 28-29 November 2022: CAID-Artificial Intelligence & digitalization: Professor Zhengtao Ding, University of Manchester; Professor  Arnaud de la Fortelle, HEEX Technologies & CAOR (Mines Paris), Professor Giulio Mecacci, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition & Behaviour (The Netherlands); Professor Aurélie Dommes, Gustave Eiffel University, Paris; Professor Herbert Dawid, Bielefeld University, Germany, (CUT senior fellow); Professor Juan Moreno Ternero, University Paolo Olavide Sevilla, (CUT Senior fellow);Professor Rim Lahmandi-Ayed, University of Carthage Tunisia,( CUT Senior fellow); Professor Jean-Marie Bonnin, IMT, Rennes, Professor Bahador Bahrami,  Ludwig Maxmilian University, Munich (CUT Senior Fellow); Professor Thibault Gajdos, CNRS-Aix-Marseille University, (CUT Senior fellow) (SE)
• 1 December 2022: EU proposal presentation (EE)
• 5 December 2022: Symposium 1 (part 1): Professor Sonja Sperber, University of Vienna; Professor Yvonne Benschop, Radboud University; Professor Michael Stefan Aßländer, University of Dresden (CUT Senior Fellow); Professor Robert Boutilier, Stakeholder 360 and University of Eastern Finland ;
• 6 December 2022: Symposium 1 (part 2): Professor Todd Bridgeman and Professor Stephen Cummings, Victoria University of Wellington; Professor Lucy Taksa, Deakin University (CUT Senior Fellow); Professor Chris Nyland, Monash University (CUT Senior Fellow); Professor Paul Adler, University of Southern California (CUT Senior Fellow) (SE)
• 9-10 January 2023: COVID RSB-CUT/ANR/Sorbonne Conference: Professor Aditya Goenka, University of Birmingham; Professor Ted Temzelides Rice University (CUT Senior Fellow); Professor Andrew Dobson Princeton University (CUT Senior Fellow); Professor Patrick Pintus CNRS & AMSES; Professor Céline Azémar RSB; Giorgi Fabbri, CNRS Université de Grenoble; Professor Nouhoum Touré CES University Paris 1; Imen Nouira RSB; Professor Jérôme Frans Addas Bocconi University; Professor Rodolphe Desbordes Skema Business School (SE)
• 18 January 2023: Public Conferences: Is there a Chinese model? Understanding the Chinese vision and strategy (PE): Professor Jean-François Huchet Président de l’Inalco ; Professor Irène Hors est Senior Associate Fellow à MERICS; Professor Eric Girardin, University of Aix-Marseille; Minggang Zhang, Joint General Director of Huawei
• 26 January 2023: CUTIS on Spatio-temporal modeling of climate risk – TBC (SE)
• 6-7 March 2023: Symposium 2 (SE)
• 3-4 May 2023: Symposium 3 (SE)
• Week 2 July 2023: CUT Campus on “Human-Friendly Science for Human-Friendly Business” (SE)

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