College of Business Administration

The College of Business Administration is committed to fostering sustainable business practices and research. Our faculty and students explore the intersection of business and sustainability, examining corporate social responsibility, sustainable finance, and ethical leadership. Key research areas include:

Sustainable Supply Chain Management: Investigating strategies to optimize supply chain operations, reduce environmental impact, and ensure ethical sourcing practices.
Impact Investing: Analyzing the role of impact investing in driving sustainable development, including investments in renewable energy, clean technology, and social enterprises.
Corporate Social Responsibility: Examining the role of businesses in addressing social and environmental issues, including corporate governance, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability reporting.
Climate Change and Business: Exploring the impact of climate change on businesses and the role of businesses in mitigating climate change, including climate risk management, carbon pricing, and low-carbon strategies.

By integrating sustainability into our curriculum and research initiatives, we aim to equip future business leaders with the knowledge and skills to drive sustainable innovation and create a positive impact on society and the environment.

Below are some examples of research papers by faculty members from the College of Business Administration:

1- Juusola, K., Venkitachalam, K., Kleber, D. and Popat, A. (2024), "Knowledge sharing in open social innovation for sustainable development: evidence from rural social enterprises", Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-12-2023-0322

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study explores the use of knowledge sharing (KS) in delivering open social innovation (OSI) solutions for sustainable development in the context of economically marginalized, rural societies in India.

Design/methodology/approach: The study is guided by an exploratory, qualitative approach using an embedded case study design with four social enterprises. The study approaches the use of KS in three stages of OSI: 1) the stages of ideating and prototyping, 2) the initial stages of experimenting and business development, and 3) the more current and future-oriented stages of organizations’ strategies for expanding market opportunities for maximizing impact.

Findings: The first stage used KS for collaborative efforts among diverse stakeholders to recognize the needs of marginalized people and ideate suitable ecological solutions. The social enterprises acted as orchestrators in this stage. The second stage involved a more dynamic role of KS in the refinement of social enterprises’ market offerings, generating additional innovations and value propositions, which diversified the scope of the social enterprises. This was facilitated by enterprises’ ability to be open systems, which change and evolve through OSI processes and KS. In the third stage, social enterprises’ use of KS was shifted towards future business development by expanding market opportunities with solutions that tackle complex societal and ecological problems, thereby contributing to Sustainable Development Goals.

Originality: The present study contributes to studies on OSI, focusing on sustainable development and the role played by social enterprises operating in rural, economically marginalized areas, which have been an understudied phenomenon in the open innovation literature.

Keywords: Open innovation; Open social innovation; Knowledge sharing; Social enterprise; Sustainable development

2- Juusola, K., Kleber, D. & Popat, A. (2024), "Transformative social marketing and social innovation for sustainable development through participatory design with economically marginalized users", Journal of Social Marketing, 14(2), 210-227.

Abstract

Purpose: The study is positioned at the crossroads of transformative social marketing and social innovation literature through the lens of participatory design (PD). This exploratory study aims to explore how social enterprises in India engage economically marginalized people in transformative social marketing and innovation for sustainable development through PD.

Design/methodology/approach: The study includes a case study with a matched pairs analysis approach. Our data analysis reports three themes depicting the role of PD in different stages of the social innovation process (co-discovery, co-design, and scaling-up), the challenges faced in the process, and the outcomes of the PD process.

Findings: We propose that social enterprises can act as sustainable development catalysts for more inclusive sustainable development through their proactive and creative uses of PD. Still, PD also has limitations for addressing the challenges stemming from marginalized contexts, which requires effective social marketing strategies to overcome.

Originality/value: Our study contributes to the emerging dialogue on PD with marginalized users and widens the scope of studies on transformative social marketing and innovation. The findings also provide practical insights for PD practitioners on how designers can learn from diverse PD practices in the context of economically marginalized people.

Keywords: Social marketing, Social enterprise, Participatory design, Social innovation, Sustainable development

3- Juusola, K., & Srouji, R. (2023) “Challenges associated with sustainability accounting and reporting practices: a legitimacy perspective”. International Journal of Law and Management, 65(1), 64-87.

Abstract

Purpose: This study utilized legitimacy theory to discuss three important aspects of sustainability accounting and reporting practices: the historical building of legitimacy for such practices, how organizations have adhered to them when building organizational legitimacy in a new legitimacy context (the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] region), and how sustainability professionals assess the legitimacy of them in this context.

Design/methodology/approach: The study applied an exploratory qualitative design and a paradigm-type approach to organizational discourse analysis. It used a document analysis and eight expert interviews as data sources.

Findings: The findings revealed that sustainability accounting and reporting face considerable challenges in the MENA region. Four discourses on organizational sustainability in the region were identified, namely the normative/pragmatic, compliance, restrictive, and performative discourses.

Originality: The legitimacy of sustainability accounting and reporting has not previously been comprehensively investigated in non-Western contexts. This study discusses three important aspects of legitimacy: legitimacy of an object, legitimacy of a subject, and legitimacy from an evaluator’s perspective. In doing so, it identifies the paradoxical nature of organizations’ attempts to comply with sustainability reporting practices.

Practical implications: Awareness of the challenges and mechanics of sustainability accounting and reporting practices is important for managers, policymakers, and consumers, who typically lack in-depth understanding of such practices and so would benefit from being better able to assess companies’ sustainability performance. The four identified discourses facilitate stakeholders’ understanding of sustainability practices in the MENA region.

Keywords: Sustainability accounting, sustainability reporting, corporate social responsibility, sustainable development goals, Middle East, legitimacy, legitimation