Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Sustainability:

Theoretical Perspectives and Trends

The role of companies in society and questions of their social, environmental, and ethical responsibility
are one of the most important topics of our time. Both in practice and in research, there is a strong dynamic and companies are continuously confronted with new challenges and are responsible for developing new solutions to these so-called societal grand challenges such as climate change, inequality and so on. Under the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, the course attempts to shed light on these very multi-layered and complex phenomena.

The course introduces different theoretical approaches with which the phenomenon of CSR and sustainability can be studied. After a brief introduction and overview, participants will take ownership of representative and influential studies in thematic blocks based on different theoretical approaches and will introduce them to the other participants in a group discussion led by them.

In particular, the focus will be to understand the underlying assumptions and premises and to analyze for
which kind of research problems a certain approach seems to be particularly suitable and how this
could make room for theory-informed contributions to research. Furthermore, exemplary contributions dealing with current debates in CSR and sustainability research will be discussed with the participants to gain an understanding of the research agenda for the future.

Each day, there will also be an interactive seminar on the publication process, interaction with practitioners, science communication, and career planning.

Participants will also be asked to prepare a poster of their current research to serve as a basis for discussion and inspiration during the course.

Date:

September 1-4, 2025
 

Location:

Leuphana University of Lüneburg,
Germany

Language:

English