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ALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

EABIS 11th ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM HOSTED BY IMD LAUSANNE, JULY 3-4, 2012

"STRATEGIC INNOVATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY"
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BOUT THE COLLOQUIUM

The EABIS Annual Colloquium is an international forum that brings together 250-300 senior figures from industry, academia, policy-making and civil society. Its perennial focus is to identify new business-relevant, interdisciplinary knowledge and learning priorities within the global debate on the changing role of business in society and its contribution to sustainable development. The 2012 Colloquium will be hosted by IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, on JULY 2-4, 2012. IMD is a founding partner of EABIS, and a world pioneer in providing executive education that combines practical experience, thought leadership and a global mindset to resolve real business issues, build capabilities and prepare for the future. Recently IMD launched its Global Center for Leadership and Sustainability and inaugurated a Chair in Leadership and Sustainability supported by the Sandoz Family Foundation. IMD's long-standing Corporate Sustainability Management (CSM) Platform is a corporate membership and multi-faculty driven research & learning initiative that is now linked to the new Center. CSM focuses on strategic innovation in sustainable sourcing, energy/climate change, and sustainable finance, as well as the formidable challenges of strategic embedding of sustainability in corporate organizations.

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ENTRAL THEME

This year, the central focus of the colloquium will be on strategic innovation for sustainability. The emphasis of the sessions will be on 1) whether, why and how sustainability can be a key driver for innovation, 2) identification of synergies between sustainability and innovation success, and of 3) product, process and systemic innovative solutions that leverage sustainability issues and turn them into opportunities for companies, thus contributing to competitive advantage and leadership. In the past two years, a sense of renewed urgency has entered the public debate around the sustainability of a range of economic, industrial and social systems, both at international and national levels. Turbulence and uncertainty have gravely affected financial markets, leading to a collective crisis of confidence that has already seen elected governments ousted from office. Recent demonstrations of public discontent have highlighted widespread anger about economic inequality and perceived failures of political and corporate leadership, as well as deep-rooted fears about social and economic exclusion. Equally serious concerns exist regarding the sustainability of the planet's ecosystem. The rapid industrialisation of emerging economies has placed unprecedented pressures on natural resources,
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and driven fossil fuel use to record levels. The past decade has witnessed disturbing upward trends in extreme weather events, desertification, volatility in food supply and commodity prices, and the disappearance of polar ice, among others. Increasingly, international bodies are promoting innovation as a vital means of mitigating such risks and generating solutions to the most pressing challenges of sustainable globalisation. The Rio+20 Earth Summit (June 2012) will convene world leaders from business, politics and civil society to debate the Green Economy (in the context of Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction). The European Union's "Horizon 2020" agenda seeks to harness innovation with greater R&D investment to deliver "smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" to its member states. The corporate world is also embracing innovation as a vehicle for sustainable enterprise in the 21 st Century. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development's recent "Vision 2050" report underlined the potential for market development and value creation for companies willing to invest in new technologies, products and services around such issues. IBM's "Smarter Planet" and Unilever's "Sustainable Living Plan" are leading examples of global firms putting sustainability at the very heart of business strategy and development. Over the last decade, therefore, the approach towards sustainable enterprise has transformed gradually from a focus on avoiding negative impacts through regulation towards a more anticipatory and forward-looking approach, characterized by innovation and risk management. One might understand this as a way to develop organisational resilience in the face of change. This transformation is partly due to increasing awareness that compliance to regulation is simply not an adequate approach to achieving sustainability. It is also partly due to a growing recognition that current production and consumption systems are themselves unsustainable, and that action to remedy this is needed far sooner rather than later to ensure that all actors in the systems continue to benefit from them.

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YPE OF CONTRIBUTIONS

The 2012 Annual Colloquium invites research, analysis, case studies and conceptual work from corporate, academic, policy and independent experts from around the world. Papers submitted must focus on topics related to the theme of the conference ­ Strategic innovation for sustainability: GLOBAL TRENDS ­ current and emerging macro issues influencing innovation for sustainability in the context of the global socio/politic/economic landscape, long-term futures and solutions; MARKETS & SYSTEMS ­ structures, financing, incentives, behaviours, changing the "rules of the game" and representing examples of strategic innovation for sustainability ; BUSINESS MODELS & PROCESSES ­ strategic innovation for sustainability in areas such as operational excellence, product leadership, customer intimacy, social innovation, entrepreneurship, creating, capturing and distributing value; STRATEGY ­corporate strategic innovations as a result of sustainability in outlook, scenarios, resilience, stewardship, process, resources, stakeholder involvement, networks; ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES ­ Corporate strategic innovation prompted by sustainbility in the areas of corporate culture, structures, processes, skills, technology, quality assurance, performance and impact assessment, intrapreneurship; CAPACITY BUILDING ­ Strategic innovation driven by sustainability in areas such as individual and organisational leadership, talent development cycle collaboration, and partnerships with other stakeholders (NGOs, governments, academia, etc) to advance joint action on sustainability issues and challenges.

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BMISSION

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UIDELINES

In line with EABIS' unique model, we strongly encourage JOINT PRESENTATIONS of collaborative work between companies and research institutions. Academic submissions will be evaluated for quality relative to standard academic criteria: original work that is theoretically and/or empirically well-grounded and potentially contributes new insight on the theory and practice of business and development. Contributions are invited from all relevant disciplines, including but not limited to: Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Finance, Technology Management, Operations Management, Political Economy, Futures Studies & Scenario Planning, Leadership & Organisational Development, Marketing and Engineering, as well as the Sustainability, Corporate Responsibility and Business Ethics fields. Schedule Deadline for submission of contributions: Invitations to presenters: Presenters confirm participation by: 30 MARCH 2012 27 APRIL 2012 18 MAY 2012

NOTE ­ A Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Corporate Governance: The International Journal for Business in Society will be launched at the Colloquium (with a provisonal deadline for full papers on 16 January 2013). Format & Guidelines From Academia ­ 1500 word max. written extended abstract From Business / Think Tanks / Other Stakeholders ­ 1000 word max. written extended abstract (or 500 words with supporting PowerPoint). Please also follow this formatting protocol: 1. Electronic submission only. Written abstracts have to be in Microsoft Word, RTF or PDF format. 2. Abstracts must include the following elements in this order: title, authors with institutional affiliations, keyword list, body, references, and endnotes (if any). 3. Abstracts should include a short author bios with email contact info. 4. All tables and figures must be on separate pages at the end, numbered and with captions. In the main text of the abstract, all tables and figures must be referred to, and all must have call-outs ([Figure 1 about here]). 5. If the lead author's name is Katherine Smith, the main filename given to the electronic version should be: katherine.smith.doc. 6. The text of all abstracts must be double spaced, even references. The only exception applies to tables, which do not require double spacing. All contributions will be reviewed by a multi-stakeholder committee. Those who submit successful proposals will then be invited to prepare a presentation for the Colloquium. For questions regarding the submission process, please send via e-mail to colloquium@eabis.org.

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ONTEXT

Building business cases for sustainability (beyond compliance) was the main focus of a new generation of "sustainability champions" within firms at the dawn of the new millennium. Building a
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broader global framework of related and relevant theoretical and applied research to support this was also firmly on the academic agenda during the same period. In the last few years, as a result of significant efforts and increasing momentum and urgency behind economic, social and environmental issues, many companies have developed strategies that address sustainability and are now experiencing the significant challenge of aligning their companies behind them within the current challenging economic system. In moving towards a more strategic contribution to sustainability agendas, and in creating the environment which enables and supports innovation, companies find themselves on a "journey of discovery and learning". The early stage entry point can often ­ but not always ­ be a risk-avoiding, reputation-protecting ­ thus primarily defensive ­ effort to go beyond compliance in addressing the firm's negative social and environmental impacts. At this point in the journey, companies will spend considerable effort on developing and putting in place the means to measure performance in order to manage, assess and set more ambitious operational targets. This is often - but again not always - in tandem with establishing an organizational functional responsibility for sustainability or a dedicated "CSR" unit. In other cases, a corporate strategic move is associated with a particularly high profile NGO attack or polluting accident; again, a defensive move to deal pragmatically with operational risk. At these early stages of their journey, companies mostly adopt an incremental trajectory, with a "business case" emphasis on accessing net cost decreases though incremental innovation related to operational risks and opportunities. Such companies anchor themselves to tangible, quantifiable, cost-driven sustainability action, such as lowering energy or water consumption. Companies on the next rung of the ladder move towards more holistic approaches that engage them in life cycle analysis, and fuller awareness of negative impacts or "externalities" up and down the supply chains of which they are part. They recognise that sustainability and responsibility have different meanings across the globe and they undertake new and more ambitious projects that address these issues collaboratively across sectors (government to civil society) and with business (suppliers and customers). The corporate board starts to take more of a leadership role. Embarking on these more holistic approaches opens the way to sector leaders considering sustainability as a relevant and important strategic driver for long-term success. More active engagement with corporate stakeholders, often leading to partnerships with NGOs and others, offers new ideas about the way the world is changing and the possible responses which can be considered. Investments become strategic and knowledge becomes more advanced, resulting in innovation in new forms of production, products and services that contribute to sustainability. As these ideas emerge, what makes business sense also evolves. In other words, the risk-based approach turns to opportunity assessment and strategic innovation. A fuller understanding of what makes business sense is therefore achieved by a network view, and increasingly where the end user is involved in the identification and development of opportunities. We see design thinking as a useful lens since designers have long been engaged in the pursuit of smarter systems based on a deep understanding of both the user and system constraints. There are a growing number of more established firms now beginning to join the very early pioneers which began to seek out business opportunities based on sustainable development that emerged in the 1990s. These are characterised by their commitment to explore sustainable development as a basis for more holistic and strategic approaches based on innovation and the more strategic assessment of risks and opportunities. The leveraging of these opportunities requires reassessment and revision of existing business models and processes. This goes far beyond technological innovation alone; rather, leading companies focus
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on promoting social, ecological and economic integration, often as a co-created practice alongside other actors such as NGOs and social enterprises. This is not without innovation since it engagement in all company strategies of value. its challenges: business model innovation is among the most complex forms of involves rethinking value propositions to all relevant actors and requires their elements of innovation and change. Yet when achieved, the robustness of is greatly increased, resulting in a broad, continuous and systematic generation

In essence, we look to exploit the benefits of two worlds colliding, and can perhaps follow a similar climb of the ladder as innovation, from narrow focus to holistic, uniquely champion-led to ownership by all, and from internal to across boundaries, in order to create the necessary culture that serves as the bedrock for true sustainability ­ that is both responsible and competitive. It requires the use of specific methods that bring dissimilar actors together in dialogue, often involving those previously ignored or excluded from such platforms. This requires new processes and platforms to facilitate shared ambitions and mutual articulation and learning. However, this combination of systems thinking and "soft" managerial skills is rarely found in executive education programmes. The global business school industry faces a major challenge ­ and opportunity ­ to respond to this capability gap. Moreover, business needs to understand ­ and business schools need to teach ­ not only the dynamics and strategic implications of integration across markets, but also the strategic implications of the integrative dynamics across geopolitics, politics, society, environment, technology, resources, etc. In other words, serious attention must be paid to both the horizontal and vertical forces. In respect to the horizontal, business school curricula should include some basics of "international relations" to understand why global governance is currently at a perilous standstill and how business can make constructive contributions to enhance relations between states in a manner commensurate with the integration of global markets. Beyond understanding, business can become a force for greater global responsibility through the promotion of much more robust and effective global governance. Companies that take a bold approach must analyse whether they have the organisational capabilities and managerial skills to deliver such strategies. Arguably, internal culture comes at the top of the list of priorities ­ a firm that does not promote intrapreneurship or seek to harness the creative potential of its workforce is likely to fail in embedding sustainability-driven innovation that involves new external partners. Similar analysis must then be done on the structure, processes, skills, knowledge, performance and quality measurement, technology systems and more to understand where progress drivers and barriers exist. For example, it has been argued for more than 10 years that sustainable development, properly understood, is the most open of open innovation systems. This type of thinking radically challenges conventions and assumptions about management as well as management education. As a result of these changes, an exciting paradigm is emerging; the leveraging of new products and services as catalysts for market development, sector transformation and industry standard setting. And in stark contrast to previously held views that regulation is contrary to a firm's interest, there is now a set of pioneering companies proactively lobbying for systems change and more sustainable economic policies and market parameters. The EABIS Annual Colloquium will address these new questions and challenges with an interdisciplinary approach (social sciences, economics, applied sciences & technology) . It will be a "market place" for knowledge exchange, setting a new agenda in business research and education, and opening the field of innovation to sustainability.

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