Teaching Specialist, Assistant Professor of Leadership & Sustainability, Copenhagen Business School
Carlson International Programs
Room 2-210 CarlSMgmt
stra0438@umn.edu

While my primary appointment is with the Copenhagen Business School, I  appreciate the opportunity to continue my close relationship with the University of Minnesota through which I instruct courses related to sustainability & corporate social responsibility and strategic management.  At the Copenhagen Business School, I also instruct coursework in leadership.

I enjoy running courses at the bachelors, Masters, Ph.D., executive and professorial levels and have a particular interest in spanning between academia and industry.  From a research perspective I am drawn to the Engaged Scholarship approach.

In addition to my appointment as Assistant Professor of Leadership & Sustainability with the Copenhagen Business School, I am Director of the Nordic Centre for Sustainability based in Copenhagen.  Through this, I have aspirations to better connect U.S. researchers and practitioners to Scandinavia.  I feel a great deal of inspiration can be drawn from the cooperative approach that is more commonly found in a Scandinavian context to address our greatest social and environmental challenges.   Cooperation between business, government, and civil society is desperately needed where I see the ability to cross traditional boundaries and cooperatively address issues of poverty, disease, human rights abuses, worker safety, water shortages, resource depletion, environmental degradation, climate change and the vast suite of associated "wicked problems" as our great leadership challenge and opportunity.

When we are not in Scandinavia, my wife Sarah and I are happy to call Minneapolis our home.

Strand, R. 2013. The Chief Officer of Corporate Social Responsibility: a Study of Its Presence in Top Management Teams. Journal of Business Ethics. 112(4): 721–734.

Strand, R., & Freeman, R. E. (2012). The Scandinavian Cooperative Advantage: Theory and Practice of Stakeholder Engagement in Scandinavia. (pp. 51). Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, CBS. (CSR and Business in Society: CBS Working Paper Series; No. 01-2012).

Strand, R. (forthcoming). CSR and Leadership. In Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen (Ed.), Corporate Social Responsibility. London, UK: SAGE.

Strand, R. 2011. Toward Sustainable Sustainability Learning: Lessons from a U.S. MBA study abroad program to Scandinavia. Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability. 7(2): 41-63.

Strand, R. 2011. Exploring the Role of Leadership in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics. 8(4): 84-96.

Strand, R. 2011. A Plea to Business Schools: Tear Down Your Walls. In Mette Morsing & Alfons Saquet (Eds.), Business Schools and Their Contribution to Society. London, UK: SAGE. pp. 213-222.

Strand, R. 2010. Culture & CSR: Embracing the Scandinavian Approach to CSR (Kultur og CSR: Fordelene ved den skandinaviske tilgang til CSR). In Børsen Ledelseshåndbøger Corporate Social Responsibility. April. pp. 1-14. Copenhagen, Denmark: Børsen

Strand, R. 2009. Corporate Responsibility in Scandinavian Supply Chains. Journal of Business Ethics. 85: 179-185.

Strand, R. 2008. The Stakeholder Dashboard. Greener Management International: The Journal of Corporate Environmental Strategy and Practice. 54: 23-36.

Spring 2013

IBUS 3080 Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility in Costa Rica Sec. 030

Summer 2013

IBUS 6316 Sustainability & Cooperative Advantage in Scandinavia Sec. 001

I am working with Professor R. Edward Freeman of the University of Virginia (Darden) to further develop the concept of the "Scandinavian Cooperative Advantage." TITLE: Scandinavian Cooperative Advantage: Theory and Practice of Stakeholder Engagement in Scandinavia. AUTHORS: Robert Strand, Copenhagen Business School, and R. Edward Freeman, University of Virginia Darden School of Business. ABSTRACT: We clarify the historical roots of stakeholder theory to establish that a much larger role was played by Scandinavian thinkers in its development than is currently acknowledged. We offer a significant modification to the historical narrative presented in Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Freeman, 1984) as we show that important contributions to the stakeholder concept were being made in the early 1960s and thereafter by Eric Rhenman and his Scandinavian contemporaries in parallel to the contributions from the United States at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and thus are not a “historical trail” as they are currently labeled. These important Scandinavian contributions include the first publication and description of the expression ‘stakeholder’ in management literature accessible to scholars throughout the world, the introduction of the world’s first stakeholder map, and the development of three fundamental tenets of stakeholder theory: jointness of interests, cooperative strategic posture, and rejection of a narrowly economic view of the firm. We use this occasion to consider potential relationships between these early Scandinavian contributions with current practices of well-known Scandinavian companies through which we contend Scandinavia represents a promising context from which to draw inspiration regarding effective stakeholder engagement. We conclude by endorsing the expression “Scandinavian cooperative advantage” in an effort to encourage a shift in the field of strategic management from a focus on achieving a “competitive advantage” toward achieving a “cooperative advantage.” Cooperation between companies and their stakeholders is increasingly recognized as necessary for the social and environmental sustainability of world and the long-term profitability of companies where we contend inspiration for such cooperation can be prosperously drawn from Scandinavia.