Earlier this spring, Peter Verhezen from University of Melbourne visited the School of Business to hold a seminar and give a guest lecture about CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility. Verhezen's visit was much appreciated, both by our students and researchers, since the School of Business always welcomes international visitors as well as visits which contribute to its international character. In an interview Peter Verhezen tells us a little more about his presentation and area of research.
Please tell us a little about your visit in Sweden, the presentation you held and the following discussion?
- Although I have been visiting a lot of countries and cities, it was the first time I visited Stockholm. I was pleasantly surprised about the beauty of the city and the friendliness of its residents.
- I gave a guest lecture to Professor Hans Ramö’s CSR class about “What is the meaning of CSR from an Asian and from an Australian perspective?”. Students were quite interested in my “strategic” perspective which was not completely in line with their more altruistic perspective of what CSR could stand for. I even explained them that business should be made fully responsible and accountable for the possible social impact of their business activities – which implies that a number of externalities caused by business should be internalized as much as possible. Ethical business practices should be seen as an investment and one should always do the right thing, always.
- I also presented some ideas about CSR to a group of senior students, researchers and professors. My main argument there was that social sciences could contribute to business and management studies by defining what business stands for. The finetuning of such a revised “definition” could affect the meaning of CSR which could be summarized as “Responsible Business” [behaviour]. Somehow, I believe that reputation could be the link between external social values and internal business objectives. Hans Ramo’s idea to link the Aristotelian concept of phroneisis and praxis – or ‘wisdom’ – to business activities is an interesting idea to be explored further which I believe is closely related to “long term corporate value under ecological and ethical constraints” and to be translated into the concept of “reputation” and risk. I argued that customers could have an impact on how businesses are run.
Please tell us a little about your area of research and your home university?
- I am a senior fellow at the University of Melbourne where I am teaching “Governance and international business” to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and an Associate at the Melbourne Business School where I teach executive classes on Risk and Governance. I have also just been appointed as Fellow for Governance and Asian Studies at the Ash Institute of the Harvard Kennedy School. My research is mainly focused around the concept of corporate governance in its strict legal interpretation that concerns remunerations, independent non-executive directors, accountability and transparency issues etc, as well as the broader interpretation of governance that sees a firm as a nexus of relationships which need to be managed as effectively as possible to secure long term corporate value. It is within this last realm that my focus is on “ethics and ecology in business”. Last year Peter Lang in Oxford published my book “Gifts, Corruption, Philanthropy. The ambiguity of gift practices in business”. My last paper “Giving voice in a culture of silence” – to be published in Journal of Business Ethics in June 2010 – relates to the importance of ethical values in business, across borders. I am also collaborating with some colleagues at the University of Melbourne on finetuning the concept of Reputation (and Risk) to be applied as a decision-process tool for companies.
- As a practitioner, I am focusing on implementing good governance “practices” (principles) in business. More and more I have been asked to review the Risk Management Practices in companies and how Core Values could create corporate value.
What do you think about being in Sweden?
- I really enjoyed being in Stockholm and would love to visit Sweden more extensively. It seems that the people are extremely friendly and forthcoming. I also was astonished by the “stylishness” of the Swedes, quite amazing. It would be great to spend some more time in Sweden or do some research at your well reputable Institute.
Anything else you want to add?
- I would like to back up Professor Hans Ramö’s idea of some international collaboration regarding Ethics and Business, by aligning some international centra in the world and picking up on some contemporary “hot issues” or themes regarding “Ethics and Ecology” in business. Maybe one could organize an international seminar or conference around such a theme that will result in some internationally recognized publication.
- Finally, I would like to thank Hans and the School of Business for their generous invitation to have me there. Hopefully, there will be another chance to elaborate and expand on this initial collaboration I really enjoyed. Hans and I have agreed that we will attempt to co-write a paper in the future on “wisdom in business”….