Ashridge Business School, EABIS and Microsoft are very happy to announce and congratulate the winner of the 2006 Ashridge Best European MBA Essay Award, Jason Darrow, a full-time MBA student at Ashridge and the first ever winner from the school since it created the Award eight years ago. The 2006 competition is also the first time that EABIS founding partner Microsoft has sponsored the award.

 
This year’s Award challenged European MBA students to submit thought-provoking essays on the responsibilities of business within the broader context of a knowledge economy. Darrow’s winning entry, entitled “How can I be expected to understand all this?” argues that given the new complexity of global business, business education needs to help future leaders and managers develop the skills to meet contemporary challenges such as geo-political movements and global resource sustainability.

 
The winning essay can be downloaded here

 
For further information on the Ashridge Award sponsored by Microsoft, please click here.

EABIS and the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program (Aspen BSP) are pleased to announce Professor Nigel Roome of Solvay Business School of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) as the winner of the 2006 Aspen Faculty Pioneer Award for Europe. Prof. Roome, who currently serves as the Daniel Janssen Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility at Solvay, has consistently generated an outstanding body of research, embodied excellence in leading curriculum development initiatives and shown a deep commitment to advancing corporate responsibility knowledge, learning and training.

 
The judging panel for the 2006 European award was comprised of a balance of senior academics from some of Europe’s top business schools and leading corporate responsibility practitioners from renowned multinational companies. Nominees were judged on having demonstrated excellence in one or more of the following ways:

• integrating of social, environmental and economic issues into business school and university courses, curriculum development and design in management education;
• demonstrating of leadership in business schools or university activities;
• making a positive and visible impact on business practice;
• showing cutting-edge scholarship within the context of social and environmental issues in business.

 
The 2006 Award attracted a record number of nominations from European institutions, reflecting the quality of teaching and research now being conducted on business in society issues. In what was a highly competitive selection process, the panel formally recognised three other EABIS members for their outstanding contributions to the development of corporate responsibility knowledge and learning in Europe: Prof. Antonio Argandona (IESE Business School), Prof. Ans Kolk (University of Amsterdam) and Prof. Wojciech Gasparski (Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management).

 
The awards were jointly presented at EABIS’ 5th Annual Colloquium in Milan by Gilbert Lenssen, EABIS President, and Judith Samuelson, Executive Director of the Aspen Business in Society Program.