EABIS and Ashridge Business School today announced the public release of a pioneering 18-month long research project which profiles the range of knowledge, skills and attitudes that will increasingly underpin successful and responsible corporate leadership in the years to come. Titled Leadership Qualities and Management Competencies for Corporate Responsibility, the report was authored by Andrew Wilson, Director of Research and Development at Ashridge, and Prof. Dr. Gilbert Lenssen, President of EABIS.

It is the first of its kind to empirically examine these vital skills and attributes as they directly relate to the ability of business leaders to successfully manage the integration of corporate responsibility practice into the heart of business strategy and practice as well as successfully manage interfaces with stakeholders and society.

The research project was designed and delivered as a part of the EABIS Corporate Funded Research Programme, which is sponsored by its five founding corporate partners, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Shell and Unilever.

Two key conclusions emerge from the research:

• Leadership qualities around corporate responsibility issues, which are often values driven within companies, need to be translated into management skills for strategically managing society and stakeholder interfaces. Crucially, this requires new partnerships and dialogue between Human Resource and Corporate Responsibility departments in order to define explicit competency frameworks and HR policy, as well as made an integral part of core management training programmes.
• Leadership qualities and management competencies required by companies are highly contextual and relate to a company’s business challenges, its industry, history and crucially, the way it defines and narrates its rationale for engaging in corporate responsibility, whether that is for reputation risk management, business opportunities or desire to engage in public policy. In other words, no one size fits all.

The content and findings of the project are based on 108 in-depth questionnaire responses from human resource executives and corporate responsibility managers, followed by 24 interviews with senior executives in 11 of the world’s largest and most geographically diverse companies: BP International, Cargill, Dexia, ENI, IBM UK, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Shell, Solvay S.A., Suez and Unilever. This multi-level investigation of business behaviour and operational management allowed the research team to better understand the bridge between corporate responsibility practices in business strategy as they specifically relate to the firm’s human capital.

Download the press release or report