New PhD Fellow at cbsCSR

cbsCSR is happy to welcome new PhD Fellow Marie Mathiesen to the center. Marie is starting up a project titled: Strategic CSR and Innovation: Exploring Corporate Drivers for Social Innovation

This project takes its point of departure in an assumption that CSR and innovation are two key corporate competitive advantages of the future. From that starting point, the project sets out to explore why so few large firms are effective at social innovation. In recent years, many creative thinkers have outlined how CSR and innovation can come together to create profitable products that are also socially responsible. In praxis however, the socially responsible innovation does not seem to be happening at a very high rate; “the next industrial revolution” is not upon us yet. The project posits that the corporate characteristics (skills, structure, processes, organization) that generate successful innovation differ from those that prompt excellent CSR performance. Therefore if companies want to be both innovative and socially responsible they may face a dilemma of optimizing for two different mindsets and modes of operating. A central aim of the project is to learn more about how companies can navigate this tension and be successful at both CSR and innovation.

Marie has a BA from UC Berkeley and got her MA from University of Pennsylvania in literature in 2005. She is Danish but lived for 10 years in the US. She found that the work within literature was too narrow and too distanced from real life situations and problems. Marie also felt the urge too engage in more team based work so she took on an SRI internship in Oakland. After becoming familiar with the business and organizational fields she moved on to consultancy for The Trium Group in San Francisco. In May 2007 she moved with her husband to DK and started as a consultant for Deloitte Business Consulting in Copenhagen working in the Human Capital area. While on maternity leave she decided that she wanted to redirect her career towards investigating the social dimensions within the world of business. She applied for a CBS PhD fellowship in the fall and received funding for her project. Kai Hockerts is Marie’s advisor.

Marie’s main interests within the field of CSR are the difference between how CSR is applied in the US and the EU within regulation and government, as well as how strategic CSR is implemented at different levels within a company. Marie is located in office 0.119 at cbsCSR. For more information on her work, Marie can be contacted at mma.ikl@cbs.dk.