ESADE professor Nicola Pless wins Aspen Institute's Faculty Pioneer Award

Dr. Pless is the first woman to win this international award in the main category of "Faculty Pioneer"

Dr. Nicola Pless, professor in the Department of Social Sciences at ESADE, has received the 2013 Faculty Pioneer Award from the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Programme. The award comes as recognition for her “demonstrated leadership and risk-taking in integrating complex business and society issues into her teaching".

This year’s selection criteria were designed with a very specific objective in mind: to identify and recognise faculty who are ensuring that their students examine critically the purpose of the corporation.

The award acknowledges Dr. Pless’s teaching methods in "Business and Society", a highly innovative course she developed. The course prompts students to reflect on the question of corporate responsibility in a global stakeholder society and the decisions made by managers to create economic and societal value.

First woman worldwide
Dr. Pless is the first European professor and the first woman to win this international award in the main category of "Faculty Pioneer". 

"It is an extreme honour to receive this award, which went in the past to colleagues at Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Darden, Kenan-Flagler and other renowned institutions," said Dr. Pless.

"Being the first woman and first European in this domain is an extreme privilege. I hope this award will mobilise talented female students to pursue an academic career – there are still too few – and encourage young scholars to continue the ambitious academic path, specifically those who work and teach at the demanding intersection of business and society."

For almost a decade, the Aspen Institute’s Faculty Pioneer Awards have recognised faculty at the vanguard of teaching and scholarship.

Called "the Oscars of the business school world" by the Financial Times, these awards are given to educators who demonstrate leadership and risk-taking in curriculum and scholarship and examine the relationships between firms and the public good.

Developing responsible global leaders
Based on an innovative responsible-leadership matrix developed by Dr. Pless, the “Business in Society" course encourages students to reflect on the purposes of business organisations, the responsibility of business in society and the decisions made by managers to create economic and societal value.

The topics covered in the course range from the socio-political role of multinational corporations and their role in fighting some of the world’s most pressing problems to the challenge of advancing human dignity in impoverished regions such as rural India.

The course is part of the ESADE Master of Science in International Management, which recently took first place worldwide for CSR and ethics in the Financial Times rankings.

“Ranking first worldwide in CSR and ethics is an extreme success," said Dr. Pless. "It mirrors the excellence of all professors teaching in this area and the emphasis that ESADE is placing on topics such as business in society, corporate social responsibility, sustainability and ethics. It also underscores the external importance associated with the ‘Business in Society’ core courses taught in ESADE’s Master of Management programmes."

About Nicola Pless
Dr. Nicola Pless is a professor in the Department of Social Sciences at ESADE Business School. She previously served as a full-time faculty member at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and held a senior research fellowship at INSEAD in France. She also is a former Vice President of International Leadership Development at Credit Suisse in Switzerland, and has worked at the World Bank Group in Washington, D.C.

She obtained her PhD from the University of St. Gallen, holds an executive degree in Clinical Organisational Psychology from INSEAD and was awarded an honorary chair in business ethics from the University of Antwerp in Belgium in 2011. She is a principal investigator in the Neuroscience of Leadership Project.

Dr. Pless has taught courses at the BSc, MSc, MBA and PhD levels and in executive programmes such as the ESADE–Georgetown Global Executive MBA and the Stanford–ESADE CSR programme. She is responsible for the “Business in Society" core courses in ESADE’s Master in International Management degree.

Her research occurs at the interface of organisational behaviour, international business and corporate responsibility. She is particularly interested in responsible global leadership, decision-making processes in multicultural teams, and the culture and character of multinational corporations.

She has published four books and has authored or co-authored numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Her research has received multiple awards, including the Global Leadership Advancement Center (GLAC) Best Article Award and the SAGE–Journal of Leadership and Organisational Studies Best Paper Award, which recognises the most significant contribution to the advancement of leadership and organisational studies. She also serves as a section editor of the Journal of Business Ethics and sits on the management board of the Academy of Business in Society.