IMPACT magazine - Issue 8 by Durham University Business School

T h e So c ie ty I ss u e / 8

Working remotely How can we manage the wellbeing of staff who work from home?

Why can people get Coca-Cola in places so remote they can’t get medicines?

#MeToo highlights a systemic issue in management, not just in film

How sustainability became a shared language in global boardrooms

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Welcome IMPACT / Issue 8

Making an impact on our society As the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed, we have focused even more of our collective attention and efforts towards this, looking for ways to make a positive impact.

elcome to our eighth issue of IMPACT magazine, which showcases the many ways in which the Business School has a positive impact on the society and world we all share. We take our responsibility to influence the development of a better, fairer world very seriously and as the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed, we have focused even more of our collective attention and efforts towards this, looking for ways to make a positive impact in such globally challenging times. This includes the research our faculty undertook on many facets of the crisis, how our fantastic students adapted to the ‘new normal’, and the response of our impressive alumni. Our close engagement with a wide variety of businesses proved very valuable, with collaboration in times of crisis being essential. One of the biggest changes to society has been the way we work, with many employees finding themselves working from home. From organisational and personal perspectives, this has proved challenging, and for some, it has posed questions of whether this could be a positive turn, paving the way for a new reality. These questions are not easily answered. For those lucky to have remained in employment, many have enjoyed the relative tranquillity of home working, avoiding the chaos, cost and stress of the daily commute. Others have struggled finding a way to work while caring for others. Many people, however, have found themselves without work; the lack of commuters starves communities of daily business, and we see the effects of large-scale redundancies in many industries, from hospitality, to retail, to construction, to tourism. Much of our research has tackled these issues. Dr Mariann Hardey opens the magazine with an article looking at how organisations can manage the wellbeing of a remote workforce. The pandemic has changed society, with many challenging the perception of who the key workers are. Dr Jo McBride explores how the UK employment rights of many key workers are precarious and ponders whether this will change. Professor Benedetta Cappellini looks at food

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banks in the UK and considers their normalisation through Covid-19 and the moral issues around this. This investigation reflects our School’s perspective on the centrality of including ethics, responsibility and sustainability in all we do. A great example of this is Professor Carol Adams’ report on her work contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Disclosure Recommendations that aim to create value for organisations and society. 2020 will be remembered for many things, for loss and disruption, but I hope that this year may allow societies to drive positive changes so we can build more equitable and sustainable futures for all. IMPACT, as always, includes contributions and updates from our current students and alumni. Cosima Stitzl shares her Masters experience of visiting Switzerland and Germany from home and alumnus Tom Shanks discusses how he led his family business’s response to Covid-19. You can also read about our Chinese alumni’s extraordinary and generous initiatives to help medical staff in Wuhan at the start of the pandemic. There is also School news, including Professor Basu’s prestigious Hind Rattan award and the establishment of the Wilson Institute. My final thought is with our graduating cohorts of 2020. We may have missed our celebrations in the Cathedral, but we have enjoyed celebrating your successes through virtual events and social media campaigns. I am sure you will join me in wishing our new graduates well in their careers, and I for one look forward to reading about their endeavours in the near future. I hope you will enjoy this issue of IMPACT. Stay safe, stay well.

Susan Hart Executive Dean of Durham University Business School

Contents The Society issue

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Credits

The IMPACT Team

Liz Lawrence Marketing Communications Manager Martin Thomas Senior Marketing Communications Officer Lindsay Webber Senior Marketing Relations Officer

Taking on society’s challenges Dr Sebastian Aparicio considers how businesses are helping to tackle Covid-19 and other social challenges

Natalie Taylor Communications Officer

Charlotte Wareing Marketing Officer

Paula Lane Marketing Officer Stephen Close Web and Digital Officer Deanne Dutton Conversion Relations Coordinator

Delivering medicine the Coca-Cola way Dr Paulo Savaget and colleagues from Cambridge have written a report on how to emulate Coca- Cola’s supply chain

Laura Kovic Marketing Administrator

Contribute Want to find out more or contribute to the next issue? Email us at business.marketing hub@durham.ac.uk

Thank you Thank you to all those that have worked on this issue including faculty, other School staff, students, alumni and business connections.

Learning from the UK’s riots Professor Kevin Morrell What the 2011 riots can teach us about today’s challenges

Why we’ve all got a sweet tooth PhD candidate Aarron Toal explains why interventions to tackle the UK’s obesity crisis must confront our hunter-gatherer ancestors

Contributors Professor Carol Adams Dr Sebastian Aparicio Dr Jeremy Aroles Professor Parantap Basu Professor Benedetta Cappellini Bente Chen Jo Coombes Professor Kiran Fernandes Dr Sara Gracey Dr Les Graham Dr Mariann Hardey Professor Susan Hart Xinwu He Beth Kempton Professor Mark Learmonth Samar Aad Makhoul Dr Jo McBride Alex McNich Dr Amir Michael Professor Geoff Moore Professor Kevin Morrell Chris Roberts Dr Paulo Savaget Dr Andrew Smith Tom Shanks Cosima Stitzl Dr Anna Tilba Aarron Toal Dr Chris Williams Iain Wright

Working towards the UN SDGs PhD candidate Xinwu He explains the inspirational approach of the Walgreens Boots Alliance

A new path through the woods? Graduate Beth Kempton says that a new route through the pandemic and beyond is open to us if we have the courage to follow it

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

Society

06 Managing the wellbeing of a remote workforce Are separate professional conditions continuing to prevail in the home?

33 Artificial Intelligence planned for NHS audits Investigating the challenges of digitising internal controls

Ethics and sustainability

10 The power of entrepreneurship Why entrepreneurs represent society’s intentions for change

36 Management’s hidden shame The #MeToo movement reveals systemic management issues

13 What will the future of work look like? Dr Jeremy Aroles takes a look at changing work patterns

40 Follow the butterfly Finding a new path through the Covid-19 crisis

16 Remote and resilient Resilience in small firms on the island of St Helena 17 Why does Coca-Cola reach places that medicines don’t? Learning lessons from the Coca-Cola supply chain 20 Coronavirus: learning from previous crises What the 2011 riots can teach us about today’s challenges 24 Who cares? Food banks and the poverty of morality Should we be worried about the growth of food banks? 26 Doughnuts, Darwin and desire Why the craving for junk food is in our DNA 29 Protecting the ‘forgotten’ workforce Why workers on precarious contracts need protection 30 Improving police wellbeing and inclusion through research How research from a period of austerity is helping officers

43 Can true societal impact be measured? Developing a system for measuring progress towards the UN SDGs 46 Sustainability in the boardroom UN Sustainable Development Goals are a shared language 50 Sustainability through transparency Creating value through UN SDG disclosure 53 Transparency matters Our progress towards UN education principles 54 Making stewardship count Aligning objectives across institutional investors

Engagement

56 Higher education in the era of Covid-19 How will education ultimately be altered by the pandemic?

58 How placement year students rose to the pandemic challenge The ‘new normal’ and what students have told us 62 Virtual study trips A student’s experience of Germany and Switzerland 63 Driving a changing strategy Helping the family business adapt to Covid-19 64 Profile: Iain Wright The former MP for Hartlepool talks about his online MBA 66 Alumni tell their stories The podcast bringing insight from alumni during Covid-19 67 Alumni power in a pandemic How our alumni provided equipment to Chinese hospitals

News and events

68 Professor receives ‘Jewel of India’ award Durham professor receives the prestigious Hind Rattan 69 Donation funds new business institute New Institute for Small Business planned 70 Our events A few of the events that have taken place at the School

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Managing the wellbeing of a remote workforce The new reality for many is working from home, writes Dr Mariann Hardey.

uring January to December 2019, 5.1% of the UK population mainly worked from home, compared with 4.3% in 2015, reported the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The sector with the highest proportion of home workers was information and communication, with 14% in 2019 who mainly worked at home, and more than half of workers having worked from home at some time. Those who occupied the most senior roles such as managers, directors and senior officers were most likely to work from home (10%), followed by those in associate professional and technical occupations (8%) and administration (6%), reported the ONS. Before Covid-19, we might have speculated that women would form the majority of the home

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

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workforce; however, according to the ONS, it was men (11%) who were more than twice as likely to work from home compared with women (5%). With home working now the ‘norm’ for many professionals, does this mean a radical shakeup concerning industry initiatives to support a more accessible and inclusive workforce? Or are separate professional conditions continuing to prevail in the home?

Impact on companies First reported in Forbes, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Slack, Microsoft and newly favoured Zoom have implemented new work regimes to allow employees to continue to work from home for the remainder of 2020. For those in the tech sector, remote working methods are more familiar than in other industries less confident or invested in software to support digital interactions. Prior to Covid-19, remote working practices within the tech sector could have been seen as innovations for other organisations and industries to adopt. However, today, we risk conflating ‘remote working’ with the present conditions of being forced to work from home, which is entirely different concerning support, accessibility and skills. My long-term research investigates the challenges of remote working within the tech sector and opportunities for companies to implement change for a more inclusive workforce. Part of what this sector, and others, is dealing with are the opportunities for workplace support. During interviews with workers, there is anger about the support that is mostly self-directed online learning to identify stress areas or take workers through basic meditation exercises. Speaking to civil service workers, similar methods have been introduced throughout lockdown. There is significant tension here between top-down ‘support’ and what is really needed on the ground. Some clearly identifiable themes have emerged from the recent work-from-home conditions.

Proper investment in staff training that is accessible to all workers One senior manager shared his experience of being the primary carer for his daughter. He was unable to attend online training when he lacked childcare support at home. Obstacles preventing event attendance is not new where caring roles are involved. A positive spin out of the pandemic is the opening up of previously locked down events, meetings and conferences. Through digital tech, I’ve been able to attend a virtual parliamentary civic briefing; participate in a conference previously out of my reach; benefit from cybersecurity online training; and vote in union elections. While it is frustrating, it has taken the restriction of workers to force this opening up, when it could have been championed and supported a long time ago. I hope that post-Covid-19, the same level of access will remain.

Agile professionals

“I continue to research need support the impact of remote We are spending a substantial working. Yet this is with proportion of our day in front a growing unease, of screens. Mental health ‘checkas I recognise and i n s ’ a n d we l l b e i n g tool s are share the same predominantly conducted through challenges the screen. While technology enables as those I immediate contact, it does not allow interview.” periods of rest unless the user puts these in place. Speaking to an HR director, she shared her technology fatigue. Where the company had invested in a staff wellbeing app, this meant more time in front of a screen sharing personal details about sleep patterns and sense of self-worth. Such investment attends to some of the needs of the workforce – if they are interested in sleep tracking. However, it does very little for supporting new work patterns, roles and fatigue.

Households are the new workforce Where organisations have a contract concerning duties and responsibilities of an individual,

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Remote working in numbers

5.1%

of the UK population mainly worked from home in 2019, compared with just 4.3% in 2015.

Some people may be working from home for the rest of 2020.

14%

Top-down support does not always match what’s really needed.

Those working in information and communications were most likely to work from home.

10%

Those in senior roles, such as managers, directors and senior officers were most likely to work from home.

Staff training must be easily accessible to home workers.

11%

Care must be taken to protect staff wellbeing and mental health.

Before Covid-19, 11% of men mainly worked at home, compared with just 5% of women.

this does not translate easily into households. Inevitably, different burdens of care and ways of working entrench the home. What is clear from recent media reports and speaking to individuals across sectors in the UK are the difficulties in finding routines, especially when there are caring responsibilities for loved ones within the home. A common experience is feeling overwhelmed by professional tasks and spiralling out of control from ways to sustain relationships in the home. My own experience echoes that of many: caring for my four-year-old daughter, working full time, contributing to and running a household without the time and space to perform properly in any of these areas, let alone download an app and record my sleep. The acknowledgement here is that while individuals are employed by an organisation, it is the household that configures how we can conduct our professional roles at home.

Different career enhancement One of the main challenges now is dealing with the ‘unknown’. One area of growing unease and concern is the new barriers to career progression. This is particularly the case where workers are being asked to prioritise new areas of work, such as the generation of online content, over and above all other tasks. And while online training can provide a great deal of information about ‘how things work’, it is very difficult for those tools to positively enhance different ways of working, especially if those duties are not formally recognised within career pathways and promotion criteria. The push to ‘get online’ takes time, new skills and requires the proper recognition of what the end product should look and feel like.

[not] Taking time off Simply put, stating that workers should use their annual leave won’t alone change the conditions of stress, fatigue and fear. In short, while the required ‘leave’ can be recorded on an Excel spreadsheet this does not reflect a period of rest for the individual. For others, it will not be possible to use their leave allowance. This is not about giving people ‘special treatment’, but acknowledging that the current conditions are difficult and in acknowledging this, understanding each other in terms of these being hard times for all. During the crisis, I continue to research the impact of remote working. Yet, this is with a growing unease, as I recognise and share the same challenges as those I interview. However, in deepening this narrative, we can underscore the sharp divide between work-from-home and remote working. To ease the burden on households and support new, innovative ways of working in the future, both require a plethora of change, investment and support. For more information on Dr Hardey’s research, visit durham.ac.uk/business/mariann-hardey

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The power of entrepreneurship Dr Sebastian Aparicio considers entrepreneurs as representatives of societal intentions to solve problems and evolve.

ne of the negative consequences of wars, crises and pandemics is the social degradation. People end up with destroyed assets, unemployed, in poverty and about to die. Plenty of examples exist worldwide, including both in developed and developing countries. The first group saw an economic debacle in 2008; taking about five years to even begin the recovery process. During this period of financial crisis, countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece had unemployment rates higher than 20%. The second group has been characterised by different problems, although one factor was common across these countries: violence. The massive exodus originated by terrorist attacks in Syria, political violence in Venezuela and a 50-year civil war in Colombia are just some examples of this. Despite differences between developed and developing countries, the entire world is currently living in an unprecedented situation, affecting everyone no matter their income, gender, race or religion. According to the World Health Organization, more than 15 million people have been infected with, and more than 600,000 people have died because of coronavirus (Covid-19) since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019 up to July 2020 (and we don’t know how long it will continue).

Tackling the pandemic Most countries have been looking for solutions in the face of the pandemic, but the virus spreads so quickly that lockdown has been the best option to stop exponential transmission. As a result, the global economy is close to a new period of economic crisis, which is going to raise unemployment and poverty levels again, among other social indicators. Some people are going to have the capacity to recover thanks to their own savings or government aid, for instance; but those who are highly vulnerable may fall into poverty. Unfortunately, not all countries are able to increase the public debt with international

Sign of the times: Entrepreneurs are helping to meet today’s challenges.

Certain cultures are supportive of entrepreneurs who are constantly looking for ideas and projects that are turned into real solutions for everybody.

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

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Society

Making a difference: Some entrepreneurs have begun making face masks.

financial organisations, which could mean that their capacity to face the current situation is very limited. If this is the case, then what else can be done? Society itself may be the answer to this puzzle. There are examples of how people not only help each other but also other species. For instance, the recent bushfires in Australia saw many people and animals lose their lives. During this time, many people put their lives at risk to help save those who were trapped and different organisations started aid mechanisms to support those in need of assistance. What we are currently living through might serve as another example; some countries, for instance, are mobilising different actors to create solutions that mitigate the consequences derived from Covid-19. China, where the pandemic started, has sent some scientists and doctors to other countries to spread the word about how to reduce the effects of the virus. In addition, China and other countries, such as Germany and the UK, have started working on a vaccine.

Entrepreneurial solutions Entrepreneurs and SMEs are also contributing to this. In Spain and Colombia (and it is likely to progress to other countries), some entrepreneurs have tackled the cleaning and health products shortage by producing artisanal or homemade products such as masks and gloves. Alongside universities, other entrepreneurs have worked on respiratory machines, which are badly needed in overcrowded hospitals.

It seems that our own social progress orientation is “Entrepreneurs have the remedy and solution to worked on respiratory solving some social problems machines, which and help those who are more are badly needed vulnerable. In a recent study in overcrowded published in Entrepreneurship hospitals.” Research Journal, David Audretsch (o f I n d i a n a U n i ve r s i t y ) , D a v i d Urbano (of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and I show how the existence of a social progress orientation leads people to contribute to society through entrepreneurial solutions. A cross-country analysis enabled us to understand that characteristics such as civic activism, voluntary spirit and the inclusion of minorities motivate entrepreneurs not only to increase national production, but also to reduce the poverty level. The discussion behind this evidence is that entrepreneurship turned out to be a mechanism of inclusive growth. That is, certain cultures are supportive of entrepreneurs, who are constantly looking for ideas and projects that are turned into real solutions for everybody, and that help excluded people to participate in the economic system. Entrepreneurs, therefore, represent the intentions societies have to solve problems and evolve. For more information on Dr Aparicio and his research interests, visit durham.ac.uk/business/ sebastian-aparicio

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Society

What will the future of work look like? Dr Jeremy Aroles, Assistant Professor in Organisation Studies at Durham University Business School, explores four key themes.

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cademics have been researching the so-called ‘new’ world of work for quite some time. In fact, research into new working practices has occupied an important place in both organisation studies and the sociology of work for over 30 years, with many scholars making predictions regarding what the future of work might look like and what this would mean both for organisations and employees. Together with colleagues from King’s Business School and University Paris-Dauphine, we reviewed this vast body of scholarship in order to map out the key themes that frame the literature. This led us to make a number of predictions regarding the future of work practices, which was published in the journal New Technology, Work and Employment. This review paper draws from prominent research into new work practices from the past 30 years. These new work practices refer to a wide range of work activities based on flexibility and diversification, from remote work to collaborative entrepreneurship and digital nomadism. We highlighted four key dimensions.

Working practices There are a number of practices and topics that fall into what we perceive as work, but what is key here is that the type of employment we see generally is changing. This includes increases in entrepreneurship and freelance work, which of course aren’t as traditional as the previous office-based roles commonly associated with professional life. It’s expected that we will see an increase in new and different modes of employment. This will come from rises in zero-hour contracts and other forms of unsecure employment; growth in popularity of online labour platform workforces; the development of crowd-based and collaborative forms of entrepreneurship; and the increased emergence of new spatial work arrangements such as co-working spaces. The likelihood is that a larger portion of typical employment will fall outside the normal realm of a ‘formal organisation’, and further blur the boundaries between work and private life.

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and gone are the days when you had to clock in and clock out at exactly the same time each day. This is largely due to changes in how and when people work, the increase in flexible working hours and changes in the type of employment organisations are seeking. In terms of the relationship between individuals and the organisation, there has been an increase in flexibility of employment, which includes both full-time and part-time workers in organisations, co-employment (employment mediated by a recruiting agency) and contract work (shortterm, project-based, hourly-paid). Hybrid forms of work, such as digital nomadism, are also continuing to rise.

Power and control Power relationships between those who are in management and employees are likely to endure in the new world of work. In fact, it is likely that management and organisations’ power will increase due to the precarity, lack of security and short-term orientation that lie at the heart of these new work configurations. This ‘new’ world of work would then simply repeat asymmetrical power relations and inequalities that characterise current work activities, exacerbating further disparities, inequalities and precarity in employment.

Impact of Covid-19

The workplace “Power relationships What we perceive as a workplace has between those who also drastically changed over time, and are in management continues to change. We’ve seen rises in and employees are those who work from home, especially likely to endure in in recent times, with many forced to do this new world of so because of Covid-19, and increases work.” in hot desking and shared offices with companies such as WeWork. Home and virtual offices are likely to be key components of the new world of work, with home workers and those who work from non-traditional workplaces (such as restaurants and coffee shops) becoming the norm, and those who work on the go, such as on their commute, increasing.

Individuals and organisations Standard nine to five, five days a week employment has drastically decreased in most workplaces,

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Globalisation, economic volatility and technological changes have acted as catalysts for a number of changes to the wider workplace in recent years. The impact of Covid-19 has called into question this globalisation, created further economic volatility, and forced millions of workers to work from home and further utilise technologies. It’s likely that Covid-19 won’t necessarily drastically change what is likely to be the new world of work, but simply further accelerate the transition into this new world of work. It is important to continue engaging with these four dimensions to understand the ways in which changes to the world of work occur at different levels – micro, meso and macro, but also social, economic or political – and unsettle work practices, their spaces and tempo, forms of collective action as well as power relations and dynamics. For more information on Dr Aroles and his research interests, please visit durham.ac.uk/ business/jeremy-aroles

Society

Remote and resilient Dr Chris Williams describes how a team from Durham is exploring resilience in small firms on the island of St Helena.

ur research team consisted of an all Durham University Business School line-up: Dr Chris Williams ( R e a d e r, M a n a g e m e n t a n d Marketing Department), Jacqueline You (final year PhD student) and Kirsty Joshua (MBA alumna 2015). We conducted a research project on the topic of resilience in small businesses on very remote islands with a focus on the situation facing the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic. The first output from this study is now published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism (reference below). Resilience concerns how people, and also organisations, are able to cope with adversity and disruptions. Considering this in the small business sector is interesting, especially on small remote islands where most of the private sector is comprised of small businesses and entrepreneurs. Resilience in such a setting is an important capability to have; many small businesses struggle and many fail but in the context of a small, remote island, this issue is even more profound. Problems of inaccessibility and economic size make it much harder for small businesses to draw on external resources in times of need. We utilised instrumental stakeholder theory to guide our work; the idea being that in such remote locations

firms have to work with others in order to cope, and there are many ways in which these interorganisational relationships form and add value. We used a novel ‘Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping’ technique which captured the mental models of a small sample of entrepreneurs on the island. This allowed us to identify aspects of stakeholder theory that did apply, such as the importance of having mutually beneficial interaction with partners, and nurturing relationships with partners that are valuable, as well as aspects that were less relevant. We also identified some aspects of government policy that were perceived as directly and indirectly undermining the resilience of small businesses on the island. The research is particularly interesting given recent plans to transform the island’s economy to be more sustainable and using tourism and the private sector to achieve this goal. We have fed the results of the work back to the economic development agencies on the island and I have received funding from Durham’s ESRC IAA panel to return to the island to discuss the findings with relevant stakeholders, including the chamber of commerce and small businesses.

Above: Jamestown, the capital of St Helena.

For more information on Dr Williams’ research interests, visit durham.ac.uk/business/chriswilliams

Williams, C., You, J. J., & Joshua, K. (2020). Smallbusiness resilience in a remote tourist destination: exploring close relationship capabilities on the island of St Helena. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28(7), 937-955.

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

These images have come from the non-profit organisation ColaLife

Society

Supply and demand: By emulating the supply chains for fast-moving consumer goods like Coca-Cola, our research is aiming to ensure that life-saving medicines can reach people in remote parts of the world.

Why does Coca-Cola reach places that medicines don’t? Lessons learned from products like Coca-Cola can help us get medicine to remote areas like sub-Saharan Africa, says Dr Paulo Savaget.

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Images courtesy of ColaLife

“Based on the experiences from ColaLife in Zambia, we’ve built a roadmap to promote access to medicines in impoverished regions.”

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oca-Cola seems to get everywhere in developing countries, yet life-saving medicines don’t.” It all started with this observation, which led to UK nonprofit ColaLife analysing how goods such as Coca-Cola get to remote areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). They then emulated the supply chain to improve access to treatment for diarrhoea – the second biggest infectious killer of under-fives in the region. That has increased uptake of this life-saving medicine in many districts of Zambia from less than 1% to more than 53%, in only a few years. A report I recently published with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, looks at how this can be expanded to provide access to healthcare products. We have drawn a stepwise roadmap to promote access to medicines in impoverished regions by emulating the value chains of widely available products, such as Coca-Cola, sugar and cooking oil – the so-called fast-moving consumer goods.

Right: Families in Africa benefiting from ColaLife’s work.

This research was carried out by Dr Paulo Savaget, alongside Dr Cassi Henderson and Professor Steve Evans from the University of Cambridge. More details can be viewed in the full report Emulating Value Chains of Consumer Goods to Save Lives: A Case Study of ColaLife’s Work in Zambia at businessofgovernment.org For more information on Dr Savaget and his research interests, visit durham.ac.uk/business/ paulo-savaget

7 ways to scale up access to life-saving medicines

1. Speed up expansion organically If the system becomes more resilient, expansion to other regions within the same country can likely happen organically; and this can be intentionally accelerated by value chain members, like pharmaceutical companies, governments, wholesalers and retailers. 2. Expand to other countries The report proposes the introduction of ‘catalysts’ – individuals or new/ existing organisations who can promote access to treatments elsewhere, based on the roadmap, portrayed in the report. 3. Self-sustaining legacy Scale is not only expanding, but also ensuring that the change is resilient. Agents have to be well connected, benefiting from the flow of healthcare products. Otherwise, the value chain can be severely compromised. 4. Experiment and adapt Learning from the experiences in Zambia can be very useful to

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scaling up, but context is key. Any intervention needs to adapt accordingly, experimenting to find out what is aspirational, what is feasible, and what should be prioritised in each context. 5. Promote access to other healthcare products There is a variety of other public health issues that could be addressed by a value chain resembling fastmoving consumer goods. These range from sexually transmitted infections and malaria to hygiene and sanitation. They each have their own implications for the design of the value chain and, of course, have their own value-pull – for example, something that addresses an acute condition may have a stronger pull for the end user than a preventative measure. 6. Engage stakeholders It’s important to include a range of stakeholders throughout the design process, especially when designing a device for resource-limited areas. Since the value chain is complex, and involves many stakeholders, the

process has to ensure their needs and expectations are met – otherwise, the value chain may collapse. 7. Be mindful of hurdles Delivery is tied up in regulatory challenges. Application of the framework to other public health products requires adaptation based on the complexity of a product and the regulations around it. For example, mixing a rehydration sachet with water is less complex than needing to take a finger prick of blood for a test, then having to interpret results. Anything which requires a level of technology beyond the skills of frontline retailers may be out of scope for this approach. Overall, our research report concludes that the ColaLife case study reveals key principles to allow its success to be replicated across regions and across medicines. It urges policymakers, governmental agencies, non-profits and other entities to use the value chain of fast-moving consumer goods, such as Coca-Cola, to provide life-saving medicines in regions persistently lacking access.

Society

Coronavirus: learning from previous crises

n 2011, by sheer chance, I started a project studying policing and public order just months before the August ‘riots’. In the face of the coronavirus crisis, I have been thinking about this research and whether there are any potential lessons. First, I’m briefly going to describe the context for that project. Second, I’m going to summarise the theoretical framework I’ve used to analyse the changes the riots brought about. Third, I will draw out some implications for how we might think about the current crisis.

Context The Covid-19 outbreak has presented some surprising similarities to the UK’s 2011 riots, writes Professor Kevin Morrell.

Following the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan in 2011, protests in Tottenham served as a flash point for widespread civil disorder and nationwide looting which collectively became known as ‘the riots’. Riots began in London but were quickly copied in other English cities: Birmingham,

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Manchester, Salford, Nottingham and elsewhere. The scale of rioting was unprecedented and part of how it spread was also entirely new: 2011 saw the first mass disorder facilitated by instant messaging technology, becoming known as the ‘BlackBerry riots’. One reason this national crisis has been on my mind is because I understood the riots as – albeit temporarily – changing something fundamental about the meaning of space for contemporary society. These riots forced us to revise and rethink the nature of public space, to question our way of life: was it at risk? Had we taken it for granted? And what things could the state control? The theoretical framework I used to understand these processes is a very general one that can also be used to understand unfolding events relating to Covid-19.

Theoretical framework I used a framework by a French geographer called Henri Lefebvre. It’s difficult to do justice to his work quickly, but his contribution can partly be summarised by the title of his most famous book, The Production of Space. What Lefebvre means by ‘spatial’ production is that space is not something ‘out there’ or a kind of container in which things happen, instead, it

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is made and remade by social practices: by the actions of institutions, organisations, citizens and the state. For instance, a football stadium is a totally different space if it is empty versus full, and it becomes transformed again if it is used as a temporary refuge during a crisis. Likewise, cathedral steps are very different spaces if instead of being occupied by worshippers, they are simply a site for tourists, and they shift again if used as a base by protesters. Sometimes, Lefebvre’s ideas are understood in terms of a triad: ‘representations’ of space (maps, plans, models, boundaries, laws); ‘spatial practices’ (the way we use different settings in daily life); and ‘representational’ space (the meaning people give to different settings and spatial practices such as whether something is seen as safe or dangerous, mundane, sacred or taboo). These three elements are interconnected. During the riots, we saw representations of space by the state – like the boundaries of estates and the laws governing exchange and trade – quickly changed by spatial practices like barricades, arson and looting. As these state representations of space were transformed by these spatial practices, the meanings given to these spaces changed. In some places, even if only temporarily, the riots caused profound shifts in what space meant – places we previously understood as ‘public’, safe and controlled by the state, instead temporarily became territories, possessed by certain groups. One vivid example of this was where a state representation of space – the boundary of the Pembury Estate in Hackney – was transformed by arson.

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Understanding the coronavirus crisis As it felt during the riots in 2011, it is difficult to comment on novel social phenomena while they are happening. Part of recalling that crazy time period is also reliving a sense of forced, surreal detachment from everyday understandings of what life in Britain and public space means. However, it does seem clear there are ways in which the coronavirus crisis can be understood in terms of spatial production. Already, we can see how representations of space – the boundaries to healthcare settings, workplaces and schools, and the laws that govern commercial and social activity – and our understandings of such space – have been changed by state, institutional, societal and organisational practices. These include social distancing policies, panic buying and quasi-rationing by supermarkets and, of course, working from home or what is effectively enforced unemployment by closure of shops, restaurants and many businesses. It also includes a very different, severe and alien assertion of territory – this time by a virus that has claimed these spaces and our air, not just nationally, but across the world. Unlike the riots – which were a very clear and flagrant symbol of just how much British society was divided, and where our politicians emphasised differences between the rioters and the rest of the public – with the virus we have a common enemy. A lot is being made of the need for a national effort and the signs are that many are rising to this challenge. Even so, it poses different risks to different parts of the public, perhaps resulting in different kinds of social fractures between the old and the young. It also requires much more of some members of our society; this includes NHS workers, but also a new frontline of workers who serve the public and have been demeaned and devalued, or at least taken for granted, until now.

Bravery and selflessness An unfortunate parallel with the riots is that in 2011, like now, many perhaps take it for granted that the emergency services will act to restore order and preserve life. For example, we expect without question that the police will respond to domestic incidents or that they will implement powers of quarantine which would come at huge personal risk. During the riots, there was perhaps a failure to acknowledge that virtues like bravery and selflessness are not automatic qualities the police or the emergency services have. Instead, bravery and selflessness always take shape in the everyday choices of individuals who then, as now, lacked the resources to confront an unknown threat and who, in some situations, could have turned away but instead routinely put themselves at risk of harm. One shocking, deeply unsettling spatial difference from the riots is that of scale. It is not only human activity remaking and colonising

space during a national crisis. “During the riots, there Instead, we have space being was perhaps a failure produced in response to to acknowledge that a virus that is simultaneously virtues like bravery omnipresent and invisible; and selflessness it is the first pandemic under are not automatic global capitalism. qualities the There could be positive changes police have.” in time – a renewed appreciation of the value of the home and the basic social unit that is the family, greater readiness to tackle climate change, and a rise in public-spiritedness – as the enormous surge in volunteers demonstrated. Alongside the massive economic fall-out, it will likely be a tipping point for many organisations that will realise just how much can be done remotely and which activities are really necessary to their business. In time, perhaps this will lead to greater trust in their employees as well as innovation. It may make the social costs of unemployment more visible and bring about changes in the way the unemployed are supported. Spatial practices associated with different o c c u p a t i o n s (c l e a n i n g o r wo r k i n g i n a supermarket) may become revalued once society understands who our real key workers are and whose work is vital, as well as whose (like some academics perhaps) is less so. Unfortunately, just as these challenges will remind us of things that can be opportunities, many vulnerable people (elderly, infirm or poor) may be forced into even more desperate circumstances and isolation.

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Left: Public spaces have been totally transformed by Covid-19.

Unimaginable policies In terms of relations between society and the government, the dramatic changes in economic policy and state support for many workers and industries were unimaginable before the pandemic. This kind of central planning is perhaps the closest to communism this country has come and yet these policies were devised and implemented by a Conservative government then welcomed by the Confederation of Business, Industry and unions alike. The vast sums being committed to by the government are a stark contrast with austerity and the chronic lack of investment in health and policing cannot be made up for in the timescale needed to combat the virus. As well as a lack of resources and infrastructure, we should not forget that many public servants were forced out of, or left their jobs in despair. A collective national effort means calling disproportionately on those who already give so much to our society and whose work has been undervalued for a decade or more. More widely than the UK, the nation state is a key actor in enforcing spatial boundaries in ways that have instantly bucked the trends underpinning decades of global capitalism. The key vector for global trade – the airline industry – is collapsing and in need of state support. The world seems less globalised by the day as variations in the course the virus takes are reported along national lines. In terms of our politics, the unity there will be in fighting the virus will give way as this crisis passes and ideological differences reassert themselves. This may lead to far-reaching

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recriminations in the wake of “Although the 2011 riots speculation about the merits seemed to be a grave of different levels of investment and unprecedented i n n a t i o n a l h e a l t h c a re ; f o r threat at the time, example, of how many intensive they now seem care beds the UK has in comparison a very distant to Germany. memory.” In terms of spatial production, the challenge societies face is twofold. First, there is a need to combat the virus and reclaim a common safe space – and doing so means quickly establishing new understandings of space among the public – where private liberty ends and which things are ‘necessary’ social activities, for instance wearing face masks. There is a second challenge, which is to work harder to discover our common humanity, remaking a collective, civic space that cherishes life and values activities that are meaningful because they are essentially human and not simply because they support production and consumption. Finally, it is worth recalling how, although the 2011 riots seemed to be a grave and unprecedented threat at the time, they now seem a very distant memory. This is at least partly because our understanding of what ‘normal’ public spaces are and should be is extremely resilient. Social distancing will not mean the death of intimacy or humanity, these things will be renewed and remade and it will take all of us to do this. For more information on Professor Morrell’s research interests, visit durham.ac.uk/business/ kevin-morrell

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Who cares? Food banks and the poverty of morality Professor Benedetta Cappellini, Professor in Marketing (Strategy), considers the normalisation of food banks during the global pandemic.

ne of the unexpected consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the normalisation of food banks, which, from being a contested third-sector response to austerity policies, are now part of government discourse on food safety for the community. While many applaud their existence on the moral stand that ‘something is better than nothing’, others find the proliferation of food banks something very bitter to swallow. I am in the latter group and with my work I criticise a form of neoliberal morality that is associated with a priori glorification of food banks as a third-sector or marketplace response to structural inequality and social injustice. I do not criticise the restless effort, goodwill or work (mostly done on a volunteering basis) of individuals involved in charities or community food providers; what I criticise is the process through which the government is delegating to the third sector strategies, plans and actions to tackle the socio-economic inequalities of accessing food. Such inequalities cannot be solved by a fragile food-aid system, which under the pandemic has become even more vulnerable.

Fragile food aid The fragility and heterogeneity of the food-aid system was evident in fieldwork that I conducted with colleagues before the pandemic. One of the striking outcomes of our study was the scarce accountability of the food-aid system: we do not really know how many people get access to food banks and what type of support they receive. The data, which are mainly provided by the larger food banks, are considered an underestimation of the number of food bank users and households experiencing food insecurity. As data are limited, we do not have a clear overview of how food providers support people in need. In our fieldwork conducted in the Midlands, we observed how organisations enact care very differently, even when they are located in the same city or neighbourhood.

In a forthcoming paper in Journal of Business Research, we provide an overview of the caring work that we observed in our fieldwork, having interviewed volunteers and managers of various organisations. We were inspired by feminist scholars who see ethics of care as a set of values and practices driven by feelings of responsibility for, and awareness of, how one can enhance and support the wellbeing of vulnerable others.

Elements of care In particular, we were inspired by Tronto, who identifies elements that are, at the same time, stages, but also dispositions. In applying some of these stages to our data, we framed our analysis around ‘caring about’, the first phase, which allowed us to understand how the problem of food poverty is framed by an organisation – the question here is ‘what is the nature of the problem we care about?’ The second phase, ‘caring for’, is largely about responsibility – who is responsible for addressing food poverty? The third phase, ‘care giving’, then determines how the practices of care are enacted. In short, and this is over simplifying, these phases guided us to understand the what, the who, and the how of caring. This allowed us to connect the values of an organisation (the what, and the who) to the caring practices (the how) of its members. We found that there is no universal way of framing and enacting care, and that differences

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are mainly due to what we have called ‘care orientation’ – the structural, contextual and cultural characteristics of an organisation, including its scope, set of beliefs, standards, ideas and ideals, which position its work of caring. We identified three orientations: market-oriented care, faithoriented care and neighbourhood-oriented care. Organisations enacting market-oriented care see wellbeing as a matter of individual empowerment in the marketplace. While they see the problem of food hunger as a structural problem of food availability, their values and practices are mainly focused on the individual, around the dimensions of food literacy and on food marketing. Thus, values and practices are orientated to teaching and skilling in relation to food nutrition and consumption practices (from acquisition to food preparation). These are orientated towards improving receivers’ cultural capital via practices in which there is a clear dyadic relationship between the care giver (who teaches) and the care receiver (who learns). This individualised and hierarchical care orientation appears to merely reproduce habitual value that remains rooted in (and serves to reproduce) the mundane.

Faith and food Organisations with faith-oriented care tend to frame their values and practices on wellbeing around the dimension of food socialisation. Here the focus is on a response to material and spiritual

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Limited data: We do not have clear data about how food bank users are being supported.

needs through care practices of listening, feeding and praying, delivered by the church community and guided by the values of spiritual nourishment. Such practices aim at developing receivers’ social capital, which is achieved by one-to-one or group activities in which food is seen simply as a tool for facilitating socialisation. Relationships emerging between service provider and receiver are a mixture of communal and hierarchical relations. Most care practices are provided on a one-to-one basis, which tend to replicate the hierarchical view of a care receiver who needs to be helped to fix her/his own problems. Organisations with neighbourhood-oriented care place the greatest emphasis on the values of commonality and community. Values and practices are oriented towards wellbeing understood around the dimension of food availability and food socialisation. Values and practices aim at redistributing food and building-up local, placebased, social capital for the entire community, including the carers. Hierarchical relationships are not so visible within these organisations in which receivers are not defined as individuals lacking skills or in need of spiritual support. Receivers are defined as vulnerable members of the community and are helped by carers who are recognised as being in a relatively ‘better’ position. This care orientation foregrounds the role of emotions through which the creation of a sense of self-worth is mutual. However, the data highlight that these organisations are very unstructured and precarious considering the limited numbers of volunteers, the scarcity of food they can gather and their unstable premises (one participant set up a food bank in their garage). Regardless of different care orientations, all organisations provide care that is more than parcels of food. Our concern is that such care around food is now at risk and the support provided is more precarious. The reduced operational capacity, due to the limited food supply that charities are able to gather and the reduced number of volunteers able to access the premises, has jeopardised independent and small food providers, some having reached a breaking point. That raises alarming concerns for those who really care. For more information on Professor Cappellini’s research interests, visit durham.ac.uk/business/ benedetta-cappellini Parsons, E; Kearney, T., Surman, E., Cappellini. B., Moffat, S., Harman, V and Scheurenbrand, K. (2020) ‘Who Really Cares? Introducing an ‘Ethics of Care’ to Debates on Transformative Value Cocreation’ Journal of Business Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.058

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Doughnuts, Darwin and desire PhD candidate Aarron Toal investigates the evolutionary psychology of junk food.

he UK government has recently introduced a ban on junk food advertising both online and on TV prior to the 9pm watershed. In-store, ‘buy one get one free’ deals on unhealthy foods are also banned, and there are restrictions on where foods high in fat, salt and sugar can be promoted, such as those chocolate bars or sweets you sneakily add to your shopping basket at the checkouts. Described as a ‘ticking time-bomb’ with an ever-expanding percentage of the population becoming overweight or obese, coupled with the complications of Covid-19, the health of the nation has never been taken so seriously. But where does the craving for a doughnut or juicy cheeseburger come from? How are fastfood brands able to so successfully make their tasty and high calorific foods so exceedingly irresistible? And what new perspectives must social marketers consider when designing such an intervention strategy?

Baked-in desire Evolutionary psychology offers an alternative approach to understanding and interpreting consumer behavioural phenomena. Generally, psychologists seek explanations by investigating the relative immediate triggers of a behaviour. These proximate explanations help establish a causality, leading to a description of how something works and what factors affect its workings in a particular setting. Those committed to flying the Darwinian flag are interested in those behaviours that transcend socio-cultural boundaries to provide explanations that address why, such as why has a behavioural trait come to exist in a particular form, by identifying the relative different evolutionary pressures that shaped it.

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The instinctual behavioural traits we possess today are not suited to our modern, resourceful, overabundant world, but instead evolved within a harsh environment inhabited by our huntergatherer ancestors that was fraught with danger and challenges, namely the scarcity of food. Viewed in this perspective, our innate cravings today for energy-rich foods make perfect sense as an evolved adaptive behavioural trait within the brain, albeit a maladaptive one. So the question ‘why did I just purchase a doughnut?’ can be answered from a proximate perspective (‘I bought a doughnut because I was hungry’), but the ultimate cause which takes into account the adaptive nature of the behaviour would say ‘I bought a doughnut because of an evolutionary desire shared with our ancestors who craved sugary and fatty foods in an environment that was scarce of both to ensure the continued survival of the individual and the species’.

For the love of junk food A whopping 60% of all food advertisements shown between 6pm and 9pm are of the junk kind. Watching food adverts increases the potential for faster, more impulsive food decisions, making the marketing message even more persuasive. Most of these ads don’t even contain any new information but are designed to remind us to impulsively reach for that burger the next time we’re hungry. This impulsivity can be explained through the ultimate cause of the behaviour. The one thing that fastfood brands provide is fatty foods fast, and the reason they’re so successful? They appeal to our evolved food preferences for high calorific foods from a time of scarcity. So will removing all temptation from screens and shelves have the desired effect of reconditioning our innate desires, reducing the waistline

Above: We crave fattening doughnuts because our ancestors needed high calorific foods.

and getting us healthy? Well, viewed from an evolutionary perspective, perhaps not. Social messages, from a policy perspective, often attempt to explain consumer irrationality as a result of possessing incomplete or incorrect information. However, it is rarely enough to consider the mind as a blank slate, where irrationality is explained through the incomplete possession of information, or where all available information processed takes the form of only what has been learned or experienced. Instead, a more biological explanation would assume that the mind is born with instincts and ideas. Any social marketing message that does not take into account the biological roots of consumption is likely to lead to suboptimal results.

Evolving a sweet tooth For example, the often-associated belief is that exposure to fast-food advertisements causes obesity, so therefore regulations on advertising content will address this behaviour. However, from an evolutionary perspective, this may not be the case. While addressing a proximate causality, this approach does not consider the biological (or ultimate causes) of the behaviour, being the evolutionary desire for sugary or fatty foods that existed long before the marvel of advertising. Policymakers have the arduous responsibility of implementing intervention strategies to protect citizens’ wellbeing, but this cannot be fully achieved if the unconscious biases shaped from biology are disregarded. Ultimately, possessing a deeper understanding of consumer desires and ways to influence them requires acknowledging their Darwinian roots of how they came to be. For more information on research degrees, visit durham.ac.uk/business/phd

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Protecting the ‘forgotten’ workforce Workers on precarious contracts need protection, say Dr Jo McBride, Associate Professor of Industrial Relations, Work and Employment at Durham University Business School and Dr Andrew Smith, Reader in HR Management and Employment Relations at Bradford University.

he Covid-19 crisis is a worrying and uncertain time for all of us, but those in precarious employment, including zero-hours contracts (ZHCs), have had a much more worrying and uncertain time than most. ZHCs mean that employers are not obliged to provide any minimum working hours while workers do not have to provide certain working hours either. They’ve become a prominent and permanent feature of the labour market and it is estimated that approximately 974,000 workers (including at least 30,000 NHS workers) in the UK are currently employed on ZHCs in their main job. Our previous research was the first UK study to focus on these low-paid workers in multiple jobs – which we termed as ‘The Forgotten Workers’. Many have high levels of education and are still employed on ZHCs or highly variable short-hours contracts, where they experience low wages, insufficient working hours and the proliferation of insecure employment. And many are in the care sector, retail and cleaning – employees who are now deemed to be ‘key workers’. Workers we interviewed on ZHCs could work from 0 up to 60 hours per week. Similarly, those employed in the retail sector could work from as few as four, six, eight or 10 hours per week up to 40+ hours. Many felt pressured into accepting any hours offered, as they feared that turning down shifts would mean that they would not be offered any more work. Many struggled financially due to irregular hours and spoke of “panicking” and “scrambling” to acquire sufficient hours.

Re-evaluating job precarity The Covid-19 crisis raises fundamental questions over what has become the normalisation of precarious work, particularly around ZHCs and variable working hours. Indeed, the ‘Clap for Carers’ campaign demonstrated a mutual social perception of the value of this work. Moreover, all of the workers we interviewed wanted employment stability and security, with better pay and good terms and conditions of employment. Many sought standard employment of “one decent full-time job” with stable hours. Control over working time was a key issue in order to have guaranteed working hours and flexibility to spend quality time with family and friends. Employment security and income stability would mean that these key workers would not have to constantly worry about incomes, working hours and being able to pay bills. They all wanted

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Zero-hours: workers are struggling financially because of irregular hours.

ZHCs to be banned and were s u p p o r t i ve o f t ra d e u n i o n “Many of these workers campaigns to re-regulate the have been recognised employment relationship. as key workers, With the easing of lockdown, keeping the country and the retail and hospitality going during this industries slowly opening back up, national crisis.” many are returning to work as soon as possible to ensure they attain further work, hours and earnings. This is not only potentially putting their health at risk, but is reinforcing the acceptance of insecure work that can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers. Heightened asymmetries of power in the employment relationship mean that these individuals will be less likely to protect their basic employment rights.

Mass dismissals Within a week of lockdown easing, we heard stories of mass dismissals without notice, workers only paid for partial hours and workers not being paid at all as they are not classed as ‘employees’. In fact, on 16 June it was announced that over 600,000 people had lost their jobs during the pandemic, with many of these likely to be on precarious job contracts. Low-paid and insecure work has been a growing problem that has affected the wellbeing of the UK workforce as well as economic growth. More details on the negative effects they have on these workers will continue to be revealed. Many of these workers have been recognised as being ‘key workers’, keeping the country going during this period of national crisis. It is more urgent than ever to ensure they remain recognised and valued. For more information on Dr McBride’s research, visit dur.ac.uk/business/jo-mcbride

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Improving police wellbeing and inclusion through research Dr Les Graham and Dr Sara Gracey of Durham’s Policing Research Unit reveal how a study of UK policing during a period of austerity is helping to improve police wellbeing.

police force is a unique agency in that it is granted exceptional powers and plays an important role in society. Over the past nine years, police forces across the UK have faced large reductions in funding which has resulted in them having to reduce their number of employees and undertake significant restructuring. Moreover, deep cuts in other social agencies’ funding have resulted in policing, the service of last resort, facing increased demand and ever-growing complexity. These difficult circumstances, of having to do more with less, led to growing concerns for the wellbeing of police officers and staff. In response to these challenges, Dr Les Graham and co-investigators Dr Sara Gracey, Marisa Plater and Natalie Brown, from the Policing Research Unit at Durham University Business School, have conducted extensive collaborative research with UK police forces. Over the past six years, the policing research project has expanded rapidly from impacting on a single police force, that of Durham Constabulary, to involve all of the 43 Home Office police forces within England and Wales, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police. The research will also shortly be expanded to include Police Scotland.

Body of evidence The research investigated how public service motivation, organisational fairness, human resource management practices and leadership impact on police officer and staff wellbeing and their service performance. Working with force executive teams, senior leaders and staff representatives to discuss the research evidence and implications of the findings, effective interventions and changes

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Above: The lamp outside Durham’s police station continues to burn brightly despite the pressures faced by the service.

to working practices and policies have been developed. The focus has been to build a shared body of evidence, based on rigorous research, which can be used effectively to inform both local police force decision-making and national policing policy. The underpinning research is recognised as having had a significant and extensive impact on working practices, procedures and policies within forces to achieve improvements in police officer and staff wellbeing and service behaviour. This has not only benefited the police officers and staff employed (approximately 215,800

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individuals), but also the communities they serve. On 23 May 2018, the then Home Secretary announced the need for police reform and that a review of policing would be conducted to improve wellbeing, efficiency and productivity of policing on a national scale. In acknowledgement of the impact of the policing research project, the Rt Hon Nick Hurd MP, then Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service, appointed Dr Les Graham to the Front Line Review Steering Group. The research findings from the research project were used to inform the direction for the review and had a direct influence on the recommendations in the Home Office Front Line Review of Policing Policy report (July 2019). More recently, working with the National Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS) Dr Les Graham and co-investigators have launched a three-year national research project. The National Wellbeing, Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Survey for Policing is the first project of its kind in UK policing, drawing together many stakeholders to design and deliver research to address a variety of important topics for the lived experience of the workforce in all of the 43 Home Office police forces. With a dual focus, this research will provide evidence and insights to assist police leaders in their ability to improve the wellbeing of the policing workforce and in the development of inclusive and culturally sensitive attitudes in their work units.

Above: Researchers and police personnel involved in the national policing research project.

Deeper understanding The quality, importance and impact of this research in contributing to the achievement of a step change in context and conditions for the policing workforce are recognised by the Home Office, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing. As stated by Dr Ian Hesketh, the College of Policing’s National Lead for Wellbeing: “The key aspects researched by Durham University have undoubtedly deepened our understanding of the challenges policing has faced regarding maintaining the wellbeing of the policing workforce in a period of deep austerity. “Further, the future challenges policing faces post Covid-19 will be unprecedented. An evidencebased understanding of our people will be critical as we navigate these difficult times. This threeyear research project will provide an extremely important contribution to this goal.” The excellence of the policing research project was formally recognised in July 2019 by the award to each member of the Policing Research Unit of Chief Constable’s Commendations by the Chief Constable Jo Farrell of Durham Constabulary. To read more about the International Centre for Leadership and Followership, visit their webpage: dur.ac.uk/business/clf

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Artificial Intelligence planned for NHS audits Dr Amir Michael considers the challenges of plans to digitise the National Health Service’s (NHS) Internal Control Systems.

HS England and NHS Improvement formed the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) to encourage innovations development and care transformation in the health service. The project involves the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to improve transparency, safety and privacy in an ethical manner, not just regarding efficient health care, but also better identification of resource requirements and improved allocation of funds according to robust internal control and accountability systems, leading to an efficient and sustainable service. Audit procedures traditionally rely on samples and it is still not clear what the implications on the audit procedures will be when using full population continuous audit with AI. Audit normally relies on internal audit function and control systems when performing a conventional audit engagement. Will continuous audit using AI require changes to the internal audit function and internal control procedures to be able to adapt? It is not clear yet what the implications of continuous audit using AI will be on the audit time and budget. Continuous audit is a live real-time audit process, using Apple’s iCloud computer service, which raises issues about the different precautions needed to face any cyber-attacks.

New systems The NHS in the UK has piloted two new internal audit systems. The first is Monitor’s Costing Transformation Programme (MCTP) and the other is Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS). There is a full survey for which hospitals have applied these systems and the level of application. These internal monitoring systems are generating massive sets of data about each service provided for each hospital and the variance from the expected costing systems with and without costing adjustments. It is crucial to identify the impact of the different levels of application of these systems on the cost variance for each service. Assessment

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of internal control systems and how these systems can be improved is vital to ensure that they will fit the adaptation of continuous audit using AI and data analytics. This can be done using some advanced AI and data analytics technological tools. This assessment should provide the NHS with a robust analysis of the challenges of adopting continuous audit and how to address the different issues associated with its application. The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) in 2016 and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in 2017 called for a review into the use of data analytics by auditors to share good practice and continuous improvement of audit quality. I am expecting that using data analytics for voluntary and unregulated disclosures will not just improve audit quality, but will go further by expanding the scope of audit beyond statutory audit of financial statements to meet stakeholders’ needs and expectations. IAASB (2016) recommended that auditors need to capture better evidence to acquire broader and deeper understanding of the entity’s environment, risk and business operations. I believe that auditors need to get clear insights using unregulated disclosures to have better understanding of business sustainability.

National Health Service Quality Assurance Model

Total cost

Sense check

Benchmarking

Data quality

Total activity

to adapt with a new AI-led audit profession and the utilisation of a Robotic Process Automation (RPA)? There is a suggestion to develop International Accounting Education Standards (IAES) to fulfil the skills gap.

Challenges ahead

Being misled

There are some regulatory and legal challenges represented by the mandatory requirement to comply with the International Standards of Auditing (ISA), which are principle-based and do not reflect the new technology age and the utilisation of AI and data analytics in performing audit practices. Therefore, the challenge is how to adapt such technologies in alignment with the current standards, without asking for radical standards reform. This raises issues concerning different interpretations of the ISA in the light of AI applications. One example, particularly relevant to the NHS, is how clients’ live operational systems data is accessed, acquired, protected and processed to perform continuous audit analytics in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation. This will raise issues with regards to ethical aspects of the data processed without human judgement and whether it is accepted to be ‘considered’ in this process or not. More broadly, there is an intellectual capital challenge which raises the question of whether we have the qualified and trained workforce to deal with AI-based continuous audit. Can we find the resources and investment required to re-train and re-skill the new generation of auditors

Stakeholders’ expectations being misled is another challenge, as there will be an impression that there will be 100% testing by applying continuous audit using AI and data analytics. There is also an emerging challenge in dealing with unstructured big non-financial data, such as videos, pictures, and text, and how to integrate this data with the traditional financial structured data. And when it comes to an audit rotation, how will auditors share different analytics tools among themselves, whether developed internally or by a third party? With regards to audit risk, it is not clear how AI and data analytics are used in the risk assessment phase of audit engagements or how they will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of audit quality. There is always a question about

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the veracity and quality of data being processed through AI to perform continuous audit and how this affects the overall audit quality. However, the benefits of resolving the challenges and integrating digital internal control systems in health services, especially in such an established and complex service as the NHS, will not just serve external transparency and credibility of information, but will have a significant impact on the internal decision-making and control for the service’s spending. Using algorithmic patterns to predict overspending and visualise these patterns in the form of dashboards, can ensure that financial decisions are well informed by sufficient and reliable real-time information on a continuous frequency. For more information on Dr Michael’s research interests and work, visit durham.ac.uk/business/ amir-michael

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Ethics and sustainability

The issues at stake are likely to have systemic roots within wider culture that could go to the heart of the management role as conventionally practised.

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Management’s hidden shame Professor Mark Learmonth explains why the #MeToo movement highlights systemic issues in management, not just the film industry.

n October 2018, the New York Times published a list of 201 powerful men, and three women, who lost jobs, awards, contracts or reputations in the United States because of the #MeToo movement. Many of the perpetrators had been senior business people, and most faced multiple accusations. Today, this figure has risen to over 400. It seems that women are now starting to out their bosses as sexual abusers, and are being believed, with a frequency that was almost unimaginable even a few years ago. Until recently, most women who were subjected to their bosses’ sexual misconduct kept quiet about it. Understandably so, because those who publicly accused their managers often faced blame or disbelief, even from friends and family; and if anyone left their job as a result of an accusation it was much more likely to be the accuser than the perpetrator. Accusers who did leave often left

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Ethics and sustainability

The current debate centres on Harvey Weinstein, who was sentenced to 23 years in jail for a series of sexual assaults (including rape) committed at work.

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with legally binding non-disclosure agreements designed to intimidate them and keep their mouths firmly shut. Recent revelations suggest that, while there is a long way to go, we could be at the beginning of a revolution in attitudes towards sexual misconduct at work. The current debate centres on Harvey Weinstein, who was sentenced to 23 years in jail for a series of sexual assaults (including rape) committed at work. Being a multi-award-winning film producer, Weinstein is typically portrayed as a Hollywood mogul. However, with his brother Bob, he co-owned and ran two major companies (Miramax and then the Weinstein Company).

Abuse of power In many ways, therefore, Weinstein’s jobs were little different from any senior executive. While some of the survivors/victims were world-famous film stars (had they not been, the media storm would have been much less intense), many others were ordinary company employees. It was a relatively junior member of staff at Miramax, Laura Madden, who was one of the first to agree to go on record with allegations against him. So, the ramifications of the case go well beyond the film industry, with major implications for all involved in organisations. One of the wider issues raised is the nature of the brute corporate power that can be wielded over wider society. The Weinstein case provides a particularly compelling example of how all-encompassing – and how hard and uncompromisingly ruthless – the power of big corporations can be; particularly when they are fighting to maintain their survival. It seems that effective cover-ups are still possible, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of major criminal misconduct. The Weinstein case shows some of the mechanisms available to powerful executives – the very long strings they can pull and the influential people whose favours they can call in – to protect themselves from media scrutiny. In fact, some of the investigative journalists at the forefront of exposing him clearly faced considerable professional risks in doing so. And not just professional risks either. For example, Ronan Farrow, one of the reporters to first break the news about Weinstein, tells of the alliances that seemed to form between the people he was reporting on and his bosses at NBC; bosses who, at least ostensibly, were supposed to be supporting him. It is clear too that a large corporate conspiracy was involved in covering everything up. Many people in Weinstein’s company knew there were serious issues well before they broke in the media, but failed to do anything about it. Sometimes this was because they were deliberately complicit. But often it seems that other factors were at play. Perhaps some were only really interested in the financial performance of the company and were blinkered by that focus – or perhaps others simply

Issue 8 / 2020

Above: Protesters have taken to the streets to fight sexual harassment in the workplace.

assumed that sexual exploitation of junior staff by top executives was something that was, well, so commonplace everywhere that it must be OK.

Influence of sexuality The Weinstein case raises questions about what we really know – and (perhaps more importantly) what we may well still not know – about many of the darker aspects of corporate life. And I hope it will provide a new impetus to management academics to study more rigorously and more deeply the influence of sexuality in organisational life. It seems dangerous to assume that sexual violence at work will disappear if the current perpetrators are removed. The issues at stake are likely to have systemic roots within wider culture, roots that could well go to the very heart of the management role as conventionally understood and practised. After all, there is likely to be a strong link between men’s violence against women and men’s (often) socially sanctioned desire to maintain power over them. We still live in a world in which most corporations are overwhelmingly dominated by men in senior positions. While it is clearly important to stop individual sexual predators, it will probably be an endless battle – unless we start to tackle the wider structural issues of gender disparity more effectively. For more information on Professor Learmonth’s research interests and work, visit durham.ac.uk/ business/mark-learmonth

Ethics and sustainability

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

Follow the butterfly Covid-19 offers us the chance to forge a new path, writes BA Japanese and Management Studies alumna Beth Kempton.

wrote a book during the first few weeks of lockdown. I hadn’t planned to, but I’m a writer, and writing books is the way I respond to things that keep tugging at my sleeve. One day in April, after many hours at my desk working on We are in this together – a book about finding hope in times of crisis – I went for a walk in a conservation area near my home. I have been there many times and have a favourite route, which takes me over a bridge and past a pond, where I like to watch for ducks and water boatmen. That particular afternoon, for the first time, I noticed a narrow turnoff leading to a small wood. Beyond a short corridor of green the path forked into three. Just at the point where it diverged was a fallen tree, split vertically, perhaps by lightning, into three perfectly equal parts. Each of the three shards of the trunk had fallen so precisely that one-third lay directly across each of the three forks of the path. Every visible route forward was blocked. The vibrant young leaves clinging to the branches told me this was a recent, sudden event, although we hadn’t had a storm in weeks. As I was pondering the mystery of this, a butterfly flitted past and pulled my gaze to the right. There was no path there, only long grass leading round the back of the copse but it was passable.

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Above: Beth teaches and writes about doing what you love.

Changing course I studied the scene, moved by how this felt like some kind of living metaphor for what was going on in the world right then, and how we were – and still are – being called to accept that the tree has fallen and the path we know is blocked in every direction. Yet there is a way round and beyond if only we are prepared to change course and follow the butterfly. There are so many stories in myth of going into the forest, and there is something distinctly mythical about what has unfolded in the wake of the pandemic this year. The point is not to clear the felled tree and patch up the damaged pathways. It’s to forge a new path. The time to start pondering what lies beyond is not when we get there, but now, as we step into the long grass. Because the sooner we start influencing that trajectory with our own actions, the sooner and further the trajectory shifts. One day we’ll look back on the time the pandemic hit. We’ll remember where we were when we first took it seriously. We’ll remember who we were living with, and who we were separated from. We’ll remember the moments of simple joy and the moments of heart-wrenching sorrow. The kindnesses, the little things that really mattered, the sense of being awash with not knowing, and how sometimes that buoyed us because we didn’t need to have all the answers anymore.

Ethics and sustainability

Images: Holly Bobbins Photography

Right: Beth .Kempton sees lessons in nature for our response to the Covid-19 crisis.

And we’ll remember the anticipation of gathering, and what it felt like when we got there – hugging again, sharing stories face to face again, seeing our children revel in play dates again, crying and sighing and being together again. And then we’ll stand back and see what has been shattered, and what can be rebuilt, what needs to be grieved, and what can rise anew.

Waking up Before all this, many of us were sleepwalking through our days. Now we have rested and opened our eyes. We have a new empathy for each other. As a result of all that has happened, there remain few people who don’t know what it means to feel isolated, vulnerable, anxious, at risk, all at sea. This was too big to ignore, and we cannot unsee what we have seen. We have woken up to other people’s pain and felt our compassion for each other. May we stay awake to that. I wonder, when this is over, will we continue to applaud the frontline workers when it’s time for their next pay review? Or recall the loaf a neighbour left on our doorstep when we’re annoyed about their bins? Or picture those satellite photos of clear skies over China when we’re one click away from yet another pair of trainers? Will we remember how nervous we felt when we heard the borders were closing, knowing that much of our food and medicine comes from far away? Will we recall how it wasn’t the celebrities who got food to our table? How we felt called to protect our elders, and how much they taught us about cheerfulness and resilience when times got tough? Will we remember how we figured things out, kept our humour, taught our children, entertained ourselves, and took such good care of each other? Will we give ourselves credit for staying at home

even when our four walls were driving us crazy, because we knew it was the right thing to do? Will we remember the way our politicians cared about us, or didn’t, the next time we vote? And will we carry the stillness with us, so that we can return anytime? I don’t know, but I know what I hope. We are alive. We are here. We are blessed to be on Earth at this particular moment in history, with this particular opportunity. By the time we are gone it will be too late, so to the extent to which humans get to decide, we are the ones who get to decide. We need radical compassion and open-eyed action. We are being called to show up with the soul of a therapist and the heart of an activist. May we lead with light as we venture forth, together. The time is now. There is only now. Are you ready? All rise. There is much to be done.

Beth Kempton is an awardwinning entrepreneur and self-help author, whose books have been translated into 24 languages. She teaches and writes about doing what you love and living well (bethkempton.com and dowhatyouloveforlife.com). Beth is a Reiki Master and alongside her Durham degree has an MA in Interpreting & Translating from Bath. Her latest book We Are In This Together: Finding hope and opportunity in the depths of adversity is available on Amazon. Image: Neil Shaw Photography

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

Ethics and sustainability

Can true societal impact be measured? Durham University Business School is developing a new system for measuring progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, writes Professor Kiran Fernandes.

Issue 8 / 2020

Ethics and sustainability

he United Nations General Assembly adopted a set of objectives related to promoting and supporting sustainable development around the globe through education, human knowledge, communication and culture. These objectives are commonly known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and are an interdependent set of 17 goals that 195 Member States have agreed to achieve by 2030. The 17 goals are accompanied by 169 targets, indicators and a monitoring framework. These goals represent an ambitious, g ro u n d - b re a k i n g f ra m ewo r k f o r s h a re d international actions. World leaders had not previously pledged common action across such a broad and universal policy agenda. The SDGs aim to provide a global framework for cooperation to address sustainable development within an ethical framework based on the right to development for every country; human rights and social inclusion; convergence of living standards across countries; and shared responsibilities and opportunities. Sustainable development includes economic development, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. The idea is for governments, universities, businesses, aid organisations, foundations and other non-governmental organisations to address the most pressing global problems together and measure how they progress. However, measuring contributions to SDGs is difficult as organisations not only operate in different cultural and political regimes, they also differ in the size and heterogeneity of organisational structures. For example, a medium-sized organisation will have limited resources to accurately measure and report their SDG contributions compared to a large global organisation.

processes of an organisational structure and maps how these processes contribute to the 2030 SDGs. Additionally, this system can be used by organisations to not only accurately benchmark and report their SDG contributions, but also develop effective strategies to partner with other organisations to cooperate on projects of mutual interest. The developed system can also be used by regional authorities and national governments to make sense of how organisations contribute to SDGs.

Wider value The Wider Value Plus system has been used to capture and benchmark over 74 UNESCO designations (organisations) in the UK and O ve r s e a s Te r r i tor i e s to s h ow h ow th e s e designations contribute to the 2030 SDGs. This research revealed there are currently over 1,300 UK organisations tied to the UNESCO network through their partnerships and cooperation with designations in the UK. Furthermore, UNESCO designations offer critical opportunities for civil society to engage in the UN’s values locally, nationally and internationally. UNESCO’s global network of designations includes World Heritage Sites (e.g. Durham C at h e d ra l , Towe r o f Lo n d o n ) , B i o s p h e re Reserves (e.g. North Devon Biosphere Reserve, Biosffer Dyfi Biosphere), UNESCO University Chair Programme, UNESCO Creative Cities (e.g. Bradford – Film, Glasgow – Music) and Global Geoparks (e.g. English Riviera Global Geopark).

Slow progress The UN General Assembly Resolution in October 2019 acknowledged that while advances were made in meeting some of the SDG targets, it also noted that progress towards achieving the SDGs was currently too slow. Durham University has been working with the UK National Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) to develop a ‘value capturing’ system (called Wider Value Plus) that can accurately capture and report how organisations contribute to the 17 SDGs. The developed ‘Wider Value Plus’ system is a simple cost-effective way for both small and large organisations to report on their SDG progress. The developed system uses both primary data from organisations as well as scaping big and messy data to measure and show how organisations contribute to the 2030 SDGs. Using such an approach allows the developed system to identify the different value-generating

Above: Women and young village girls collect water from a rainwater pool, which is purified before use with tablets.

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

“The stimulus chosen to elicit a negative emotion was a three-minute music video called ‘Pure Hatred’”

The Wider Value Plus system was able to show that the UK’s network of UNESCO designations was adding a minimum of £151 million to the UK economy on an annual basis. The system also revealed that UNESCO designations are not only significant contributors to the UK economy, but also add value to different UK regions beyond the economic benefits: UNESCO designations have a far-reaching impact on society, culture and nature. For example, UNESCO designations in the UK are using these core activities to promote peace and sustainable development. They include organising interactive and hands-on Science Weeks for schoolchildren (Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geopark); mapping vulnerability to climate change (Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO World Heritage Site); investigating how natural capital can be managed to benefit the environment (North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Reserve); teaching business skills to young girls from disadvantaged areas (Giant’s Causeway UNESCO World Heritage Site); and working with local doctors to improve communities’ wellbeing through outdoor activities (UNESCO Dyfi Biosphere Reserve Wales).

Demonstrating contributions One of the vital measures of this system has been to show the contributions of organisations to the 2030 UN SDGs. The internationally agreed SDGs are a core priority for UNESCO and are integral to the organisation’s strategic delivery and reporting. This study identifies how, through their core activities, UNESCO designations in the

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Above: Allée des Nations (Avenue of Nations) of the United Nations Palace in Geneva, with the flags of the member countries.

UK are helping to deliver a range of SDGs including education and culture for which UNESCO is the global lead. Our study also reveals how the different geographical, political, legislative and financial environments in which designations operate, affects their ability to realise their potential. For example, this study shows that UNESCO designations promote the peace and sustainable development agenda through conservation of cultural and heritage sites, research that impacts on society and sustainability, education for all, building capacity in areas of peace and sustainability, and developing best practice for the management of sustainability. This study shows how organisations contribute to the UN SDGs and the positive impact they have on communities both locally and nationally. The Wider Value Plus system can also be used as a policy toolkit. For example, our study shows how UNESCO, as a global organisation, can play a bigger role in strengthening the UNESCO network nationally and, in turn, globally. This study also highlights that it is of critical importance that the UK understands the role that UNESCO designations play across all spheres of life for citizens in the UK, that decision-makers appreciate the intrinsic global value that UNESCO brings and how these combine to take the UK into the wider world arena. For more information on Professor Fernandes’ research, please visit durham.ac.uk/business/ kiran-fernandes

Ethics and sustainability

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

Sustainability in the boardroom PhD candidate Xinwu He explains how the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have become a shared language for influencing the business agenda.

ith less than 10 years remaining as we approach the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and transforming our world, organisations worldwide can play a significant role in contributing to the agenda. Walgreens Boots Alliance’s approach to sustainable development exemplifies the effective response of businesses to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Ethics and sustainability

Diagram: Walgreens Boots Alliance CSR framework

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Walgreens Boots Alliance

Commercial

Goals

Divisions + cross divisional functions (Eg global brands)

Targets

Stakeholder dialogue Materiality assessment

Review and communications

Commitments

Report

Local

Stakeholder benchmarks and frameworks

Audit

Delivery

Further improvement

Measurements

CDP,GRI

Earlier this year, I was invited to attend an event hosted by Professor Geoff Moore at the Business School, focusing on how businesses are addressing the SDGs. Richard Ellis, Vice-President for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Walgreens Boots Alliance, gave a talk, providing insight into how the SDGs were integrated into the company’s CSR and broader corporate strategy.

Admired companies Commencing with a business overview, Richard highlighted that the company was included in FORTUNE’s 2020 list of the World’s Most Admired Companies; is a global leader in retail and wholesale pharmacy; is one of the world’s largest purchasers of prescription drugs and many other health and wellbeing products; and that it was the first company to win the United Nations company of the year prize for the SDGs. He went on to explain that the SDGs have become part of the fabric of Walgreens Boots Alliance, coming alive in the past 15 months or so, and are now a language that all people understand. The younger generation, in particular, want to know about the SDGs since they are increasingly worried about the world they are going to inherit. Both large and small organisations can take actions and pursue the SDGs, picking a goal or goals they particularly care about, measuring their efforts, showing their commitments, and raising awareness with others. Faced with a wide range of pressure groups, Walgreens Boots Alliance uses the SDGs to manage its sustainability agenda and stakeholder dialogues. The SDGs give the company a framework and a foundation

“SDGs have become part of the fabric of Walgreens Boots Alliance, coming alive in the past 15 months or so.”

to communicate with other people, thus providing a form of accountability.

CSR strategy

The diagram above shows how Walgreens Boots Alliance’s sustainability agenda is managed, processed and circulated. Notably, there are five elements (the SDGs, commercial, stakeholder dialogue, materiality assessment, commitments, and stakeholder benchmarks and frameworks) which determine the corporate social responsibility strategy and enable Walgreens Boots Alliance to create a series of goals. The SDGs on the left of the diagram are important in linking the elements and steps together, as a means of checking what the company is doing with regards to its aspirations and its thinking about sustainable development. Richard talked further about five issues to explain why the SDGs have become so important, including climate crisis, plastic kickback, radical transparency, biodiversity and information technology. One interesting example he used within biodiversity was that Boots does not conduct animal testing on its own-branded products, or ingredients used in these products – instead they test on humans. Boots was also the first company that refused to use a paper and pulp supplier that was cutting down the rainforest, even though it could provide a much cheaper supply than anybody else. These examples clearly indicate how the SDGs have influenced Walgreens Boots Alliance’s

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commercial decisions. And the company’s ‘Get a Shot. G i ve a S h o t .’ programme exemplifies the compatibility o f i t s co m m e rc i a l goals and the SDGs. Wa l g r e e n s a n d t h e United Nations Foundation collaborate to provide vaccines globally, and over six years, Walgreens has helped to provide more than 50 million life-saving polio and measles vaccines to children in developing countries by donating to the UN Foundation for every immunisation shot administered. In fiscal 2019, it committed to continuing the programme and to help provide another 50 million by 2024. Walgreens Boots Alliance has developed a strategy that has enabled it to become number one for vaccinations in America, meeting both an SDGs requirement and adding to its bottom line at the same time. Richard closed with a Q&A, finishing with “By doing good for society, we are doing good for the company.”

“Organisations worldwide can play a significant role in approaching the agenda by integrating the SDGs into their strategies.”

Integrating SDGs The increasing recognition of global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and the recent Covid-19 pandemic reflects people’s need for change. The SDGs represent the change because they describe a world in which each of us would like to live: free from poverty and hunger, healthy, equal, resilient and sustainable. Organisations worldwide can play a significant role in approaching the Agenda by integrating the SDGs into their strategies and operations and providing new solutions to global sustainable development challenges (United Nations Global Compact, 2015). Corporations need to up-skill on sustainability risk identification since financials will no longer be the key determinant of a company’s future, global challenges may generate a bigger risk. The demand for new solutions to global challenges, in turn, generates new opportunities for organisations to innovate. The case of Walgreens Boots Alliance exemplifies how a company can effectively link its business priorities with the Sustainable Development Agenda, thus achieving both business goals and the SDGs simultaneously.

Xinwu He is a PhD candidate in accounting at Durham University Business School. For more information on our PhD programmes, visit durham.ac.uk/business/phd

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Above: Companies are integrating SDGs into their operations.

Corporate goals Walgreens Boots Alliance has four key CSR areas and accordingly, four CSR goals:

Healthy Communities Goals: to engage with communities to improve societal health and wellbeing.

Sustainable Marketplace Goals: to do business fairly and with integrity.

Healthy Planet Goals: to protect the planet through programmes in its operations and by engaging suppliers on environmental issues.

Healthy and Inclusive Workplace Goals: to treat our people with dignity and respect.

Ethics and sustainability

Sustainability through transparency Professor Carol Adams explains how the Sustainable Development Goals Disclosure Recommendations aim to create value both for organisations and society.

he Sustainable Development Goal Disclosure (SDGD) Recommendations d raw o n t h e t h re e f ra m ewo r k s / standards most used by reporters and/ or that are most influential with respect to regulatory and non-regulatory policy initiatives. The International Framework, the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures recommendations and the Global Reporting Initiative Standards are all critical to the shift to sustainable development. Extracts of responses to the public consultation have been published in Sustainable Development Goals Disclosure (SDGD) Recommendations: Feedback on the consultation. They make a strong case that: • t he level of disclosure by organisations on sustainable development is insufficient to support achievement of the SDGs and value creation for organisations and society • addressing this requires a concerted effort by all sectors of society and collaboration between organisations and authorities responsible for developing guidelines, regulations and ‘tools’. The Deloitte response to the consultation observed that it added to “the case… for a formal, global and connected approach to standard setting, to include non-financial information” and EY noted that the consultation paper “brings into focus” the need to enhance current reporting practices.

We view the SDGs as a ‘universal lens’ which investors, companies and stakeholders across society and including the global environment can share in finding solutions which lead to meaningful and measurable outcomes for the world’s biggest challenges. They also provide a clear timeframe in which change needs to take place, helping to set targets and create a greater sense of urgency. - Hermes

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The Sustainable Development Goals Disclosure Recommendations, published by global professional accounting bodies and other key organisations, support: • identification of material sustainable development risks and opportunities relevant to long-term value creation for organisations and society • changing what an organisation does and how it does it in order to contribute to the SDGs • communication of impact on achievement of the SDGs.

The SDGs are a unique common language that is increasingly understood and used by business, finance and civil society to engage with issues that typically have been considered outside of their traditional boundaries. - ACCA

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Ethics and sustainability

Th e S D G D R e co m m e n d at i o n s e n co u ra g e organisations to think about sustainable development risks and opportunities when developing their strategies. The professional accounting body ACCA noted: “To be effective, SDG disclosures must provide organisations with the ability to think about the SDG-related risks and opportunities of the external environment in a meaningful, and context-based way, and then apply suitable approaches to addressing those risks and opportunities.” In its response to the consultation, the United Nations Development Programme noted: “We propose that… we align our Enterprise Standards under development with the [SDGD Recommendations], such that certification a g a i n st t h e E n te r p r i s e St a n d a rd s wo u l d be sufficient to also ensure adherence with the SDGD Recommendations.” Reporting often focuses more on value creation and positive impacts than value destruction and negative impacts. The information disclosed is consequently of limited use to the organisation, its providers of finance and other key stakeholders. Lack of assurance and the limited scope (often limited to quantitative indicators) of many current assurance engagements is a further barrier to the information being used by investors in their capital allocation decisions. The SDGD Recommendations provide examples of documentary evidence that should be maintained to add robustness to the organisation’s approach to SDG Disclosures in order to give the Board confidence that the organisation’s:

Above: Sustainable development strategies can influence all industry sectors and our built environment.

to make accounting for sustainability a compulsory subject at university for those studying accounting. It could also be incorporated into the professional accounting qualifications.” At Durham University Business School, sustainability accounting and reporting are covered in both undergraduate and postgraduate accounting degrees.

We commend the recommendation to embed SDG considerations... to transform business models and strategy… to both align with and promote achievement of the SDGs. (including reducing harmful activities) by 2030. - UNDP

Adams, C A, with Druckman, P B, Picot, R C, (2020) Sustainable Development Goal Disclosure (SDGD) Recommendations, published by ACCA, Chartered Accountants ANZ, ICAS, IFAC, IIRC and WBA. ISBN: 978-1-909883-62-8

•a pproach to the SDGs is fully integrated into processes, policies and practices • S DG Disclosures follow the Fundamental Concepts and Principles set out in the document.

Adams, CA (2020) Sustainable Development Goal Disclosure (SDGD) Recommendations: Feedback on the consultation responses, published by ACCA, IIRC and WBA. ISBN-978-1-898291-33-6

Compulsory study Consultancy firm Arup noted in its response to the consultation that: “…a complement to assurance is

Professor Adams can be contacted about this work on carol.adams@durham.ac.uk

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

Ethics and sustainability

Vision To lead business thought and practice to improve global wealth and wellbeing

Transparency matters Professor Geoff Moore explains how we’re reporting on our commitment to the Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability agenda.

s a School, we are committed to the ‘Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability’ (ERS) agenda, which is now firmly embedded within the School’s Strategic Framework. Alongside this, our new ERS Steering Group is driving the crucial work in this area. One of our longer-standing commitments in relation to ERS has been to the UN initiative Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), of which the School has been a member since 2012. Part of this membership commitment involves providing a ‘Sharing Information on Progress’ (SIP) report every two years – we have just submitted our fourth such report which is now available on our website. The report covers the School’s development of the work undertaken in relation to their six principles, with main areas of activity revolving around our educational provision, our research base, and engagement in partnership and dialogue. It also reports on our own organisational practices in relation to ERS. This has led to some significant developments, with highlights from the 2020 report including: • our commitment to improving our educational provision by embedding and now measuring ERS as part of our programme goals • an increase in the proportion of our research outputs which were ERS related • research into how companies can better align their strategies to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals • student and staff volunteering programmes • the introduction of our Carbon Management Plan • the achievement of the bronze level award in the Athena SWAN gender equality mark.

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Mission To develop and enthuse leaders and entrepreneurs who create, share and use knowledge to deliver equitable and sustainable futures around the world

Research and impact

Education

Student engagement

Internationalisation

Ethics, responsibility and sustainability

External engagement

Proudly integral to one of the world’s prestigious universities

We are pleased to have made much progress on the objectives set out in our previous report and will continue to drive forward the crucial work required to make further improvements, in turn setting an example to our students and partners and strengthening our commitment to the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education. As always, we are keen to receive feedback on this and to enter into partnerships with organisations where we might be able to contribute to and learn from similar initiatives. For fu r t h e r i n for mat i on on t h e S c h o o l ’s commitment to ERS and our latest UN PRME Sharing Information on Progress Report 2020, visit durham.ac.uk/business/prme To contact Professor Geoff Moore or for more information on his research, visit durham.ac.uk/ business/geoff-moore

Ethics and sustainability

Making stewardship count Associate Professor Dr Anna Tilba considers a joined-up approach to aligning stewardship objectives across the institutional investment community.

n 26 February 2020, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) held a joint industry workshop on investor stewardship. This workshop followed on from a year-long investment industry-wide consultation on how to build a better regulatory framework for effective stewardship to which I have contributed extensively. My involvement with this consultation is based on more than a decade of my academic research into institutional investors’ investment management practices in relation to stewardship, as well as my advisory roles at the UK Law Commission, Financial Conduct Authority, Competition and Markets Authority and The Pensions Regulator. Institutional investor stewardship involves engaged and meaningful oversight of invested assets by asset owners and asset managers. According to the UK Stewardship Code (2020), stewardship activities are aimed at supporting the functioning of the UK’s financial markets by improving their quality and integrity as well as contributing to the sustainable long-term value creation for beneficiaries. It is expected that in the long term, effective stewardship will have a wider economic, societal, governance and environmental benefit. UK asset management is a key part of the UK financial system with over £6.6 trillion of assets under management, with two-thirds made up of

institutional investors. Therefore, regulators expect these institutions to help police the financial market against the risks of corporate misconduct and fraud. Yet, even after the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the increased policy emphasis on responsible and engaged ownership, many financial institutions remained passive and disinterested in exercising proper oversight of their investee companies. FC A / F R C co n s u l t a t i o n o n stewa rd s h i p has found evidence that some firms are already investing significantly to improve their stewardship capabilities and with a stronger focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters. However, a number of informational, incentive and other barriers to effective stewardship were also identified, including a lack of clarity of purpose around stewardship and how investors should discharge their stewardship duties.

Overcoming barriers That is why it was very encouraging to see, for the first time, the key financial services regulators such as the FCA, FRC, DWP and TPR come together with

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

representatives from right across the institutional investment community and academia to discuss how some of these barriers may be overcome. In particular, the workshop explored how asset owners set and communicate their stewardship objectives, and how effectively these are adopted by asset managers and service providers. Around 40 key stakeholders from across the institutional investment community attended the workshop. As one of the very few academics involved in these discussions, I found them very engaging, challenging and constructive. Many delegates saw considerable value in bringing all relevant constituencies together in an open, honest and multi-faceted discussion on this topic. For example, I was able to challenge the biggest asset managers on the levels of their investment in stewardship, which are currently much too low for such activities to be meaningful and effective – a point of view that was shared by many delegates.

Selection decisions I also highlighted my published research suggesting that some contracts also included terms that may be incompatible with a long-term investment strategy (e.g. quarterly performance evaluation). It was also very encouraging to observe an emerging consensus among delegates that investment consultants ought to

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consider stewardship more systematically in asset management selection decisions – this is something I have been advocating for many years through my research impact activities. The FCA’s delegate debrief summary included all these important discussions as evidence for future reference in this consultation process. Having a joined-up policy approach to improving investor stewardship is a very positive development. However, the follow-up activities are in danger of losing momentum in the current climate where the Covid-19 pandemic has inevitably interrupted the work of these interest groups and delayed progress towards finalising the recommendations that came out of this forwardlooking initiative. Although it may be too easy now to focus on the immediate and short-term market volatility, there is already evidence to suggest that effective stewardship and ESG-focused investments can be more durable through the current market meltdown. During these difficult and uncertain times, resilient and long-term relationships between asset owners, asset managers and investee companies, as well as exercising effective stewardship, will play a critical part. For more information on Dr Tilba’s research interests, please visit durham.ac.uk/business/ anna-tilba

Engagement

Higher education in the era of Covid-19 Durham DBA candidate and Lead Accreditation and Continuous Improvement Coordinator at Lebanese American University, Samar Aad Makhoul, outlines her thoughts about the global pandemic and its influence on her doctoral research.

Remote learning started over 100 years ago in the form of mail correspondence between students and their faculty. Over the past decade, the rapid advancement in technology has led to the development of online teaching and learning at higher education institutions. This form of education has spread all over the world at different speeds. While some universities embraced it fully, others combined it with traditional learning and others shied away from it altogether due to the cost of infrastructure and training incurred or because of legislation and regulations. Some countries believe online learning does not provide the same quality of learning outcome and therefore don’t encourage its use in higher education. Previous studies have shown that online teaching and learning will grow and expand by the year 2025. No one predicted that

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IMPACT

a virus would become a pandemic and force all higher education institutions (HEIs) to shift from their traditional face-to-face teaching and learning model to an online teaching and learning model, whether they were ready for it or not. As you will likely know, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Countries worldwide responded differently to the crisis, some started implementing social distancing, self-isolation and quarantine and others took lighter measurements. Lockdowns were imposed in many countries, affecting billions of people.

Students in lockdown HEIs were among many sectors that were hit by the pandemic. In 2015, between five and seven million students were enrolled in one online course every year. In 2020, 90% of the world’s student population was in lockdown according to UNESCO. Around the world, university presidents, chancellors, provosts and deans addressed their communities via video, social media or their websites announcing that ‘this was the greatest crisis in the history of higher education’. Whether they were ranked highly in the likes of the Financial Times, QS or Times Higher Education, belonging to the Russell Group or the Ivy League, accredited or non-accredited, most universities had the same concern that ‘to save the academic year, we have decided to move classes online’. This was, at least, the message that was shared on many official university websites. Suddenly everyone became obsessed with using the latest technologies in teaching and learning online. Zoom now has more than 300 million daily users, Microsoft Teams has 75 million, add to that a spike in the use of Blackboard, Canvas, WebEx and other platforms. Some assume that technology will make it easier for faculty and students to communicate and ‘save the academic year’. The success of online learning at the higher education level is not new. It was propounded by the Open University which taught until now, more than two million students worldwide. But designing a successful online course is challenging as it takes months to design an online course and years to design an online programme. With the invasion of Covid-19, universities did not have years or months to prepare, they did not even have days!

Zoomed out In the pursuit of ‘saving the academic year’, institutions were putting their faculty and students at risk. There was not enough time to have the proper infrastructure, provide training and guidelines, have policies for the online

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learning or even think about online pedagogy. Among this chaos that has also shaken the finance and endowments of HEIs, the online pedagogy was left out. This created an exhausted and anxious faculty who were ‘Zoomed-out’, disrupted students who wanted to sue their institutions as they did not pay to receive this type of online learning, and overburdened support staff who are working remotely to help faculty and students in this process. When will this end? No one knows. This might be the ‘new norm’ that we have to get used to. Thus, the overarching research question is: what will be the impact of online learning on faculty and students at Higher Education Institutions during, and moving out of, the Covid-19 pandemic? I argue that the Covid-19 pandemic that hit the world will transform education in HEIs and there will be a revolutionary change in the process of teaching and learning. My research investigates the challenges of online teaching and learning within HEIs, and the opportunities to implement this change in order to sustain it during the pandemic and for it to survive, moving away from it. Several themes come up from such a transformation. Faculty and students need to be trained so they are satisfied with a successful online learning experience. The faculty need to be part of the course design as they know the needs of the students. Online learning comes with challenges and a lot of investment is needed to get the training, support and infrastructure right: an investment that many institutions currently don’t have as they are facing economic instability. However, online learning could be the tool that will save HEIs in the long run as it can help lower fees and increase enrolment.

Gathering data My research will be based on data I will collect from the websites and social media of QS ranked institutions worldwide and from interviews I will do with faculty that are teaching online during Covid-19. I will also conduct surveys with students who were enrolled at different universities during this period. The pandemic will no doubt transform higher education. It is clear that there is a difference between traditional face-to-face and online teaching and learning. We need to establish an appropriate online teaching and learning framework that can be adapted by HEIs as a new and innovative way to ease the transition and to have a successful and credible online teaching and learning experience. However, this requires a change, a change that some HEIs might be too rigid to accept. For more information on the School’s Doctorate of Business Administration programmes, please visit durham.ac.uk/dba

Engagement

How placement year students rose to the pandemic challenge Alex McNinch, Placement Manager for the School, reveals the highs and lows of establishing the ‘new norm’ for placement year students in a pandemic. There’s not a person in the land who hasn’t experienced the crazy rollercoaster ride of 2020. Phrases like ‘unprecedented’ and the ‘new norm’ are now part of everyday conversation. For our students there have been significant changes to their norm brought about because of the Covid-19 pandemic. These include moving back home for many of them, online delivery of their modules and exams, and perhaps most concerning, the massive reduction in employment opportunities, particularly in the short term. For the most part, summer internship opportunities were decimated due to lockdown with relatively few graduate employers switching their focus to virtual internships. Internships tend to be much shorter duration and more of an overview of the business with some training thrown in rather than any real ‘work’ experience. Conversely, placement year opportunities seemed pretty much on track. Sure, there was

a recruitment freeze across most sectors for a considerable period of lockdown, so numbers are down on last year, but still up on the previous year.

Perseverance Out of the 75 second-year students who have secured a placement for 2020/21, only three are not going ahead as things stand and one of those decisions was a student’s choice because it was an international placement and international travel looks far from stable. The vast majority of organisations have made plans to delay the start date and start remotely with induction and training plans being initiated online. There are strong indications both within graduate recruitment and in the labour market that this could be the ‘new norm’ with less travel, fewer formal face-to-face training courses and much more flexibility in the workplace. Employers who had already been hosting our third-year placement students when Covid-19 struck were very quick to react and many of our students were working at home well before the government instigated the official lockdown. To give you some context, most of our placement students work in the UK but we also had 10 students working abroad for their

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placement year and they too were forced to return home which meant a very stressful scramble for flights before borders were closed for some of them. The University agreed early on in the crisis that there was a ‘no detriment’ policy and that students did not have to complete the usual 40 weeks’ work experience to pass their placement year. However, the vast majority carried on with their placements working remotely, even if in another country.

Resilience leading to experience While 2020 has arguably been a chaotic experience for many, it has been particularly turbulent for students doing placements abroad, who prior to this year have had virtually no formal work experience. That said, it has also granted fantastic and unprecedented opportunities for those students. Many started their roles last summer so had six months or more under their belt with the organisation and had embedded in their teams and understood the culture of their employer. Fast forward to now, they’re helping run global businesses from their own homes and being involved in creating crisis management strategies. How many 21-year olds can say that? This will be incredibly strong material for their final-year dissertations and future professional lives. This whole episode has been a huge lesson in patience, motivation, time management and not forgetting digital skills. Skills which should never be underestimated. A few of our students who were undertaking placements abroad as we entered the new decade have given their perspective of their placement year in the most trying of years on the following pages.

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Adapting to the ‘new norm’ “They’re now helping As an institution, Durham and run global businesses its staff had to react quickly as from their own homes well. Face-to-face appointments and being involved and group workshops were in creating crisis not going to be possible for the management foreseeable future. Luckily, the strategies.” University had all the technology we needed. We now just had to use it. Using Microsoft Teams and Zoom to run LinkedIn workshops and the like became routine practice. Facebook Live is also a great tool to connect with the cohort of students. This worked incredibly well as a surgerytype forum to provide updates on what was happening within the University, Business School and labour market, while also answering any questions the students had. A highlight was hosting a pre-placement briefing using Zoom to create a support network for the outgoing placement students. We had 25 students on the call all due to start placements with employers around the UK. To summarise, 2020 has been a challenge but one that has brought many opportunities and allowed us and our students to develop skills that we may not have even known we needed. The landscape, the jobs, the way we interact, have all changed and this skillset can only be a positive as we start to think about what the ‘new normal’ might look like in 2021, and it certainly seems that placement year is set to be even more beneficial. Find out more about placement years at durham.ac.uk/business/ug-placements

Engagement

Placements in a pandemic A student’s view Some of the students who have been on their placement year through the Covid-19 crisis have explained why the experience has left them better equipped for the future

Luna Fejes BA Marketing & Management, Goldman Sachs

Rory Dickson BA Business & Management, 212 Yachts

Francesca Tough BA Economics & Management, Morgan Stanley

“Going abroad for my placement was the best decision I could have made. I was not only confronted with real-life work situations for the first time, but also had to get accustomed to a new country and a new language. The learning curve was very steep and the whole placement year was challenging, in a very good way. I worked on various projects which all gave me the opportunity to develop my personal and professional skills. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I have spent the last three months of my placement working from home. This was another challenge I was not expecting, however it gave me even more opportunities to develop myself. Becoming accustomed to yet another environment while still taking on new tasks and projects was probably the biggest stepping stone in my development.”

“Working abroad for one year has been an incredible experience, both professionally and personally. Although challenging at times, it has been amazing to meet new people, learn a new language and culture and see parts of the world I would otherwise never have seen. I was fortunate in that I was able to work from home during the lockdown period, but the pandemic severely impacted my company (a yacht charter brokerage), which relies on international travel. For me personally, it has been invaluable to experience and be involved in the change of strategy in response to the pandemic. In doing this placement year, I feel much more confident in my ability to start a full-time job after university.”

“I found my year to be a transformative experience, both because of the responsibility I have been given as part of my role and the independence gained from moving and working abroad in Germany. I also had the opportunity to pursue other initiatives outside of my daily role and the move to working from home due to Covid-19 did not stop these opportunities. I organised online fundraising initiatives as part of EMEA Branch Ops Giving Back Committee and also put forward ideas for integrating the interns, who were starting from home, and was able to put those into action.”

Andy Johnston BA Business & Management, Hannover Fairs USA

from all across the world and learning about different cultures has not only helped me grow as a business student, but also as a person. At times it was a challenging experience, not seeing friends and family for months, experiencing weather I’ve never experienced before, and landing at the airport on

“Doing a placement abroad was incredible. Getting not only the experience of a working environment, but also living in a different country, meeting people

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The pandemic severely impacted my company (a yacht charter brokerage), which relies on international travel. For me personally it has been invaluable to experience and be involved in the change of strategy in response to the pandemic.

Student

Employer

Afrah Mohamad BSc Finance, Schneider Electric

Hannah Xifaras BA Business & Management, GSK

Patrick Marsh, Manager GSK

“I had the chance of doing my Placement Year in my home country, but being in a new city far from friends and family can still be quite daunting. Nevertheless, this experience greatly contributed to my growth as a young professional and a young adult. Experiencing a new work environment made up of seasoned professionals from all over the world, but also other students just like me, was very stimulating. Taking the first steps of my career in such a diverse environment helped me feel more at ease and allowed me to apply and develop my skills in the best possible way. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, I had to go back to my parents’ house, which represented a drastic change but it also gave me the opportunity to further my skills and overall become a better all-rounded individual.”

“My placement year at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), within our Worldwide Real Estate and Facilities team, has been phenomenal. No day has been the same, with roles including leading regional meetings on our £10 billion merger, managing a young person with disabilities and co-creating an academic article for the Corporate Real Estate Journal. More recently, I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to move back home to Sydney (through Covid-19) and work with our Asia Pacific team for three months. This international business exposure, coupled with experience working across a range of projects and teams, has shaped what I want from a graduate role and instilled me with a greater understanding of myself and my purpose. Undertaking a placement was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

“Hannah joined my team as part of our industrial placement programme as she worked her gap year. Despite having no previous background in real estate, she joined the team and immediately engaged in our projects around integration, separation, flexible working and health performing working environments. She brings an immediate drive and energy with a desire to understand the subject at hand and where she can add value. She asks very clear questions and has an excellent ability to dig in to issues and source the answer. She is an excellent communicator both verbally and visually and is already adept and producing concise input. She works very well in teams but can also perform well in solo initiatives. Confident and comfortable with senior stakeholders. I have been hugely impressed with her throughout this secondment and would willingly hire her for a permanent role in the future.”

my own, clueless as to where to go next. But to travel, see a bit of the world, meet people I never thought I’d meet and to take experiences away from it that will not only benefit me when I return to university or in the workplace in England, but in everyday life, is something that I will always be grateful for.”

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Engagement

Virtual study trips Islamic Finance student Cosima Stitzl describes her recent virtual trips to Switzerland and Germany during the pandemic.

Every year, our Masters and MBA students take part in international study experiences. These provide the opportunity to visit international organisations where students immerse themselves in local business culture and learn about all the complexities of operating in the global marketplace. Of course, this year due to Covid-19, these then swiftly became virtual versions. One of our students, Cosima Stitzl, talks us through her experience. As part of my MSc in Islamic Finance, I signed up for a study trip to Frankfurt. Throughout the academic year, I got more and more excited about going to Frankfurt and combining this with a trip to my family in Stuttgart, but then Covid-19 happened. I ended up travelling to Stuttgart earlier than expected and the prospect of the study trip happening started diminishing, with the pandemic getting worse worldwide. Eventually, the careers team from the Business School held a virtual meeting with all the participants and came up with the wonderful idea to run this trip virtually. What did this mean? Well, surprisingly, it meant that not only could I take part in the trip I signed up for (Frankfurt), but also go to Zurich (virtually).

Frankfurt – start-up funding and banking “I got the opportunity A few weeks later I was part to e-meet a professor of the next ‘trip’, to Frankfurt, from KOF Swiss where we learned about private Economic Institute, banking and asset management who briefed us all in Germany, and how one of on the impact of Germany’s oldest banks is managing Covid-19.” its business. What I found interesting, as a German and potential entrepreneur in the future (who knows?), was learning more about the start-up scene and the venturing process in Germany, which is a bit different to the Anglo-Saxon world. The trip ended with us talking to Moneyfarm, an online robo-advisory service, and with a virtual encounter with Commerzbank.

Real experience and benefits Overall, I had a great experience and learned many new things. Ultimately, despite lockdown, the goal of the study trip was fulfilled – I used all of the knowledge that I gained to perform well in my job interviews and secured a job offer shortly after the trips. Without the great opportunity to network and learn more, this might not have happened. I’d like to thank every person from the Business School who got involved in organising these trips, for helping me with the first building block of my career.

Zurich – economics and real insights While I was sitting at my desk in Stuttgart, I got the opportunity to e-meet a professor from the KOF Swiss Economic Institute, who briefed us all on the impacts of Covid-19 on the macroeconomy and the scenarios we might encounter in the near and distant future. Moreover, I was pleased to learn more about the cryptocurrency scene in Switzerland and how, for instance, Bitcoin Embassy is creating an ecosystem for all those who would like to be part of this scene. Towards the end, we spoke to a Durham alumnus who works at Credit Suisse, giving us valuable insights on the banking system in Switzerland and what makes it so special. We also had the chance to ask lots of questions about securing jobs in the financial industry.

Above: Cosima hard at work on her Islamic Finance course.

Covid-19: The University and School very much hope that physical study trips will return soon but the health and wellbeing of staff and students will always be our top priority. We hope that Cosima’s experience shows that students can still have a valuable learning experience virtually through the efforts of School staff and contacts. For more information on the School’s Masters programmes, please visit durham.ac.uk/ business/masters

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Engagement

Driving a changing strategy How graduate Tom Shanks has helped his family’s business adapt during Covid-19.

Tom Shanks is Finance Director for Blueline Taxis, a successful firm based in the North East of England which was founded more than 60 years ago by his grandparents. Tom also graduated from the School with an MSc Finance in January and being 25, he didn’t ever think he’d be plunged into such a challenging time so early on in his career. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, he, his family and colleagues got straight to work thinking of how to support their much-valued staff/drivers, and also the wider community. This family business prides itself on its values, which are embedded throughout the organisation. The company does not see its staff as simply resources, they care deeply for their wellbeing and want to support them as much as they can. Faced with a huge obstacle such as this for any taxi company – the vast majority of the population being told to stay indoors – they changed strategy very quickly in order to protect their team and help their community. Tom says: “It’s been rather emotional to see how our family values really have been visible within our organisation. We always hear that ‘the proof is in the pudding’ and if that’s right, our team have shown us that they’re worthy of a Michelin star. They have shown teamwork, compassion and a support system far greater than I could have ever imagined. I’m also lucky enough to have the best business mentor in the world, my father, who is our Managing Director. As well as that, the support of Dr Joanna Berry at the School, who has been a shoulder to lean on in such a tough time, and a source of encouragement, for which I owe her dinner once this pandemic ends! My education from the School, and University experience as a whole, has proved indispensable in helping me attempt to construct some form of Covid-19 support network for the regional economy and community.” For more information on MSc Finance and other masters programmes, please visit durham.ac.uk/business/masters

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Three of the key activities Blueline Taxis put into place very quickly:

Created a £25,000 fund to enable NHS workers to get to work Blueline set up a £25,000 NHS giveaway, allowing those working on the frontline to benefit from taxi credits. Tom says: “These workers are the true role models of society and their commitment, dedication and level of care for the community is admirable and somewhat incomprehensible.”

Shifted the primary service from transporting people to delivering essential goods Within less than a week, Tom and colleagues collaborated with other regional suppliers to arrange

supply of goods to Blueline Hubs across the region. This then allowed them to deliver essential goods to people. It was a steep learning curve with its very different processes, supply chains of goods and analysing how best to distribute.

Changed the fee structure for drivers Instead of a fixed weekly rental fee, the company changed to a ‘pay as you earn’ percentage model. This has significantly reduced the financial commitment drivers have hanging over them during these turbulent times. If there’s no work available, they don’t have to pay.

Engagement

Profile Iain Wright The former MP for Hartlepool and former Chair of the House of Commons Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee explains why he enrolled on the Durham MBA (Online).

ormer Member of Parliament, Iain Wright graduated from the Durham MBA (Online) in 2020. He began his career in the financial sector, but always had an interest in politics which led him to stand for election in 2004, when he became the MP for Hartlepool. He served in this capacity until 2017, when he decided not to seek re-election. Iain started a new role with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in April 2018 and soon after this began his journey on the Durham MBA (Online). Iain shares his experience with us below.

What is your background? I’ve always been interested in business and public services, and how those two worlds connect and collide. I suppose my career has reflected that. I trained as a chartered accountant with Deloitte but also was involved in politics in the North East of England. I became a Member of Parliament in 2004 and was fortunate to have a wide range of roles and responsibilities. I was honoured to be a Minister in two different departments in the Gordon Brown government, first in housing and planning and then in schools and apprenticeships. Both of these Ministerial posts had aspects of business in which my previous experience was useful. In 2015, I was elected by the House of Commons to be Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee. I had a great team of hard-working and committed MPs on the committee, serviced by superb clerks. Together we achieved a lot, such as holding the likes of Philip Green and Mike Ashley to account on the collapse of BHS and working practices at Sports Direct. When Theresa May called an election in 2017, I decided I didn’t want to stand for Parliament again.

Why did you decide to do an MBA? I always wanted to do an MBA, because I thought it would be both interesting and provide a theoretical framework for decisions made in business. However, the hours and work levels demanded of an MP meant that I simply never had the time to consider it. Not standing for Parliament again gave me a good opportunity. The general image of people undertaking MBAs is of high-flyers with potential in their 20s, with a couple of years of employment under their belt, but with their careers very much ahead of them. I wasn’t anything like that: I was 45 when

I started the Durham MBA (Online), considerably older than some of my peers in the same intake. In many respects, I didn’t do the MBA because of my career. I wanted to do it because I was intellectually curious and wanted to be challenged. I thought it would be stimulating as well as helping me consider the basis for strategies and decisions taken by business.

Why did you choose Durham University Business School? My criteria for selecting a business school were clear. Reputation is important: I wanted a world-class university that was universally respected for the quality of its business education and was prepared to look internationally to achieve that. There was no question of me taking a year out of employment to do a full-time MBA so I needed a strong part-time online MBA. As I was self-funding this MBA the fees needed to be reasonable. As a proud native of the North East of England, who wanted to showcase and champion the great universities my region has to offer, if I could study at a local university, so much the better. I found all of this with Durham. I was proud to be part of a world-class institution that happened to be based in the North East. In many respects, as somebody who lived about 15 miles away from Durham, I had the best of both worlds. I could study in a flexible way using e-learning but could also use the physical facilities that the University had to offer. The curriculum was interesting and challenging. However, the value for money that the Durham MBA (Online) provided was phenomenal. Given the quality of teaching and learning and the qualification obtained, the level of fees was extremely reasonable.

What advice would you give someone thinking about doing the Durham MBA (Online)? The Durham MBA (Online) is hard work! Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise. I vividly remember going to see Professor Julie Hodges and her saying to me it would take at least 15 hours a week of studying. I recall thinking at the time: “No way – I’ll do about two or three hours at a weekend.” I couldn’t have been more wrong! The studying is intense and although some flex is provided to ensure that any outside personal or work commitments can be accommodated, a high level of continuous study and outside reading is essential. I tried to get into the habit of studying an hour or two each

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

The studying is intense and although some flex is provided to ensure that any outside personal or work commitments can be accommodated, a high level of continuous study and outside reading is essential.

weekday night, and then going to the University Library for a good few hours each weekend to read more widely and draft the module essays. Please be very clear: the Durham MBA (Online) is not awarded lightly, hard work and commitment are essential.

I chose the issue of Spotify’s lack of profitability in the era of music streaming and was able to bring several aspects of history and politics into my assignment as well as applying Porter’s five competitive forces and Christensen’s disruptive innovation to the real-world business problem.

What did you enjoy most about the Durham MBA (Online)?

How would you summarise your time on the Durham MBA (Online)?

It helps that the programme is interesting, especially the elective modules. I was actually surprised which modules interested me the most. Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation were the highlights for me. These modules were genuinely stimulating and helped me to understand the wider context of how business models and practices are changing in the 21st century. Tutors were helpful and encouraging, while allowing for self-teaching they were without exception available for help and insightful advice. The online tutor groups allowed students to come together remotely to learn collectively. The centrepiece of the online MBA is the Strategic Case Analysis in the second year. This self-selecting piece allows the student to consider a business problem at a deeper level.

I was delighted and proud to have been awarded a distinction in my online MBA. It felt the culmination of hard work, dedication, time prioritisation in the face of career and family commitments and overcoming a challenge in a positive way. For me, obtaining an MBA has been a great personal achievement and made me learn a lot, both in terms of character as well as academically. I apply some of what I’ve learned in work, but actually the benefits of a Durham MBA are much more fundamental than that. To anybody considering an online MBA, I would say do it, and do it with Durham.

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For more information on MBA programmes, visit durham.ac.uk/mba

Engagement

Alumni tell their stories Despite the Covid-19 lockdown our MBA students have been able to listen to insights and inspirational stories from our global alumni, who were interviewed by Chris Roberts for The Lemonade Principle podcast. MBA students are, for many reasons, busy people. With lectures and seminars in addition to assignments, extracurricular activities, employer talks as well as other commitments, it’s often difficult to attend every event; even those that would be of great benefit. The Lemonade Principle podcast was developed as a response to this with accessibility being the primary goal. Made available on popular podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify, students were able to listen at a time that worked for them, even fitting in with other essential tasks such as cooking, cleaning, driving or walking to class. This was before the coronavirus pandemic.

Essential listening Once the pandemic began to make an impact and lockdown was enforced it was no longer possible for students to attend in person. Having a resource that could be accessed remotely and at any time became hugely beneficial. Students didn’t miss out on high quality content and insights despite not being able to leave home. For the series itself, Chris Roberts (Engagement Manager, Recruitment) was able to connect with and interview Durham University alumni, primarily

from the Business School, from all around the world and bring insightful and inspirational stories to our students, giving guidance and advice on anything from funding a start-up to humanitarian work. Guests such as Dr Larry Lee (Hong Kong) and Kiran Ramakrishna (India) gave insights on entrepreneurship and starting a business, whereas Mike Burkly (USA) spoke about a career in humanitarian projects around the world, right up to his current role as Chief of International Security Programs with USAID in Washington DC. Anna Champion (UK/Vietnam), Head of Early Careers Learning at Jardine Matheson, spoke about her struggle to find a graduate role and how she went on to set up graduate programmes herself for companies including Barclays and Jardines. Shirin Gerami (UK/Iran), a School graduate of BA Philosophy, Politics and Economics, provided real inspiration through her story of becoming the first woman to represent Iran in the sport of triathlon at a World Championships, triathlon being something she only started through a Durham University society. This is without mentioning Rian Ingrim (USA), Meryl Levington (UK), Hans Geffert (Australia), Dr David Brauer (USA) and the season finale double episode with Nicola Short (UK), who spoke about her 28-year career, her recent online MBA and overcoming impostor syndrome.

Key themes There were common themes too such as the importance of your network and how this begins in the classroom, with many guests mentioning lifelong friends they made during their time at Durham who they’ve remained in contact with 10 and 20 years on. The value of failure, too, came up again and again, with Larry Lee, Anna Champion and Nicola Short all discussing how their failures led to greater success. Finally, an unexpected benefit of this being a podcast meant a wide reach. To date, there have been 1,000+ plays across 35 countries and counting, with students, both past and present, and business contacts around the world tuning in to hear stories from our inspirational alumni. To listen to The Lemonade Principle podcasts, visit durham.ac.uk/business/podcasts and to find out more about our MBA programmes, visit durham.ac.uk/mba

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Engagement

“Many will remember watching the building of a massive mobile hospital in Wuhan, twice as big as the London Nightingale hospital.”

Alumni power in a pandemic How alumni came together to provide much needed equipment to Chinese hospitals at the forefront of the battle against Covid-19. Earlier this year, at the very start of the Covid-19 pandemic and in the first four weeks of Wuhan and China’s lockdown, Business School alumni in China came together to offer support to the city’s healthcare professionals in their battle with the then new and unknown virus. As western media started to report the increasing number of cases in Wuhan district and the Chinese government’s response to control the outbreak, our alumni were already putting their skills to good use.

Raising money The alumni response to the outbreak in China was in three phases, reported Bente Chen (Shanghai Chapter Social Lead), who says: “On 27 January, the alumni set up a fundraising campaign on the Chinese site Tencent (a Chinese top 10 company and owner of WeChat). We registered the fund with the site and set the target. Within three hours, Chinese alumni had raised 43,223 RMB (£5,000).” How the money was to be used was still to be decided but it didn’t take the alumni long to identify where it would be most effective.

Making PPE available In the first week of February, it became obvious that the healthcare teams needed personal protection equipment (PPE) more than money and so the alumni group decided to purchase 50 surgical coats using some of the funds raised and these were delivered on 3 February to Wuhan Zhongnan Hospital in four hours, from a city 300 miles away. However, with the high demand for this equipment in China, the group had to look further afield for additional items. Bente was stuck in Prague for a month due to the growing travel restrictions. He decided to put his time to good use, tracking down a medical protection clothing manufacturer in the Czech Republic and procured 10,000 masks. The costs were some 20 times more than what procurement

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costs would have been in China under normal circumstances and it was more than the alumni had raised. Within an hour of updating the group about this, the funds were raised, allowing Bente (pictured left) in Prague to purchase the PPE.

Challenges faced The large order of masks set the alumni a logistical challenge. Bente says: “It took us 20 days to get the masks to the Wuhan hospitals. They had to go from Prague to Rome, from Rome to Brussels, and then on to Beijing, which took 10 days. We then had to find a way to get them from Beijing to Wuhan. In the end we secured the help of Alibaba and used their logistics power.” “Many will remember watching the building of a massive mobile hospital in Wuhan, twice as big as the London Nightingale hospital, in just five days. This became the Wuhan University Hospital, so we decided to donate most of the PPE to them. Six thousand masks were delivered here with the remainder going to Wuhan Tongji Hospital.” Phase 3 of the alumni response involved the purchase of further equipment from the Czech supplier. This time, the group purchased 2,600 surgical coats and a further 900 masks at a cost of £5,000. Bente put the alumni support into perspective, saying: “The hospital told us 2,600 surgical protection suits could support all the medical staff for three days and that the donation was a great help.”

The power of connection All but 400 masks made it to the thankful staff in Wuhan’s hospitals. Our Chinese alumni showed how resourceful Business School graduates can be and the power of connection and networking. The success of this campaign was due to Bente and three other alumni – Yizhen Wang, Ziqing Yan and Renhuan Yi – in a WeChat group (Chinese equivalent to WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger), a contact in one of the top two Wuhan hospitals and hundreds of Chinese alumni happy to donate to the fundraising. To keep up-to-date with School, College and University news, visit dunelm.org.uk

News and events

Professor receives ‘Jewel of India’ award Professor Parantap Basu has been presented with the prestigious Hind Rattan for his achievement in the field of macroeconomics.

In January 2020, Professor of Macroeconomics, Parantap Basu, was presented with the prestigious Hind Rattan (a Hindi title meaning ‘Jewel of India’) Award for 2019. The Hind Rattan Award, which is one of the highest awards given to non-resident persons of Indian origin, recognises Professor Basu’s “outstanding services, contribution and achievement” in the field of macroeconomics, especially applications to the Indian macroeconomy. The award was presented by the NonResident Indians (NRI) Welfare Society of India under the guidance of the Government of India at the 39th convention of the NRI Welfare Society in New Delhi. The ceremony took place at the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra of the Ministry of External Affairs on the eve of Indian Republic Day. Senior members of the Government and Supreme Court, international ambassadors and other dignitaries were invited to attend. The medal was given by Smt. Meira Kumar, former union minister and the 15th speaker of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Indian Parliament), and the certificate was presented by H.E. Dr Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Jarwan, the President of the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace, United Arab Emirates. Professor Basu said: “It is a prestigious award and I feel very honoured to be selected from the large Indian diaspora.”

the European Commission to present his climate shock “Professor Basu has paper in January 2020. a keen interest in Professor Basu has a keen understanding the interest in understanding the function of the function of the Indian economy. Indian economy.” He was appointed as a senior consultant to help the National Council of Applied Economic Research in India to develop a macroeconomic model in 2014. His published research includes work in macro-finance, growth and development, and business cycle theory. A recent example of his research into the Indian economy was a paper in the Economic Inquiry investigating why monetary transmission is weak. He was recently appointed as an Associate Editor of the Elsevier journal, Economic Modelling.

Published papers

Macroeconomics The Professor’s key area of research is macroeconomics and over the years, he has made applications of dynamic general equilibrium models to business cycles, growth and finance. The analysis includes the impact of an exogenous shock to the economy on the trajectory of growth and fluctuations of the economy, and the role of government to stabilise such fluctuations. Professor Basu’s research framework analyses topical issues, such as the effects of technology change, climate change, and monetary policy on the aggregate economy. He was invited by

Economy of India: The Hind Rattan was presented by the NonResident Indians Welfare Society.

Other recent papers on the Indian macroeconomy include Technology Shocks and Business Cycles in India (with S. Banerjee, Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2019) and A Monetary Business Model for India (with S. Banerjee and C. Ghate, Economic Inquiry, 2019). Professor Basu also published the article Indian Economy during the Era of Quantitative Easing, (with S. Banerjee, Monetary Policy in India: A Modern Macroeconomic Perspective, Springer India 2016). Professor Basu is currently working on India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act employment policy and the Institute of Labour Economics’ working paper (DP no. 9454) with Kunal Sen, the Director of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics (UNU Wider). Recently, he has been researching the macroeconomic effects of Covid-19 and has written articles in Ideas for India blog and the Millennium Post. To find out more about Professor Basu’s research, visit durham.ac.uk/business/parantap-basu

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

News and events

“In establishing the Wilson Institute, we are seizing a unique opportunity to enrich the forward-thinking enterprise ecology.”

Donation funds new business institute The new Wilson Institute for Small Business will stimulate the creation and growth of small businesses.

In February, the University received a transformative donation from alumnus Charles Wilson and his partner, Dr Rowena Olegario, to launch a new Wilson Institute for Small Business at Durham University Business School. The new Wilson Institute for Small Business will be created as part of a record donation of £7.5 million and will allow the School to provide entrepreneurs and leaders, especially in small and family businesses, with insightful and practical support to develop those businesses to their full potential. It will also have a specific focus on servicing business leaders and business ideas in the local region at every stage of development, supporting ‘start-up, scale-up, and smart-up’ activities.

Issue 8 / 2020

Charles Wilson Charles Wilson was an undergraduate geography student at Durham University and is now the Chief Executive of the UK’s leading food wholesaler, Booker Group. Charles joined Booker in 2005 from Marks and Spencer plc where he was a main board director, and prior to Marks and Spencer, he was a main board director of Arcadia Group plc. Charles was awarded the Sunday Times Business Person of the Year 2017 and the Financial Times Entrepreneur of the Year 2011.

The Donation

The Business School and the region The Wilson Institute will provide the world with yet another window into the North East economy and ensure North East business has a wide-open door into the Business School. Professor Susan Hart, Executive Dean of the School, says: “In establishing the Wilson Institute, we are seizing a unique opportunity to enrich the

forward-thinking enterprise ecology in the region, stimulating business creation, scale-up activity, and beneficial economic development across the North East and beyond.”

Above: The new Wilson Institute will be based within the School.

The Institute is part of a record £7.5 million donation from Charles Wilson and Dr Rowena Olegario, which will also launch the Durham Inspired – North East Scholarships programme, which will support students coming from lowincome backgrounds from the region, and an endowment for the University’s Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience (IHRR) – a research institute co-founded by Wilson in 2004 which supports research and practice in areas related to global natural disasters. Charles Wilson says: “Rowena and I are delighted to be supporting Durham University and the Durham Inspired campaign. Durham is making an incredible difference to the North East, the UK, and within the wider world; we are pleased that our support will assist the University’s objectives in each of these areas.” For more information on how the School works with business, visit durham.ac.uk/business/ corporate-partnerships

News and Events

Professor Michael Mol’s visit Professor of Strategic and International Management Michael Mol (Copenhagen Business School) visited the School in March. He delivered a research seminar to the School’s Centre of Innovation and Technology Management (CITM). The title was ‘How national institutions enable agile firms to undertake business model change’. Michael, an honorary professor with CITM, also delivered a workshop to PhD students on ‘Ten Common Problems in Research Design and how they Severely Hamper the Publishability of Your Work’.

Zoom series for students

Our events The School, as always, has had a wide range of visiting speakers and events and here are just a few from recent months.

Unicorn hunter In January, alumnus Rupert Hoogewerf visited the School to give his inaugural talk as a Professor in Practice. Founder and Lead Researcher of the Hurun Report, Rupert shared his insights with students from MSc Management (International Business) and the Durham MBA candidates. Rupert’s talk, delivered alongside Professor Rob Lynes (Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor Global) and Dr Karena Yan (Associate Professor of Marketing), considered the success of female entrepreneurs in China and the rise of Unicorns (billion-dollar businesses) across the globe.

Consulting conference The inaugural Northern Consulting Conference by the University’s Consulting Society was hosted by Dr Joanna Berry and featured talks by expert consultants, including alumnus Graham Jardine from Accenture, alongside Business School colleague Dr Chris Williams. Talks were followed by a case study competition and concluded with an awards ceremony. The event was attended by over 100 students from six northern universities and Durham Business School students had some success. Congratulations to Kenny Barraclough, BA Accounting and Finance alumnus, and his team.

The Management and Marketing Department ran a new, 10-week Zoom series for PhD and DBA students. Open to all School students and run by the Department’s PhD Lead, Professor Susanne Braun, the aim was to connect PhD and DBA students in Management and Marketing with each other and the academic community at the Business School, while navigating the challenges of learning and conducting research in uncertain times. Each event connected between 30 and 40 PhD and DBA students based in Durham, and all over the world, to discuss topics such as researching during uncertainty (Professor Tyrone Pitsis) and researcher vulnerability (Dr Gretchen Larsen), publishing world-class research (Professors Olga Epitropaki, Mark Learmonth, Yanjun Guan), academic career development (Dr Anna Tilba) and interviews (Professor Christos Tsinopoulos), generating impact (Dr Lara Small), developing theory (Dr Paulo Savaget) and several qualitative and quantitative research methods (Professor Benedetta Cappellini, Dr Arezou Ghiassaleh).

New Honorary Professors appointed “The event was attended In line with the School’s by over 100 students philosophy of providing from six northern students with the opportunity to universities and engage and learn with the best of Durham Business the external business environment, School students three new Honorary Professors have had some been appointed. Durham alumnus success.” David Arkless, Founder and Chairman of ArkLight Consulting and The Future Work Consortium had previous C-suite roles at ManpowerGroup, CDI International and Hewlett-Packard Europe. Alumnus Stephen Withnell, a former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International, is an experienced global corporate finance adviser. And Dr Chris Sier, Chairman of ClearGlass and Chairman of FinTech North, will bring extensive experience Above: Rupert and a network of contacts within the financial Hoogewerf services and fintech industries. (second from left) during For more School news and events, bookmark his visit. durham.ac.uk/business/news-and-events

Durham University Business School / IMPACT

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