A premiere since the creation of the Prix de Woot ! We are proud to present the 2020 virtual edition, taking place on Tuesday 10 November, from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm.
Originally scheduled last March, the 6th edition of the Philippe de Woot International Award Ceremony had to be postponed.
The evolution of the sanitary situation still does not allow us to have the privilege of welcoming you personally at HEC Liège.
Therefore we invite you to register here and meet our guest speaker, Rob Hopkins, as well as the laureates 2020 by videoconference during a high quality broadcast.
PROGRAM
5.30 pm
Virtual Room opening
6.00 pm
Welcome by Prof. Wilfried NIESSEN, Director General and Dean,
HEC Liège Management School - University of Liège
6.10 pm
Tribute to Philippe de Woot, by Charles de LIEDEKERKE,
Founder of the Philippe de Woot Award
6.15 pm
« Teaching CSR: a path to sustainable development »
by Prof. Valérie SWAEN, Louvain School of Management, UCLouvain
6.25 pm
Award nominees projects addresses
- Berthelsen Rasmus Grand and Caceres Larsen Daniel Asger, Copenhagen Business School - Denmark
"Collaborative Quest for Higher Yields: A conceptual Framework for Evaluating Market-Driven Development Interventions by Cross-sector Partnerships" - Didelot Line, ICHEC - Belgium
"How can migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers through skill development and employment be integrated in Greek society by means of a centre for displaced persons in Athens, Greece? The ANKAA Project" - Thirion Isaline, HEC Liège - Belgium
"How to drive impact performance in an impact-first investment fund, considering an impact-based financial reward scheme in particular?"
More info about the Nominees
Berthelsen Rasmus Grand and Caceres Larsen Daniel Asger, Copenhagen Business School - Denmark
"Collaborative Quest for Higher Yields: A conceptual Framework for Evaluating Market-Driven Development Interventions by Cross-sector Partnerships"
Abstract :This thesis contributes to the emerging field of literature on market-driven development cooperation by looking into cross-sector partnerships as a policy tool for rural development interventions. Taking offset in the academic debate on determinants of economic development, we identify three strands of theory, which guide the formation of a conceptual framework: Cross-sector Partnerships, Base-of-the-Pyramid, and the Drivers of Change framework. Following a theory-based evaluation approach, we rely on these theories to identify the most important factors of success for market-driven rural development interventions at the micro-level. We demonstrate the empirical relevance of this framework by applying it to an in-depth case study of an agricultural development intervention undertaken between the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CARE and Chr. Hansen. We establish that the empirical findings demonstrate the adequacy of combining these three strands of theory to evaluate cross-sector partnerships as an emerging type of development assistance and foreign investment. Rooted in the contemporary debate on collaborative approaches to economic development, accelerated by the adoption of the SDGs, we argue that market-driven development cooperation, although narrow in scope, is an innovative policy tool to employ private sector capital and technology more strategically in sustainable development. The conceptual framework presented in this thesis is a useful tool to evaluate such interventions.
Didelot Line, ICHEC - Belgium
"How can migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers through skill development and employment be integrated in Greek society by means of a centre for displaced persons in Athens, Greece? The ANKAA Project"
Abstract: In 2015, the influx of refugees from Turkey to Greece experienced an unprecedented increase which was broadcasted internationally as a crisis in need of urgent support.Billions of euro have been allocated to this situation, but what happens when the funding stops, and interest dwindles?What about the needs of the local community whose livelihoods have also suffered considerably from the country’s financial crisis? Involved in the refugee crisis since January 2016, five volunteers founded “ANKAA Project”, a non-profit organization active in Greece.The ANKAA Project aims to facilitate inclusion in the Athens community by breaking the cycle of disempowerment for displaced people. People are provided with the tools to create their own sustainable solutions for rebuilding their lives in a dignified and personal manner.Together with participants, a personally tailored programme gets created supported by a collaborative network and self-ledwork spaces to target skill development, vocational training, language, entrepreneurship, education and employment opportunities. ANKAA works in co-construction with its partners and participants, as the entire project is supported by a strong network of private individuals, groups, organizations, businesses and educational institutions. The vocational training programme is open to refugees, asylum seekers, Greeks or any other member of the Athens community. This approach is innovative and rare among other actors active in Greece.
Thirion Isaline, HEC Liège - Belgium
"How to drive impact performance in an impact-first investment fund, considering an impact-based financial reward scheme in particular?"
Abstract: Impact fund managers pursue investments generating social and/or environmental impact alongside financial returns. Similarly to their counterparts in traditional Private Equity and Venture Capital funds, they are typically entitled to a fixed compensation for running the fund, as well as a variable part conditioned upon the fund’s performance.Yet whilst traditional variable compensation schemes typically reward fund managers for their financial performance, the framework for impact funds should, in line with their fundamental impact strategy, incentivise fund managers on the impact performance as well. Some pioneer impact funds have designed innovative impact-based reward structures, however the concept is very novel and was never well documented. Therefore, this research investigate show a variable compensation scheme for fund managers might be set up, in which the fund’s impact performance would be appropriately weighted. Based on primary data collected via interviews with key players of the impact field, we identify potential frameworks to structure an impact-based financial reward scheme. Further, we find that it may be a valuable scheme as it ensures fund manager’s commitment to impact, to the extent that it is based on a sufficiently reliable impact assessment methodology and appropriately mitigates risks related to impact-based incentives.
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Rasmus Grand |
Larsen Daniel Asger CACERES Copenhagen Business School Denmark |
Line DIDELOT ICHEC Belgium |
Isaline THIRION HEC Liège Belgium |
6.55 pm
Announcement of the winner of the 6th Philippe de Woot Award
7.00 pm
«From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want»
Keynote Speech by Rob HOPKINS, Founder and figurehead of the Transition movement
More info about Rob HOPKINS
Rob Hopkins is a cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author of The Power of Just Doing Stuff, The Transition Handbook, and The Transition Companion. In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Après Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events.
An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, and a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project.
He blogs at transtionnetwork.org and robhopkins.net and tweets at @robintransition.
7.15 pm
Online Q&A session with Keynote speaker, Rob Hopkins
7.30 pm
Closing Speech, by Prof. Virginie Xhauflair, HEC Liège Management School - University of Liège
2020 Philippe de Woot preselected Candidates
Bruffaerts Claudia (Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain School of Management - Belgium)
Title of the thesis : L'intégration des Sustainable Development Goals dans un rapport développement durable. Analyse exploratoire des meilleures pratiques
Abstract: As a matter of fact, the trend of this 21st century is sustainable development and corporate social responsibility.It was precisely in this context that in September 2015 the Member States of the United Nations approved their agenda for 2030 and the 17 objectives -better known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).In addition to addressing the new challenges of our society, the SDGs are becoming a new framework for firms to review their activities and communication in terms of sustainable development. Integrating SDGs has many benefits but also involves risks, in particular accusations of SDG washing.The subject of our research is therefore highly relevant;"How can an enterprise ensure the credibility of the integration of SDGs in its sustainable development report?”. Answering this question involves firstly the identification of the factors impacting the credibility of the SDG reporting, and, secondly, the identification of best practices across different sustainable reports.
Daniel Asger Caceres Larsen and Rasmus Grand Berthelsen (Copenhagen Business School - Denmark)
Title of the thesis: Collaborative Quest for Higher Yields: A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Market-Driven Development Interventions byCross-Sector Partnerships
Abstract :This thesis contributes to the emerging field of literature on market-driven development cooperation by looking into cross-sector partnerships as a policy tool for rural development interventions. Taking offset in the academic debate on determinants of economic development, we identify three strands of theory, which guide the formation of a conceptual framework: Cross-sector Partnerships, Base-of-the-Pyramid, and the Drivers of Change framework. Following a theory-based evaluation approach, we rely on these theories to identify the most important factors of success for market-driven rural development interventions at the micro-level. We demonstrate the empirical relevance of this framework by applying it to an in-depth case study of an agricultural development intervention undertaken between the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CARE and Chr. Hansen. We establish that the empirical findings demonstrate the adequacy of combining these three strands of theory to evaluate cross-sector partnerships as an emerging type of development assistance and foreign investment. Rooted in the contemporary debate on collaborative approaches to economic development, accelerated by the adoption of the SDGs, we argue that market-driven development cooperation, although narrow in scope, is an innovative policy tool to employ private sector capital and technology more strategically in sustainable development. The conceptual framework presented in this thesis is a useful tool to evaluate such interventions.
Didelot Line (ICHEC - Belgium)
Title of the thesis: How can migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers through skill development and employment be integrated in Greek society by means of a centre for displaced persons in Athens,Greece? The ANKAA Project
Abstract: In 2015, the influx of refugees from Turkey to Greece experienced an unprecedented increase which was broadcasted internationally as a crisis in need of urgent support.Billions of euro have been allocated to this situation, but what happens when the funding stops, and interest dwindles?What about the needs of the local community whose livelihoods have also suffered considerably from the country’s financial crisis? Involved in the refugee crisis since January 2016, five volunteers founded “ANKAA Project”, a non-profit organization active in Greece.The ANKAA Project aims to facilitate inclusion in the Athens community by breaking the cycle of disempowerment for displaced people. People are provided with the tools to create their own sustainable solutions for rebuilding their lives in a dignified and personal manner.Together with participants, a personally tailored programme gets created supported by a collaborative network and self-ledwork spaces to target skill development, vocational training, language, entrepreneurship, education and employment opportunities. ANKAA works in co-construction with its partners and participants, as the entire project is supported by a strong network of private individuals, groups, organizations, businesses and educational institutions. The vocational training programme is open to refugees, asylum seekers, Greeks or any other member of the Athens community. This approach is innovative and rare among other actors active in Greece.
D. J Houf (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam – The Netherlands)
Title of the thesis: The Influence of Country Sustainability on Stock Market Reaction to Sustainable News
Abstract: The relation between corporate social performance and the company’s financial performance has played a central part in recent discussions between managers, investors, policy makers, and academia. The role of a company has been questioned and there are generally two opposing streams, those who believe that companies have ultimate responsibility to its shareholders and should therefore seek to maximize their wealth, and those who believe that companies should benefit all of its stakeholders instead. Many different papers sought to identify the perspective of shareholders on the matter by analysing stock market response to sustainable news but came with limitations and contradicting results. In this paper, however, I strive to overcome these limitations and perform an event study on over 160,000 events related to either positive or negative ESG-news. Subsequently, the sustainable influence of the country of incorporation on this market reaction is tested, whilst countries that are in general more progressed in sustainability may respond differently than countries ranking worse. The results indicate that there is indeed a significant positive response to positive ESG news and a significant negative reaction to negative news. Country sustainability is not found to have a significant effect.
Karsten Jasper (University of Amsterdam – The Netherlands)
Title of the thesis: Blueprints for a Better World: Exploring Patterns and the Effectiveness in Corporate Approaches towards the Sustainable Development Goals
Abstract: The incentive of this exploratory study was the fact that companies have been called up to take proactive action on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but seem to be underperforming. Why this is the case and how companies are in fact approaching the SDGs has not been subjected to rigorous scientific research yet and therefore this study develops a framework of corporate SDG approaches. This framework is applied in practice by mapping the industry-leading companies regarding sustainability into one of the nine SDG approaches. Thereafter, semi-structured interviews with sustainability managers were performed to understand what drives companies to take a certain approach and what the influence of the approaches is on making an actual substantive impact on achieving the SDGs. The results show multiple trends that can explain why companies are underperforming on achieving the SDGs. Firstly, companies are mainly using the SDGs as reporting framework to translate their already existing sustainability practices. Furthermore, most companies prioritize the so called ‘material’ SDGs, while the UN specifically states that the SDGs are interlinked and indivisible, and should thus not be prioritized. Lastly, this study shows that companies in general found it difficult to integrate the SDGs completely into their business.
Thirion Isaline (Université de Liège, HEC Liège - Belgium)
Title of the thesis: How to drive impact performance in an impact-first investment fund, considering an impact-based financial reward scheme in particular?
Abstract: Impact fund managers pursue investments generating social and/or environmental impact alongside financial returns. Similarly to their counterparts in traditional Private Equity and Venture Capital funds, they are typically entitled to a fixed compensation for running the fund, as well as a variable part conditioned upon the fund’s performance.Yet whilst traditional variable compensation schemes typically reward fund managers for their financial performance, the framework for impact funds should, in line with their fundamental impact strategy, incentivise fund managers on the impact performance as well. Some pioneer impact funds have designed innovative impact-based reward structures, however the concept is very novel and was never well documented. Therefore, this research investigate show a variable compensation scheme for fund managers might be set up, in which the fund’s impact performance would be appropriately weighted. Based on primary data collected via interviews with key players of the impact field, we identify potential frameworks to structure an impact-based financial reward scheme. Further, we find that it may be a valuable scheme as it ensures fund manager’s commitment to impact, to the extent that it is based on a sufficiently reliable impact assessment methodology and appropriately mitigates risks related to impact-based incentives.
Composition of the 2020 Philippe de Woot Academic Jury
Maud BAY HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium
Djida BOUNAZEF HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium
Karine CHARRY LSM-UCLouvain, Belgium
Cécile DELCOURT HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium
Frédéric DUFAYS KUL, Belgium
Christel DUMAS ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium
Manal EL ABBOUBI Université Mohamed 5 Agdal, Morocco
Axel GOSSERIES UCLouvain - LSM, Belgium
Corentin HERICHER UCLouvain - LSM, Belgium
Julie HERMANS UCLouvain - LSM, Belgium
Brigitte HUDLOT ICHEC, Belgium
Marek HUDON ULB Solvay, Belgium
Benjamin HUYBRECHTS EM Lyon/HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium/France
Catherine JANSSEN IESEG School of Management, Belgium
Jessica LIEBERMAN UCLouvain - LSM, Belgium
Sabine LIMBOURG HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium
Céline LOUCHE Audencia Business School, France
François MAON IESEG School of Management, France
Sybille MERTENS HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium
Don MINDAY Rennes School of Business, France
Lars MORATIS Antwerp Management School, Belgium
Mikael PETITJEAN LSM - UCLouvain/ IESEG Management School, Belgium/France
Coline RUWET ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium
André SOBCZAK Audencia Business School, France
Valérie SWAEN LSM-UCLouvain, Belgium
Joelle VANHAMME EDHEC Business School, France
Luc VAN LIEDEKERKE Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium
Virginie XHAUFLAIR HEC Liège - ULiège, Belgium
Thierry ZINTZ UCLouvain - Faculté des Sciences de la Motricité, Belgium
Presidents of the academic jury: Virginie Xhauflair, HEC Liège Management School - University of Liège, Belgium and Valérie Swaen LSM-UCLouvain, Belgium
Composition of the 2020 Philippe de Woot Stakeholders Jury
Michel BANDE EABIS
Jacques CRAHAY UWE, Cosucra
Marie D’HUART Cap Conseil
Eglantine EECKHOUT The Shift
Stéphanie FELLEN Smart2Circle
Dirk Le Roy Sustenuto
Deirdre MAES Green Office KU Leuven
Olivier MARQUET CLA of the Belgian SRI Label
Lettemieke MULDER Enactus Belgium
Jan NOTERDAEME CSR Europe
Marcello PALAZZI B Lab Europe
Sarah SCHESLTRAETE Sociale Innovatie Fabriek
Jacques SPELKENS Engie
Anne VANDENHEDEN Spadel
Cécile VAN DE WEERDT Green Office ULiège
Michel WASHER Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer, Solvay
Presidents of the stakeholders jury: Virginie Xhauflair, HEC Liège Management School - University of Liège, Belgium and Valérie Swaen LSM-UCLouvain, Belgium
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