Martin Fougère: Corporate responsibility needs to be made useful by non-business actors

Professor Fougère previously worked as associate professor in management and politics at Hanken since 2019. He also has prior international experience from research visits at e.g. Gothenburg University, Cass (now Bayes) Business School and Loughborough University in London. He has been teaching mostly in politics and business, corporate responsibility and sustainability.

“I did my PhD at Hanken and got a position at the School after that. To me, Hanken is a good place to work because it remains in an academic context that is not completely marketized, and where academic freedom still has a meaning. I also appreciate that Hanken is a small independent business school, which means that it’s possible for faculty members to drive initiatives they believe are worth driving”, says Fougère.

Currently Fougère is focusing on questions related to whether and how corporate responsibility and social innovation can be made useful in making human activities more sustainable. Several of his recent and ongoing writings deal explicitly with the question of making corporate responsibility useful, from a pragmatic perspective.

“One argument I am making is that for corporate responsibility to make a positive difference in society, it needs to be made useful through strategic actions by non-business stakeholders, such as activists or legislators. When it comes to social innovation, I am interested in how new types of ‘challenge-driven’ and ‘mission-oriented’ policy can help in steering the innovative capabilities of entrepreneurs to develop sustainable solutions in society”, Fougère points out.

At present Martin Fougère is on research sabbatical until the end of the month. His main project during the sabbatical is a book about what we can learn from documentary films that target particular cases of corporate irresponsibility, as well as about the effects these documentaries are attempting to have in the real world.

Fougère is spending his sabbatical in London. He enjoys the parks in the city, especially Victoria Park in East London and Hampstead Heath (where the picture is taken) in North-West London.

“Near these parks, there are very nice ‘villages’, Hampstead being a particularly lovely area. And I also love spending time in London bookstores, particularly in and around Bloomsbury”, Fougère tells.

Could you tell us a fun fact about yourself?

“I used to write articles for a French-speaking online magazine specialised in sumo wrestling, and our number 1 fan back then was none other than then French President Jacques Chirac. He repeatedly sent us letters to congratulate us for the quality of our magazine, and when he went for an official French visit of Japan, he took one of us (unfortunately not me) with the French delegation, along with a bunch of ministers and CEOs”, Fougère laughs.