Who are the digital movers and shakers in the world of responsible business scholarship? Today we launch our #thinklist: a quarterly list of the 20 most influential faculty thinkers on issues of responsible business in social media.
There are many different ways in which we identify key influencers in the field of responsible business scholarship. Citation reports and journal rankings tell us which researchers are shaping the field. We attend conferences where inspirational talks are given from accomplished keynotes. We can even turn to the names that are influencing minds in the classroom in the guise of book sales and set texts for courses.
What is often overlooked is the digital life of these influencers: the clicks, the likes, the shares, the reposting. The online engagement of responsible business faculty plays a key role in helping get new thinking and robust scholarship out of the ivory towers and into the hands of the public and practitioners. So which responsible business faculty are active on social media and who is having the most influence? While the Business Ethics Journal Review offer lists of Business Ethics Professors on Twitter and SustMeme500 provides a weekly ranking of the ‘Top 500 influencers’ in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Sustainable, Green and Ethical Business, Socially Responsible Investment across public and private sectors, what we have been missing is a dedicated ranking of the most influential academic thinkers in the area of responsible business. Until now.
What is the #thinklist?
Today we launch our #thinklist: a quarterly list of the 20 most influential faculty thinkers on issues of responsible business in social media. First, we compiled a list of just over one hundred responsible business academics who are active on social media. Using Klout scores, we then whittled down this list to discern the 20 key faculty thinkers in responsible business. Our aim with the #thinklist is to spark conversation and inspiration around how social media influences and supports research activity in the world of responsible business. Aside from its practical utility in helping you to find out who to follow, we also want to use the #thinklist to celebrate the activities of those who are truly shaping our field. In order to identify our key thinkers, our #thinklist involved some key decision rules:
- Thinkers had to be in a full-time academic position in a Business or Management School;
- Thinkers had to be active on social media with a Klout score of above 40;
- Thinkers needed to be regularly tweeting on topics of responsible business.
Find out more about the methodology we used.
Who’s in the Top 5?
In the Top 5 this April, we have:
Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt), Klout Score 82
Jonathan is Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, NYU Stern, with research interests in business ethics, moral psychology, political psychology, complex social systems
Ioannis Ioannou (@iioannoulbs), Klout Score 63
Ioannis is Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School, with research interests in CSR and social performance, sustainability and sustainable reporting, social innovation and entrepreneurship
Peter Strachan (@ProfStrachan), Klout Score 63
Peter is Professor in Energy Policy, Robert Gordon University of Aberdeen, with research interests in energy policy, sustainability and transitions theory.
Marc Ventresca (@marcventresca), Klout Score 63
Marc is Associate Professor of Strategic Management, University of Oxford, with research interests in market and network formation, entrepreneurship, governance, and innovation and technology strategy.
Jeffrey Pfeffer (@JeffreyPfeffer), Klout Score 62
Jeffrey is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behaviour Stanford University, with research interests in relationships between time and money, power and leadership in organizations, economics language and assumptions and their effects on management practice.
What happens now?
Each quarter we will bring you an updated faculty #thinklist with key insights from some of the leading thinkers. Want to find out more about how to become a key CSR digital thinker? Follow our updates. Think you should be on the list? Drop us a line. We are especially keen to identify more scholars active in languages other than English that we might have missed. Each quarter we intend to improve the list and make it even more definitive.
And that’s not all. To accompany our faculty #thinklist, we are also in the process of compiling our centres #thinklist where we will profile the top responsible business research centres across the globe. Stay tuned for more details on this over the summer and sign up to our blog and Twitter handle (@BathCBOS) for regular updates.
Very interesting, great idea, can’t wait to hear more.