Faced with the urgent social and environmental situation, companies must transform their business models and governance to align with sustainable development goals. 

To gain a better understanding of how this sustainability transition works in practice, the Positive Impact Chair, in partnership with NAO Consulting, conducted a quantitative study of seven companies* committed to improving the impact of their activities on all their stakeholders. 

The study aims to inspire those involved in the transition to sustainable practices in business (SMEs and Midcaps). It highlights the diversity of approaches and identifies the main levers and key success factors.

*ARMOR, Camif-Matelsom, Groupe ERAM, La Florentaise, Interface, InVivo Group, Posson Packaging

At first, the scheme was run on a permanent basis only in Nantes, and later in Cherbourg and Angers; 2021 brought further growth, expanding the scheme to three new cities.

• 3,071 women benefitting since 2017
  
• 569 women trained in 2021
  
• 42 workshop sessions in 2021
  
• 6 cities
  
• 57% of women are confident about negotiating their salary 6 months after the workshop compared to 7% before
  
• + 5% increase obtained by the women who participated in the workshop
  
• 98% of participants recommend NegoTraining to friends and family

As a re-cap, the system sprang from a report made by the CSR Platform for the City of Nantes and the Chair, observing that providing women with negotiation assistance drives the reduction of the wage gap between women and men. (28% today in France)

Target by 2025

• Training 10,000 women!
• Deploying the scheme across the whole of France

Slow Fashion Training

Born from its partnership with Groupe Eram, this module combines the Chair’s expertise with that of specialists from the fashion sector (Fashion that Cares and Vertual, Second Sew, the Emergence collective, Datakhi, B-side and KPI 4 Change) and two students from the School. This free training module, open to all, aims to help consumers understand issues of sustainability in fashion and adopt a more responsible approach to consumption.

How does it work? By raising awareness about the industry’s impacts, defining buyer behaviours, and teaching more sustainable practices, the module shows individuals how to participate at their own level in the national and global effort towards a more sustainable fashion, while also enabling them to disseminate the right information.

Florence Touzé, Professor at Audencia SciencesCom and Co-Holder of Audencia’s Positive Impact Chair, describes the basis of the programme: “We are all aware that we have to change our behaviour; and that is something we CAN do, even though it’s not always exciting. But even with the best of intentions, in practice, it’s not that easy… A decryption and support module can give the right advice to adopt the proper approach and enjoy it! ”

Entrepreneurship: Responsible and profitable! 

As part of the City of Nantes’ CSR Platform and in partnership with Sup’porters of Création 44, this CSR awareness module seeks to inform business creators on the subject. Its goals are:

• To inspire by sharing good practices from the region’s success stories
• To provide tools that facilitate the process of building a CSR strategy
• To allow time to think about and brainstorm ideas for a more virtuous strategy
• To interact with entrepreneurs

“This workshop is a very good initiative to help entrepreneurs familiarise themselves with CSR issues and encourage them to take these issues into account when launching their project. Entrepreneurs come out of the workshop equipped and ready, with specific courses of action to adopt, all in an atmosphere of collaboration and constructiveness!” Ameline Bordas, workshop leader

In 2019, in partnership with the Family Business Network, the Chair launched the National Observatory of Family Entrepreneurship. It delivered the results of its second study, administered by OpinionWay in 2021, in the beginning of January. The purpose of this study was to determine the major trends for family businesses in the post-COVID world, grasp their intrinsic characteristics, and identify the points that require special attention and improvement, in order to boost sustainability and growth. 

By comparing the answers of managers of family and non-family businesses to those of 2019, the results highlight the constants as well as the changes that occurred over the course of the crisis.  Family businesses managed to weather the COVID crisis successfully, retaining full confidence in the future, by comparison to 2019. Their resilience has brought even greater focus on innovation than in 2019 and even deeper reflection on CSR, along with the renewal of some of their governance practices.

To find out more about the results of the Observatory’s second edition, view the full report.

The replay also gives you an overview of some of the key figures and lessons learned from this new study.

This year, in partnership with Wenextgen, the Family Entrepreneurship & Society Chair launched two series of podcasts about family entrepreneurship. 

As its name suggests, “Génération Repreneurs”, (literally translated as Takeover Generation) or NextGen in our common jargon, gives the floor to (future) buyers of family businesses; in other words, to the generation that takes over a family business. Is it easy to take over from your parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents? Do NextGen want to take over the family business or not, and why? Are there secrets specific to multigenerational family businesses? This series of podcasts attempts to provide answers to these questions.

“Take The Lead” is a podcast series about the clichés that plague family businesses today. With family business experts, these podcasts deconstruct preconceived ideas and show the diversity of family businesses and their variety of ambitions, beyond the mere transmission of the business. Our interviews discuss issues such as job preservation, digital transition, and growth.

WeNextGen Podcast  // Take The Lead Podcasts 

February 2021: 

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre was named Editor-in-Chief of the magazine “Entrepreneurship & Regional Development – An International Journal”. The occasion also brought two new members of Audencia to the journal’s editorial team: Natalia Vershinina as Associate Editor and Vincent Lefebvre as Social Media Editor. Ranked among the world’s best academic journals in the field of entrepreneurship (3* in ABS ranking), its mission is to publish research that contributes to theoretical development in the field; the studies selected are rigorous and brave in terms both of theory and methodology.

March 2021: 

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre, professor and holder of the Chair published an analysis of gender practices in the context of family succession in Organization Studies, a journal rated four stars in ABS ranking. This publication contributes to the international scope of the Chair’s research work. 

Find out more

June 2021: 

Best Paper Award

• Babson College Bertarelli Family Award presented Miruna Radu-Lefebvre with the 2020 Best Family Entrepreneurship Paper Award at Babson College Entrepreneurship Research
• Conference (BCERC), for her article “Navigating CEO Succession Conflicts: Social Skills As Paradox Management Tools” co-written with Hedi YEZZA, Didier CHABAUD and Céline BARREDY

November 2021: 

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre, Chair holder, and Natalia Vershinina, Chair member, were invited to the RENT conference to present their research work on the following topics: 

• “Family business research: Dismantling women’s (in)visibility discourse” (Natalia Vershinina and Miruna Radu-Lefebvre) 
• “Doing context(s) together: a cross-level longitudinal study of mentoring as situated relational practice” (Noreen O’Shea, Renaud Redien-Collot and Miruna Radu-Lefebvre) 

The RENT conference is known as Europe’s top entrepreneurship research conference and brings together around 250 leading academics in the field each year to present and discuss cutting-edge research in a wide variety of topics related to entrepreneurship.

Through interactions with Audencia students, the REALITIES Chair – Bringing Territorial Intelligence to Life aims to help city stakeholders achieve the required transformation.

In 2021, six students from Audencia’s Master for Energy Transition Specialising in Stakeholders tackled the dilemma between awareness of the climate emergency and the economic reality of households. 

Faced with the urgency of reducing construction’s carbon footprint while at the same time keeping prices down for buyers, real estate developers have a challenge on their hands: To build with a low carbon footprint while ensuring that this does not have too great an impact on the buying price. The question is: How can we promote this commitment to the climate and the environment to future customers (individuals or investors) when marketing housing programmes and, in the longer term, when reselling? For six months, the students developed tools and a teaching method to explain the advantages of these more responsible accommodations to buyers and incite them to make a commitment both at the time of the purchase and over the longer term.

The Chair is elaborating a research programme to identify the needs and problems encountered by elected officials and private actors in the development of major urban projects. What are the key success factors of the public/private relationship in the context of major urban projects? How to build a relationship of trust over time? This long-term research work aims to help regions engineer this type of project.

In 2021, the Chair’s researchers carried out a survey on elected officials, gathering information about their needs, their practices, and their relationship to training. The survey pinpointed subjects on which elected officials and service technicians could benefit from gaining knowledge and, importantly, the best ways to access such knowledge, through methods that would be compatible with exercising official mandates. The results of this work will enable the Chair’s team to design training modules that fit the needs of these key players in creating the city.

For Nantes Digital Week, the Chair partnered up with think-tank La Villa Numéris to hold a conference about two issues that concern medium-sized towns and cities: Smart cities and urban farming, a kind of agriculture that transforms cities.

While it is important to improve and optimise urban services (water, energy, waste, air quality, mobility, etc.) and to enrich dialogue with citizens in order to advance the environmental transition, it is also essential to reflect on the dangers that a sanitised and automated city could present; a city that could become apolitical. This conference offers wider perspectives, presenting many examples of projects carried out by cities to create truly smart regions that put people and the general public interest first.

Trade and sustainability: New designs, new future for the region

In 2021, for the first time, Ladyss and Institut Pour la Ville are holding their annual conference in Nantes, in partnership with the Positive Impact Chair and the REALITES Chair – Audiencia’s Bringing Territorial Intelligence to Life. This event is about the relations between living together harmoniously, ecological transitions and commerce. It offers an opportunity to consider how environmental and social issues affect the functions and forms of commerce in the city, along with the possibility of change to achieve sustainability. 

The project concerns the creation of an observatory to better understand the purchasing information systems market. This observatory is a centre for sharing experiences and knowledge so as to provide a clearer view on the Purchasing IS market and current trends.

One of the Sirius project’s goals is to develop, test, and publish a classification model for Purchasing Information Systems. In 2021, the project team worked on the first classification phase, which included extending the classification criteria and bringing to light the dynamics of the market for Purchasing IS. The long-term aim is to use this model as a tool for maintaining and expanding the knowledge base for the Purchasing IS market.

In 2021, the Chair was commissioned to this project by the B4IG incubator, a coalition of 36 large international companies promoting inclusive growth, on DANONE’s initiative under the OECD.

The purpose of this collaboration with B4IG is twofold: To work on the definition of Inclusive Sourcing upheld by B4IG by providing useful academic references; and to enrich the inclusive sourcing model by identifying new indicators for measuring commitment to an inclusive sourcing approach.

For Nantes Digital Week 2021, the Chair held a conference on Digitalisation of Purchasing: The task of choosing the right tools. 

In spite the Covid-19 crisis, the digital transformation of purchasing remains a priority for companies. In theory, buyers have access to new digital solutions and analytical capabilities that range from lower sourcing risks to an unprecedented level of transparency in identifying remote suppliers. Nonetheless, these new digital tools bring their share of constraints and limits. The data handled by buyers remains unstructured; purchasing IS are sometimes complex to integrate; some are even difficult to use.

The conference takes a thorough look at the Purchasing IS market and the complications that corporate purchasing departments encounter in handling these tools.

As part of a continuous improvement process, Malakoff Humanis wishes to increase the skills of their Business Network employees. Employees must indeed be trained at the earliest opportunity, to be ready to perform Action Sociale Retraite (ASR) services in companies. Some need assistance to manage their activities in a new occupation, particularly in the context of business meetings. In view of this, Audencia and Malakoff Humanis decided to join forces, blending their areas of expertise in April 2021 to come up with an expanded ‘toolbox’ specifically designed to help employees during these meetings.