The newly appointed professor has been conducting research in the field of corporate sustainability and business ethics throughout his academic career. His primary research interest focuses on corporate sustainability through cross-sector interactions. More specifically, his research explores sustainability partnerships and alliances involving government, the corporate sector and civil society. He coordinates a number of research projects in this field. Kourula has also published extensively in peer-reviewed journals.

Teaching

Kourula’s teaching will continue to focus on corporate sustainability and ethics. He teaches courses such as ‘Ethics and the Future of Business’ and ‘Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustainability’. ‘These are important themes for students. Sustainability cuts to the essence of the challenges businesses are facing today and will increasingly face in the future. Whether we talk about climate change, pandemics, biodiversity or geopolitics, we all benefit from learning the tools and approaches that sustainable thinking and practice have to offer’, says Kourula. He has additionally supervised several master’s theses and he has been elected Lecturer of the Year six times across different teaching programmes, including the Van der Schroeff award in 2016.

About Arno Kourula

Kourula obtained his PhD from the Aalto University School of Business in Finland in 2009. The title of his dissertation was Company Engagement with Nongovernmental Organizations from a Corporate Responsibility Perspective. Between 2010 and 2015, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University and Fellow at the Copenhagen Business School. He joined the Amsterdam Business School in 2012. As a lecturer, he has been active in the development of new courses and programmes. In 2020 he co-founded the Sustainability Honours Programme for students enrolled in the MSc Business Administration. Since 2017 he has been the director and later co-director of the ABS Sustainability Initiative.