Corporate social responsibility at LUMS
For Lancaster University Management School, corporate social responsibility – or CSR - is key. CSR is a thread that runs through many of the things that we do. From the scholarship of many of our world-leading researchers through our teaching of business ethics, to our involvement with the local community.
LUMS joined Business in the Community (BiTC) in November 2002. This signalled the School's commitment to improve its impact on areas of corporate responsibility, such as our interactions with regional community groups and the impact we have as an institution on the environment.
LUMS' involvement with BiTC has seen senior members of staff attending the BiTC Seeing is Believing programme to assess the types of activities we could undertake to improve our community impact. Dean of the School, Professor Sue Cox, spent a day with HR directors and company representatives to discuss the inclusion of CSR in the core curriculum of our programmes. We have also given many of our postgraduate students the opportunity to attend CSR conferences run by BiTC. Increasingly, our students are interested in pursuing aspects of CSR in their careers.
The School has been involved with numerous community groups in the North West region of the UK through research, development and project work. LUMS is fully committed to increasing the impact of this involvement and is working on reducing its environmental impact.
Some recent community projects have involved students - all experienced managers - on our Full-time MBA programme working to help community groups and companies deal with social problems. These include:
- Creating a model that can measure the social value of a rural post office
- investigating with a venture capital firm what is an appropriate method of measurement for investments into the charity sector
- Developing a business and marketing plan for a community canal boat
- Applying the theory of project management to the care and education of severely disabled students
- Producing future development plans for community services that have had council funding withdrawn
In addition we have made a commitment to drive CSR through the core of our taught programmes. We are working with BiTC and member companies to bring this commitment to fruition. We are also developing tailored executive management development programmes which seek to bring companies and communities together whilst at the same time acting as personal development opportunities for the employees involved.
If you would like to more information, please contact Chris Saunders on c.j.saunders@lancaster.ac.uk
