Prof. Ioannou is a strategy scholar whose research focuses on Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). More specifically, he seeks to understand whether, how, and the extent to which the modern business organization contributes towards building a sustainable future. His academic work evolves around two main themes: a) understanding how the broader investment community perceives, evaluates and reacts to corporate engagement with, and integration of, environmental and social issues into strategy and b) understanding the multiple and multilevel factors that may affect the corporate decision to adopt environmentally and socially responsible strategies.
Prof. Ioannou regularly publishes in top-tier peer-reviewed academic journals including the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Management Science, Organization Science, The Accounting Review and the Journal of International Business Studies and indeed, his work is widely cited. Due to the popularity and impact of his research, he consistently ranks in the top 10% authors on the social science research network. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal and in 2015 received an Outstanding Editorial Board Member Award for his service. He is also a Senior Editor for Organization & Environment.
In 2016, Prof. Ioannou was awarded the 2016 ARCS Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award; an award that recognises a scholar in the area of corporate sustainability who is likely to make significant contributions to the advancement of corporate sustainability scholarship. At the same event, Prof. Ioannou’s work with R. Durand and O. Hawn received the 2016 ARCS Outstanding Paper Award.
He is also very active on social media and a frequent contributor to articles in the popular and managerial press including outlets such as the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Guardian, BBC, Le Monde, and Forbes. In further recognition of his impactful work, Prof. Ioannou has been shortlisted for the Future Thinker Award of Thinkers50, the first-ever global ranking of management thinkers whose mission is to recognize ideas that have the power to change the world. Prof. Ioannou’s has also been recognized by various rankings as one of the top social media influencers around the world for issues of responsible business and sustainability.
A key contribution of his work is to theorize about and provide empirical evidence for the emergence of the “responsible organization” (in a recent study published in Management Science, with G. Serafeim and B. Eccles). In this piece of work, Ioannou and co-authors provide solid evidence regarding significant long-term outperformance of this type of organization compared to the traditional corporate form, both in terms of operating as well as stock market performance.
In a more recent study with C. Flammer, Prof. Ioannou explores the impact of the Great Recession on long-term corporate strategies, revealing the critical role of investments in innovation and stakeholder relations during times of crisis. Specifically, the findings show that during the Great Recession, companies significantly reduced their workforce and capital expenditures. Yet, they maintained the same level of investments in R&D and CSR in an attempt to remain competitive during (and after) turbulent times.
His work on CSR and Access to Finance, with G. Serafeim and B. Cheng, has received the Best Paper Award at the Annual Academic Conference of the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment as well as the Emerald Citations of Excellence 2017 Award. His work with O.Hawn received the Best Paper Award from the Social Issues in Management division of the Academy of Management and was published in the Best Paper Proceedings of the 2012 Academy of Management (AOM) meeting. Recently, his paper with O. Hawn and R. Durand presenting a general model of corporate responses to normative pressures as they relate to socio-environmental issues was published in the 2016 AOM Best Paper Proceedings. Previously Prof. Ioannou had two more papers published in the AOM Best Paper Proceedings: his dissertation work on the impact of spinoffs on their parent companies in the US automobile industry (2009), and a paper with G. Serafeim on the Impact of CSR on Investment Recommendations (2010).
Prof. Ioannou graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, majoring in Economics and Mathematics and holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University and the Harvard Business School. He joined LBS in 2009 as an Assistant Professor and he is currently an Associate Professor with tenure. He has taught on the MBA and EMBA Core Strategy courses at LBS, and several other degree programs such as the Masters in Finance degree, the Emerging Leaders Program and other senior executive programs, including the Senior Executive Programme (SEP). He is a regular contributor to multiple LBS executive education programmes including modules on Responsible Business and Sustainability.
Prof. Ioannou has presented his research at many academic conferences, and universities around the world, and also, he is very often invited to deliver keynote speeches on issues of responsible management and sustainability at numerous high-profile events and conferences globally. He is a member of the UK Network Rail’s External Transparency Challenge Panel and the Advisory Board of Ethical Corporation. Prof. Ioannou is also a member of the World Economic Forum Expert Network with expertise in the area of Sustainable Development.
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