MSCA-IF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Business Organization.

Professor Javier Aguilera-Caracuel, from the Department of Business Organization at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) in 2020 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (more information: http://sl.ugr.es/0aNV).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the UGR’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also a leading institution in research, located in the top 5/10 of Spanish universities by a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, or international funding.

UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking (http://sl.ugr.es/0aw0). The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places the UGR in 268th position in the world and as the 4th highest ranked University in Spain, reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings, the UGR is outstanding in Documentation (ranked in the 36th in the world) or Food science technology (ranked 37th in the world), Mathematics and Computer Science (ranked among the top 76-100 in the world).

The UGR has 4 researchers at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list in the Computer Science area. With regard to broader subject fields, the UGR is ranked in 45th position in the universities worldwide in the discipline of Engineering. It is also well recognized for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i) taking 36th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe. Internationally, we bet decidedly by our participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last two Framework Programmes, the UGR has obtained a total of 66 projects, with total funding of 18.02 million euros, and for H2020, 80 projects with total funding around 20.6 million euros.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group

ISDE (https://isde.ugr.es/) is a research group mainly focused on relevant topics related to organizational innovation and sustainability. Our holistic orientation allows us a better comprehension about how managers and directors may improve the organizations’ and regions’ potential to protect the natural environment. Our purpose is to find managerial solutions with potential to integrate both competitive and social responsible issues through different types of organizational innovations.

ISDE includes more than 30 experts from different areas, all of them highly connected with organizations’ innovation and corporate social responsibility. 20 of our members are doctors with a widely recognized carrier and publications in top-tier journals. Our goal is to create knowledge to improve the economic and environmental development. Our interests are internationally oriented towards the equilibrium between economic and environmental progresses.

ISDE was created at the University of Granada (Spain). The majority of its experts do teaching here. This situation allows us to receive new, continuous and rich flows of knowledge and develop a rigorous methodology. These aspects are integrated as the main “raison d’ être” of the organization in order to create solid bridges between a quality research and business reality through formation, diffusion and sensibility. Therefore, we develop our projects thinking about how useful they can be for researchers, public and private agents, governments, private organizations and directors.

The structure of ISDE is horizontal. Indeed, different teams are created in order to develop the different projects according to the area of interest and the specialization of each member of the research group. Each project has its own coordinator as well. Moreover, ISDE has a small office for administrative purposes. Dr. Eulogio Cordón Pozo is the Director of ISDE and coordinates the administrative tasks and the global analyses of all the projects.

ISDE is an organization recognized by the Andalusia Regional Government (Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa de la Junta de Andalucía), different national and international institutions and collaborates with different public and private agents.

Project description

In recent decades, both academics and managers have become very interested in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. Organizations have been increasingly subjected to tremendous pressure to maximize productivity and profitability while experiencing constant demand from consumers, suppliers, employees, investors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and public powers to invest in the development and implementation of CSR practices. Firms are thus concerned not only with economic issues but also with the social impacts of their activities. Indeed, a firm can achieve success through the implementation of good corporate governance practices and by maintaining strong relationships with society and the environment.

Corporate environmental management has been considered one of the most important transformations in the business field over the past few decades (Hartmann & Vachon, 2018). During the last years, the world has been experiencing the consequences of severe pollution and climate change, increasing organizations' environmental awareness of the importance of transforming production activities into environmentally friendly and profitable businesses. As companies seek to improve their environmental performance to develop competitive advantages, environmental management becomes a strategic issue. Thus, proactive environmental strategies are not just a strategy of risk management in response to corporate scandals or pressures from stakeholders. It is also a valuable competency that can bring firms various business benefits.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) have become important players in the fields of CSR and environmental management (Duque Grisales, Aguilera-Caracuel, Guerrero-Villegas & García-Sánchez, 2019). Because of the characteristics of MNEs, these corporations are considered capable of driving environmental changes as they conduct operations in more than one market, a situation that lets them have an impact on more than one society. Some international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) or International Labor Organization (ILO), hold that MNEs have a privileged position in helping improve these aspects, often in collaboration with institutions, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Taking into account the high social and environmental impacts of MNEs in society both at the local and international levels, it is highly relevant to provide an integrative overview of current knowledge on the drivers and consequences of MNE CSR and environmental strategies, especially those MNEs from developing regions (Emerging Market Multinationals).

Research Area

Economic Sciences (ECO)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor Javier Aguilera-Caracuel (javieraguilera@ugr.es):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)