Responsible Organising

Responsible Organising (RO) corresponds to fields of research on social and environmental responsibility, including gender, diversity, and sustainability, both in organisations and in terms of organisational impacts on society.

In line with Hanken’s strategy for research, RO encourages “co-operation between Hanken’s competence centres on projects with social impact” (Hanken 2025 sub-strategy on research), as it focuses on the synergistic intersections between three research institutes CCR (Centre for Corporate Responsibility), GODESS (Gender, Organization, Diversity, Equality and Social Sustainability in Transnational Times) and HUMLOG (the Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute). 

Hanken was elected UN PRME Champion school for 2018, signaling its global leadership role in responsibility and sustainability, which includes a commitment to “take transformative action towards the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals across curriculum, research and partnerships.” RO sediments these strategic international research commitments.

RESPONSIBLE: Common for RO research is a rejection of the idea that moral concerns and business decisions are separate. Instead, within RO ethics/morality and business as inseparable, intertwined, and interconnected. At the same time recognising the limits of “responsible” as signifier, our research can raise questions and give some answers, while recognising the complexity, multifacetedness, and intersectionality of societal inequalities.

ORGANISING: RO focuses on “organising” rather than “organisation”, with a majority of research denoting the performativity of responsibility - how people do things and organise for transformative action. Examples of this include the organising of firms and other societal actors, and the organising of supply chains and networks across space.