The Philippe de Woot Award Ceremony 2020

Results

mosaic_2_2020

HEC Liège-School of Management of the University of Liège hosted the 6th Philippe de Woot International Award Ceremony. Given the sanitary conditions, this 2020 edition, initially planned for last March, took place virtually on November 10th. This was a first since the creation of the Prize 10 years ago.

This year’s Prize was awarded to LINE DIDELOT, a graduate of ICHEC, for her thesis entitled: « How can migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers through skill development and employment be integrated in Greek society by means of a centre for displaced persons in Athens, Greece? The ANKAA Project« .

« The jury particularly appreciated the fact that the societal challenge of migration management is being approached from the original perspective of social entrepreneurship organizational models. It also underlined the relevance of the systemic approach deployed in the thesis, and its concrete and particularly inspiring results, » emphasized Virginie Xhauflair, co-chair of the juries.

The laureate wins a prize of 3,000 euros, half of which will be invested in an environmental or social project of her choice. This logically went to the ANKAA project.

« Winning the Philippe de Woot Prize was a very nice surprise, » Line said. « I am particularly happy and proud for this recognition of my graduate thesis, which allows me to highlight a current and crucial concern: migration and the importance of social inclusion ».

Organization and nominees

The 6 selected candidates

Applications have been examined in two steps:

First by the academic jury
  • Maud BAY – HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium
  • Djida BOUNAZEF – HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium
  • Karine CHARRY – LSM-UCLouvain, Belgium
  • Cécile DELCOURT – HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium
  • Frédéric DUFAYS – KUL, Belgium
  • Christel DUMAS – – ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium
  • Manal EL ABBOUBI – Université Mohamed 5 Agdal, Morocco
  • Axel GOSSERIES – UCLouvain, Belgium
  • Corentin HERICHER – UCLouvain – LSM, Belgium
  • Julie HERMANS – UCLouvain – LSM, Belgium
  • Brigitte HUDLOT – ICHEC, Belgium
  • Marek HUDON – ULB Solvay, Belgium
  • Benjamin HUYBRECHTS EM – Lyon/HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium/France
  • Catherine JANSSEN – ULB/Solvay, Belgium
  • Jessica LIEBERMAN – UCLouvain – LSM, Belgium
  • Sabine LIMBOURG – HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium
  • Céline LOUCHE – Audencia Business School, France
  • François MAON – IESEG School of Management, France
  • Sybille MERTENS – HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium
  • Don MINDAY – Rennes School of Business, France
  • Lars MORATIS – Antwerp Management School, Belgium
  • Mikael PETITJEAN – LSM – UCLouvain/ IESEG Management School, Belgium/France
  • Coline RUWET – ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium
  • André SOBCZAK – Audencia Business School, France
  • Valérie SWAEN – UCLouvain-LSM, Belgium
  • Joelle VANHAMME – EDHEC Business School, France
  • Luc VAN LIEDEKERKE – Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium
  • Virginie XHAUFLAIR – HEC Liège – ULiège, Belgium
  • Thierry ZINTZ – UCLouvain – Faculté des Sciences de la Motricité, Belgium
 
Second by a the stakeholder jury
  • Michel BANDE – Solvay & CSR Europe
  • Jacques CRAHAY – UWE, Cosucra
  • Marie D’HUART – Cap Conseil
  • Eglantine EECKHOUT – The Shift, Change Facilitator
  • Stéphanie FELLEN – Think Circular
  • Dirk LE ROY – Sustenuto
  • Deirdre MAES – Green Office KU Leuven
  • Olivier MARQUET – CLA Febelfin, ex-Triodos, ex-Unicef
  • Lettemieke MULDER – Enactus Belgium
  • Jan NOTERDAEME – CSR Europe
  • Marcello PALAZZI B Lab Europe
  • Sarah SCHESLTRAETE – Sociale Innovatie Fabriek
  • Jacques SPELKENS – Engie
  • Anne VANDENHEDEN – Spadel
  • Cécile VAN DE WEERDT – Green Office ULiège
  • Michel WASHER – Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer, Solvay BS

Among the 42 submitted master’s thesis sent from 9 countries, the academic jury selected six dissertations presented below. 

Then, the jury had selected 3 nominees. Next to 2020’s winners Line DIDELOT (ICHEC, Belgium), the other nominees were Thirion Isaline (Université de Liège, HEC Liège – Belgium) and Daniel Asger Caceres Larsen and Rasmus Grand Berthelsen (Copenhagen Business School – Denmark).

Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into a sustainable development report. Exploratory analysis of best practices

Master’s thesis by Claudia BRUFFAERTS (Louvain School of Management, UCL, Belgium)

As a matter of fact, the trend of this 21st century is sustainable development and corporate social responsibility.It was precisely in this context that in September 2015 the Member States of the United Nations approved their agenda for 2030 and the 17 objectives -better known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).In addition to addressing the new challenges of our society, the SDGs are becoming a new framework for firms to review their activities and communication in terms of sustainable development. Integrating SDGs has many benefits but also involves risks, in particular accusations of SDG washing.The subject of our research is therefore highly relevant; »How can an enterprise ensure the credibility of the integration of SDGs in its sustainable development report?”. Answering this question involves firstly the identification of the factors impacting the credibility of the SDG reporting, and, secondly, the identification of best practices across different sustainable reports.

“Why do consumers buy brands they do not find ethical? A study on the ambivalence towards Coca-Cola, Inc. and Ferrero, S.p.A.”

Master’s  thesis by : Jeanne CASSIERS and Audrey HERBEUVAL (Louvain School of Management, UCL, Belgium)

When we started this process, we looked at the society around us and saw a compelling paradox: most consumers while appearing scandalized at CSI, keep on buying the products of the firms responsible for such behaviour. Therefore, we engaged on this journey to understand why consumers, and us first as such, bought products from brands they do not find ethical. Our problem statement then came naturally. We wanted to understand if the perceived irresponsibility of a brand lead to ambivalent feelings and if those feelings influenced the decision process. We also looked at the personal sense of responsibility of customers. In fact, we think it is in part our responsibility to choose who we give money to and wanted to grasp if that notion had an influence or not. By conducting a quantitative survey on Belgian consumers, we got very compelling results. Namely that CSI has a connection with consumer ambivalence, purchase and buying intention. We also found out that the personal sense of responsibility does impact the buying process but is not present enough. Further research on this last subject could be done to find out why it is not more prominent and how to enhance it. We believe that now more than ever, the consumer has a role to play in the pursuit of CSR.

“Made in Ethiopia – The Potential for Social Upgrading in the Ethiopian Textile Industry”

Master’s thesis by : Kristina FELDT and Judith KLEIN (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)

The Ethiopian government vigorously promotes the textile sector, hoping to spur industrialization and social development. This thesis explores how different actors influence social upgrading in the rapidly growing Ethiopian textile industry. To shed light on this uncharted industry, the thesis combines social upgrading theory, global value chain theory, and governance concepts.

To the benefit of social upgrading, the findings suggest that “Measurable Standards” are successfully being improved for Ethiopian textile workers. To the detriment of social upgrading, the findings suggest that “Enabling Rights” of workers are not sufficiently promoted nor effectively enforced.

The thesis concludes that the potential for social upgrading in the Ethiopian textile industry depends on the ability of all industry actors to collectively take responsibility of promoting workers’ Enabling Rights.

“The hybrid Nature of Social Enterprises: Exploring possible tensions and sources of mission drift”

Master’s thesis by: Jeanne ROCHE (Louvain School of Management, UCL, Belgium)

In a time of global economic, political and environmental uncertainty, where markets and governments show signs of weaknesses regarding their promises of prosperity for all, we are witnessing the rise of hybrid structures that pursue complex objectives combining social and/or environmental impact and business sustainability.

This thesis identifies tensions within social enterprises caused by the combination of various organizational forms, identities and logics that traditionally belong to the realms of business and the charity/NGO world. Such a combination entails tensions that could give place to “mission drift” or “goal displacement”, which this thesis understands as a situation where a social venture starts to give less priority to either its social or commercial goal. This thesis also analyses how certain organizational and environmental features can alleviate or increase these tensions and thus contribute to mission drift themselves. Using a qualitative approach, the conclusions of this research were drawn from interviews conducted with a diverse range of social entrepreneurs from different continents and economic contexts, most of whom have links with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship network and the Acumen fund.

“Citizen Participation in Smart Cities”

Master’s thesis by: Anthony SIMONOFSKI (UNamur and KULeuven, Belgium)

In the last few years, smart cities have attracted considerable attention because they are considered a response to the complex challenges that modern cities face. However, smart cities often do not optimally reach their objectives if the citizens, the end-users, are not involved in their design. The aim of this thesis is to provide a framework to structure and evaluate citizen participation in smart cities. By means of a literature review from different research areas, the relevant enablers of citizen participation are summarized and bundled in the proposed framework. Then, following the design science methodology, the framework is validated through the application to different smart cities and through in-depth interviews with key Belgian smart city stakeholders. The framework is then used as an evaluation tool for several Belgian smart cities allowing drawbacks and flaws in citizens’ participation to be discovered and analysed. It is also demonstrated how the framework can act as a governance tool for the ongoing smart city design of Namur (Belgium) to help define the citizen participation strategy. Finally, it is used as a comparison and creativity tool to compare several cities and design new means of participation.

“Exploring the Effect of Innovation on Corporate Sustainability"

Master’s thesis by: Marthe Marie TANGEN (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)

This study investigates the effect of innovation on corporate sustainability (CS) in light of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. RBV contributes to the analysis of innovation and CS, because it explicitly recognizes the importance of resources and dynamic capabilities. By possessing the right resources and capabilities, such as innovation, firms might be able to successfully develop and implement CS strategies. The results show that there is no significant effect of innovation on CS for the overall sample of firms. However, extending the analysis to investigate the effect across regions, the results show that innovation positively affects CS for North America, while no effect was found for Europe or the rest of the world (RoW). The results also show that the effect of innovation on CS is not the same for the three dimensions of CS. While innovation was found to have a positive effect on the social dimension, no significant effect was found for the environmental and corporate governance dimensions. These results suggest that innovation, in general, does not play a major role in determining CS, but rather that it seems to vary across different regions. It also suggests that innovation plays a significant role in determining the social performance of CS.

Project 1

Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into a sustainable development report. Exploratory analysis of best practices

Claudia BRUFFAERTS (Louvain School of Management, UCL, Belgium)

As a matter of fact, the trend of this 21st century is sustainable development and corporate social responsibility.It was precisely in this context that in September 2015 the Member States of the United Nations approved their agenda for 2030 and the 17 objectives -better known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).In addition to addressing the new challenges of our society, the SDGs are becoming a new framework for firms to review their activities and communication in terms of sustainable development. Integrating SDGs has many benefits but also involves risks, in particular accusations of SDG washing.The subject of our research is therefore highly relevant; »How can an enterprise ensure the credibility of the integration of SDGs in its sustainable development report?”. Answering this question involves firstly the identification of the factors impacting the credibility of the SDG reporting, and, secondly, the identification of best practices across different sustainable reports.

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Project 2

Collaborative Quest for Higher Yields: A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Market-Driven Development Interventions byCross-Sector Partnerships

Daniel Asger Caceres Larsen and Rasmus Grand Berthelsen (Copenhagen Business School – Denmark)

This thesis contributes to the emerging field of literature on market-driven development cooperation by looking into cross-sector partnerships as a policy tool for rural development interventions. Taking offset in the academic debate on determinants of economic development, we identify three strands of theory, which guide the formation of a conceptual framework: Cross-sector Partnerships, Base-of-the-Pyramid, and the Drivers of Change framework. Following a theory-based evaluation approach, we rely on these theories to identify the most important factors of success for market-driven rural development interventions at the micro-level. We demonstrate the empirical relevance of this framework by applying it to an in-depth case study of an agricultural development intervention undertaken between the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CARE and Chr. Hansen. We establish that the empirical findings demonstrate the adequacy of combining these three strands of theory to evaluate cross-sector partnerships as an emerging type of development assistance and foreign investment. Rooted in the contemporary debate on collaborative approaches to economic development, accelerated by the adoption of the SDGs, we argue that market-driven development cooperation, although narrow in scope, is an innovative policy tool to employ private sector capital and technology more strategically in sustainable development. The conceptual framework presented in this thesis is a useful tool to evaluate such interventions.

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Project 3

How can migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers through skill development and employment be integrated in Greek society by means of a centre for displaced persons in Athens,Greece? The ANKAA Project

Line DIDELOT (ICHEC – Belgium) 

In 2015, the influx of refugees from Turkey to Greece experienced an unprecedented increase which was broadcasted internationally as a crisis in need of urgent support.Billions of euro have been allocated to this situation, but what happens when the funding stops, and interest dwindles?What about the needs of the local community whose livelihoods have also suffered considerably from the country’s financial crisis? Involved in the refugee crisis since January 2016, five volunteers founded “ANKAA Project”, a non-profit organization active in Greece.The ANKAA Project aims to facilitate inclusion in the Athens community by breaking the cycle of disempowerment for displaced people. People are provided with the tools to create their own sustainable solutions for rebuilding their lives in a dignified and personal manner.Together with participants, a personally tailored programme gets created supported by a collaborative network and self-ledwork spaces to target skill development, vocational training, language, entrepreneurship, education and employment opportunities. ANKAA works in co-construction with its partners and participants, as the entire project is supported by a strong network of private individuals, groups, organizations, businesses and educational institutions. The vocational training programme is open to refugees, asylum seekers, Greeks or any other member of the Athens community. This approach is innovative and rare among other actors active in Greece.

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Project 4

The Influence of Country Sustainability on Stock Market Reaction to Sustainable News

D. J Houf (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam – The Netherlands)

The relation between corporate social performance and the company’s financial performance has played a central part in recent discussions between managers, investors, policy makers, and academia. The role of a company has been questioned and there are generally two opposing streams, those who believe that companies have ultimate responsibility to its shareholders and should therefore seek to maximize their wealth, and those who believe that companies should benefit all of its stakeholders instead. Many different papers sought to identify the perspective of shareholders on the matter by analysing stock market response to sustainable news but came with limitations and contradicting results. In this paper, however, I strive to overcome these limitations and perform an event study on over 160,000 events related to either positive or negative ESG-news. Subsequently, the sustainable influence of the country of incorporation on this market reaction is tested, whilst countries that are in general more progressed in sustainability may respond differently than countries ranking worse. The results indicate that there is indeed a significant positive response to positive ESG news and a significant negative reaction to negative news. Country sustainability is not found to have a significant effect.

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Project 5

Blueprints for a Better World: Exploring Patterns and the Effectiveness in Corporate Approaches towards the Sustainable Development Goals

Karsten Jasper (University of Amsterdam – The Netherlands) 

The incentive of this exploratory study was the fact that companies have been called up to take proactive action on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but seem to be underperforming. Why this is the case and how companies are in fact approaching the SDGs has not been subjected to rigorous scientific research yet and therefore this study develops a framework of corporate SDG approaches. This framework is applied in practice by mapping the industry-leading companies regarding sustainability into one of the nine SDG approaches. Thereafter, semi-structured interviews with sustainability managers were performed to understand what drives companies to take a certain approach and what the influence of the approaches is on making an actual substantive impact on achieving the SDGs. The results show multiple trends that can explain why companies are underperforming on achieving the SDGs. Firstly, companies are mainly using the SDGs as reporting framework to translate their already existing sustainability practices. Furthermore, most companies prioritize the so called ‘material’ SDGs, while the UN specifically states that the SDGs are interlinked and indivisible, and should thus not be prioritized. Lastly, this study shows that companies in general found it difficult to integrate the SDGs completely into their business.

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Project 6

How to drive impact performance in an impact-first investment fund, considering an impact-based financial reward scheme in particular?

Thirion Isaline (Université de Liège, HEC Liège – Belgium) 

Impact fund managers pursue investments generating social and/or environmental impact alongside financial returns. Similarly to their counterparts in traditional Private Equity and Venture Capital funds, they are typically entitled to a fixed compensation for running the fund, as well as a variable part conditioned upon the fund’s performance.Yet whilst traditional variable compensation schemes typically reward fund managers for their financial performance, the framework for impact funds should, in line with their fundamental impact strategy, incentivise fund managers on the impact performance as well. Some pioneer impact funds have designed innovative impact-based reward structures, however the concept is very novel and was never well documented. Therefore, this research investigate show a variable compensation scheme for fund managers might be set up, in which the fund’s impact performance would be appropriately weighted. Based on primary data collected via interviews with key players of the impact field, we identify potential frameworks to structure an impact-based financial reward scheme. Further, we find that it may be a valuable scheme as it ensures fund manager’s commitment to impact, to the extent that it is based on a sufficiently reliable impact assessment methodology and appropriately mitigates risks related to impact-based incentives.

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The ceremony

During the ceremony, Valérie Swaen underlined the importance of teaching the values of CSR and sustainable development, made even more necessary by the current crisis, which shows the vulnerability of our modern society: « The difficult conditions we are experiencing today can be an opportunity to reshape higher education. We need to question our teaching practices. Interdisciplinarity, the use of active teaching methods that encourage creativity, students’ reflection and emotional engagement, strengthened collaborations and partnerships with businesses, NGOs, public institutions: these are some of the pathways towards a true understanding of sustainability. »

Rob HopkinsFounder and leader of the Transition Movement and guest speaker of the evening, then shared his original and powerfully motivating vision of things around two words that open many doors: « what if… ». « To face the climate and ecological emergency, to move things forward and change behaviors, » he stressed, « we must create a collective desire through the power of imagination and narration ». His speech was widely applauded by the 200 or so participants at the evening.

To see again this event, we invite you to watch the following video: 

Are you interested in the Philippe de Woot Award?

The next edition will be organized in 2026

Any graduate student from a university or business school with a Master’s degree whose dissertation deals with CSR or sustainable development defended during the academic years 2023-2024 & 2024-2025 can apply for this award.

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