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Laurent Lahaye studies sustainable entrepreneurship. The objective of his PhD thesis is to better understand how sustainable entrepreneurs manage their hybridity and the fragile equilibrium between their social and environmental missions and their commercial activities. The social and environmental missions are the primary objective of sustainable entrepreneurs and their organizations. Business activities enable them to achieve their mission. Their hybrid nature is not guaranteed. Some sustainable entrepreneurs may prioritize economic objectives at the risk of losing their raison d'être. Others may lock in their mission at the risk of undermining the financial health of their organization. Laurent conducted his field research on ecotourism organizations in Benin. Thanks to multiple rounds of interviews, secondary data and observations, he analyzed the evolution of those sustainable enterprises and the discourse of 6 sustainable entrepreneurs. The analysis performed with Frank Janssen unveils the black box of hybridity in sustainable entrepreneurship.

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Many sensors are used to capture the human body movements and can be involved in many activities in various application domains. The captured raw data often consist of physical data measured in a three-dimensional space (e.g., x, y, z, t) along with other data (e.g., speed, acceleration, pressure, jerk), thus posing several challenges in terms of data fusion and interpretation. When all these data need to be fused to feed a high-level model of the human body, there is a need to unify these coordinates systems. Instead of converting data from one coordinates system to another, thus losing some information, the thesis will investigate how computing in the same system by manipulating mathematical objects (scalars, vectors, pseudo-vectors, and bi-vectors) may unify the capture of these data as well as their fusion in order not to lose any information. The results inform the development of a system for 3D gesture recognition.

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Due to the worldwide focus on sustainability, sustainable entrepreneurship education is a topic present in a growing number of higher education institutions. This context leads academics to question themselves about the construction of sustainable entrepreneurship programs in higher education institutions and about the way stakeholders, such as organizations, considered it. Therefore, my thesis project can be sequenced in 3 keywords:

1. The matching: The first article will provide the state of the current implementation of sustainable entrepreneurship programs in higher education institutions through a deep analysis in terms of distance in sustainable entrepreneurship learning outcomes expected versus realized ones.

2. Then, the efficiency: The main goal is to discover what types of pedagogy are the most efficient in sustainable entrepreneurship programs in higher education institutions to enhance the motivation of students to pursue in sustainable entrepreneurship.

3. Finally, the relevance: The third article will aim at testing if organizations value such types of curriculum and the content behind it, mainly through competencies. .

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My research interests are focused on corporate finance, financial accounting, textual analysis, and machine learning. Specifically, I investigate the use of textual analysis methods to extract unstructured data from corporate disclosures, such as ICO white papers or earnings press releases, and quantify their value and ability to alter cognitive behaviors and financial success.

Her research questions to what extent urban cultural vibrancy can be a key strategy for organizations to boost their creativity and innovation capacity – and consequently a valorizing factor for cities to attract such organizations. Mobilizing the institutional theory and agglomeration theory, this study is quantitatively carried out on 190 cities in 30 European countries. Among others, it measures to what extent cities’ cultural vibrancy induces business creation (via start-ups’ development) and innovation (via patent and community design applications), by focusing on the movie and music industries’ urban level of development to translate cultural vibrancy.

The main objective of my research is to study and develop recommender systems that take into account different stakeholders of this technology. We will therefore move away from traditional recommender systems that only focus on the needs and interests of the consumers by exploring recommender algorithms that incorporate the utility functions of the consumers but also of the sellers and the owners of web applications. In particular, this project focuses on consumer behaviors when they are faced with biased recommendations from this type of system. The research will thus mobilize many tools and aspects of management research such as the analysis of data, the development of various algorithms, mathematical modelling and multi-objective optimization as well as marketing and the study of consumer behaviors (loyalty, trust, retention, etc.).

I am doing a PhD dissertation about hybrid work and its effects on productivity in institutes of higher education. The focus is not only on universities as educators, but as employers as well.

His research is in human resource management and critical management studies at the crossroad between management, social psychology and sociology. He studies how psychological capital can be a part of a larger structure of systemic inequalities. More precisely, he investigates how the socialization of discriminated individuals in the workplace can affect their psychological capital. His goal is to produce research that helps emancipate individuals from structural inequalities and aims individuals' wellbeing as an end in itself.

Her research is in corporate social responsibility (CSR), with a focus on how individuals learn about and practice sustainability with others, beyond organizational boundaries. In that vein, she has studied inter-organizational communities of practice focused on CSR, through qualitative approaches such as ethnography. More recently, her work has focused on understanding how communities of practice can be orchestrated to contribute to sustainability as a grand challenge. She is also interested in how social learning in such communities of practice influences how leaders make sense of (their role in) CSR.

My research investigates which cultural variables enable actors’ entrepreneurial behaviour and which tactics actors use to implement their entrepreneurial project. In this context, entrepreneurship is a multi-level activity of actors who change the organizations, institutions or fields they live in. In particular, I study actors’ behaviour to bring about innovative solutions and to face grand challenges such as climate change, waste-management, mass migration or pandemics. Currently, I am working on a project related to the subnational responses to the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. As Italy was the first western country to face the spread of the virus, the Italian management of the crisis is a compelling case to study non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) when unexpected events unfold. The different responses of the Italian subnational level account for the high uncertainty on the best state-guided interventions in the initial stage of the first wave. My research investigates and explains these differences.

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My research interests lie on understanding the possible negative effects that some widespread business practices have on people’s lives, ─ specially for those who are typically placed in disadvantaged positions in our society. Hence, in my PhD I am studying how the New Ways of Working affect the work experience of people with disabilities (PWD). Specifically, my research goal is to understand how PWD are affected both positively and negatively by typical contemporary HRM-related practices, such as teleworking and open-plan offices.

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Grégory De Boe is a teaching assistant and researcher at UCLouvain, working on his Ph.D. under the guidance of Professors Marie Lamensch and Valérie Swaen. His doctoral research is structured in three essays, with a primary focus on unraveling the intricate ways in which environmental taxes and subsidies shape the decision-making processes of companies subjected to these policies, specifically in the context of adopting pro-environmental behaviors.   

Graduate from the Louvain School of Management and CEMS (2019), Lionel Joined LouRIM as a PhD researcher in May 2022. He conducts research in the field of innovation management and focuses more specifically on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a corporate context. He investigates how large corporations define, decide to manage and implement collaboration processes with start-ups and more broadly with what they identify as their entrepreneurial ecosystem. At the crossroads between the concepts of open-innovation, corporate venturing and entrepreneurial ecosystem, his research aims to contribute to the existing literature by filing the gap on that specific topic. Before joining LouRIM, he worked for 3 years as consultant in audit and financial advisory.

My name is Pauline de Montpellier and I have started my PhD on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in 2019. My research focuses on the different perceptions that individuals have of CSR, and how these perceptions vary according to their cultural and individual profile. I am also interested in the evolution of CSR perceptions, and in the learning process of this contested concept. For this purpose, I analyse a MOOC on the topic of CSR. I study, in particular, the interactions between individuals on discussion forums and how constructive debates can help to understand the concept more globally. My research project includes an educational component to the study of CSR, as I am part of an interdisciplinary project analysing the conceptual learning of contested concepts in online educational platforms. This will, hopefully, contribute to a better understanding by consumers, employees and leaders of the responsibilities and challenges of companies in the transition towards a more sustainable society!

My research in marketing focuses on problematics related to the retail industry and new technologies. More specifically, the goal of my research is to study the impact of smart technologies in the retail environment on customers’ experience and, as a result of that, the impact on their engagement towards a retailer. This project aims at employing experimental research methods in a controlled laboratory environment that takes the form of a store with many technologies at hand.

I am working on food consumer behaviours, particularly on the concept of food consumption confusion. Consumers are getting confused about what to eat, because of information overload, contradictory injunctions or skepticism towards information. My research deals with consumers' psychological process when confronted to (potentially complicated) food purchasing situations, and aims at helping consumers, managers and public-policy makers fighting confusion.

Ophélie Duquesne is a Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Assistant in the marketing department of UCLouvain FUCaM Mons. In today’s technology-intensive landscape, retailers need to rethink their strategies and effectively execute across both online and offline channels. Embracing an omnichannel strategy would not only allow retailers to get low-cost access to new markets, but also leverage synergies between touchpoints and build a strong competitive advantage. While omnichannel strategies offer several potential benefits to retailers and customers alike, ensuring an effective customer experience (CX) management across all touchpoints remains challenging. Against this backdrop, vast researchers recommend consistent and effortless customers journeys to enroll customers into a smooth loyalty loop. In practice though, many firms engage in a customer journey model that intentionally features inconsistent cues. Anecdotal evidence shows that promotional inconsistency across online and offline channels is prevalent, exceeding 27%. This contrasts with customers’ expectations, whose majority (61%) anticipates consistent promotions. Building upon fairness theory, this multi-experiment research first investigates consumers’ responses to (in)consistent promotions. Second, authors delve into consumers’ cognitive and affective processes and uncover the reasons why consumers may perceive offline-exclusive promotions differently than online-exclusive promotions. Third, her research project addresses the conditions under which or how an inconsistent promotional strategy can be effectively introduced without hurting CX. With these insights, retailers proposing inconsistent journeys can tailor their approaches to enhance consumers’ fairness perceptions.

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After a Master’s degree in European studies, I worked for 7 years for the Public Service of Wallonia in the Directorate for Economic policies. I started a new page in my career in September 2020 as a research and teaching assistant at LSM and LOURIM. My research interests are in the field of innovation and more specifically social innovation. I want to focus my thesis on the scaling up process of social innovation, looking at the different types of scaling up processes as well as the spatial anchorage and the role of design methodologies in such processes. This thematic and focuses will be subject to change through the iteration process that require a thesis project. I am starting this journey with enthusiasm and motivation.

His professional journey has always been driven by a deep fascination with how new technologies can transform our world. As an entrepreneur in the EdTech sector, he had the opportunity to delve into research to develop innovative solutions. This experience amplified his eagerness to delve deeper into this domain, fueling his passion for academic research and teaching. His thesis focuses on a topic that deeply captivates him: the impact of integrating new technologies on the hybridity and legitimacy of social enterprises. This theme represents a crossroad between his past experiences as an entrepreneur and his current ambitions in research. It also symbolizes his desire to contribute to the field of entrepreneurship research, aiming to conduct cross-disciplinary studies that blend the challenges faced by social enterprises with contemporary technological advancements and their implications.

How do managers and entrepreneurs operating in different environments use innovation and digital technology to influence sustainability? My research focuses on the SCOT. It examines the relationships between sustainability, the innovation process and digitalisation in the context of SMEs in their environment. My aim is to analyse the social and technological constructs that lead to the commercialisation of an innovative product or service that takes account of SDGs, from the reflection, design, creation (prototype) and experimentation phases to its technological dissemination, known as 'Sustainable Digital Innovation', without losing or reducing its added value in terms of wealth creation.

His research focuses on marketing, specifically within the tourism sector. He aims to understand how tourists behave when making destination choices. Currently, he is attempting to integrate the concept of anthropomorphism into the field of destination branding, a largely unexplored domain.

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Graduate from ESCP Business School, Antoine Inglebert-Frydman joined LouRIM as a PhD student in May 2022, after spending a couple of years in the voluntary sector and in consultancy. His research focuses on the humanisation of management and practice-based studies, from a CMS and organisation studies perspective. More specifically, he is working on how to define humanisation of management. The criteria of this definition are applied to management theories that describe themselves as 'humanising' or 'humane'. In addition, his research aims to understand how humanisation practices are currently materialising in the workplace. To this end, he is conducting an organisational ethnography in a public administration that is rolling out a humanisation programme.

After starting up a business to supply healthy and local food online, I made the leap to consultancy and regional economic development where I have been working for over 5 years. I am currently taking a new step in my career as a researcher at LouRIM, specifically at the chair of Circular and Regenerative Economy. Circular Economy is an umbrella concept that is gaining momentum both in the public and the private sphere. The main objective of my research is to promote the implementation of circular economy strategies in the private sector.

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My research is about customer experience in interaction with artificial intelligence (AI). Nowadays, more and more interactions between consumers and firms are based on artificial intelligence (eg. chatbot, virtual assistant, service robot). These AI-based interfaces transform the consumer behaviors and the relationships with the organizations, firms and brands. Therefore, this research aims to better understand the customer experience during these interactions, from an experiential perspective, which focus on the affective and social dimensions of the customer experience. The main questions of this research are: what are the affective and social responses during the interactions with AI-based interfaces? What are the characteristics of the AI (ex: artificial empathy), the context (eg. emotional state) and individuals (ex: vulnerable consumer) that influence these responses? What are the consequences of these interactions for the firm outcomes (eg. engagement) and for the consumers (eg. well-being)? By answering these questions, this research aims to bring theoretical contributions to the field of customer experience, service research and human-AI interactions, as well as to provide managerial recommendations to firms and organizations.

Her research investigates Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSiR). The exploration includes understanding employees’ behavioural and emotional reactions to CSiR, identifying factors contributing to weaker employee responses, and examining the detrimental effects on employees witnessing CSiR.

Her research is in social entrepreneurship, focusing on innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems and, ultimately, the business support organizations. More recently, her work has focused on understanding How social impact incubators help social startups to overcome and manage their hybridity-related tensions to achieve social and financial goals. In particular, she studies the impact of these support programs on the social impact creation of the incubated startups.

Pierre Léonard is a PhD student in sports management and policy at KU Leuven and UCLouvain. His PhD focuses on the issue of environmental sustainability in non-profit sports organizations, in particular sport clubs and sport federations. His research aims to understand to what extent stakeholders drive and constraint non-profit sport organisations to demonstrate environmental leadership to apprehend how sport organisations can achieve environmental sustainability changes.

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The world is facing global economic, social, and environmental challenges. To tackle these challenges, different programs, frameworks, and initiatives (such as UNGC, GRI, ISO, B Corp Certification, etc.) are developed to engage and guide enterprises in the pursuit of sustainable development but they focus on the formal sector, ignoring the informal sector. In addition, in sustainability research, economic, social, and environmental practices of formal firms, either large or small, have been largely explored with little attention given to informal businesses. However, sustainability cannot be achieved if the informal sector, which represents an important part of the global economy (accounting for almost 51,9% of the global employed population), is neglected. Therefore, the informal sector has a role to play in achieving sustainable development and this research investigates the links between informal businesses and sustainability, particularly from the perspective of informal businesses. The purpose of this study is to understand how sustainability practices are understood, defined, and implemented in informal businesses and why. To address this question, we will identify and analyze informal businesses sustainability practices to characterized informal entrepreneurs who engage in these practices; we will describe and analyze the processes developed by informal businesses to implement sustainability practices; we will analyze the specificities of sustainability practices implemented in informal businesses to understand the challenges, drivers and motivations behind informal entrepreneurs' sustainability engagement, in order to suggest strategies to improve their contribution to the achievement of sustainable development.

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Currently pursuing a PhD in Management Sciences, she is working on the societal impact of technologies and on ways to use technologies to encourage a more sustainable and responsible consumption. The growing awareness around environmental issues has led to a rising interest in the negative impact of our consumption on the environment. It has also been highlighted that different technologies present along the purchase journey of consumers, such as recommender systems, influence consumption. She is currently studying how recommender systems could be modified to encourage a more sustainable and responsible consumption. She uses machine learning and data mining techniques to identify and recommend more sustainable products to online shoppers. Finally, she also studies whether consumers would be willing to adopt pro-environmental behaviours by choosing sustainable recommended products. Some e-commerce technologies might be interesting, not only for consumers and companies, but also for our society.

My name is Min Shuai and my research focuses on creative crowdsourcing management in a multi-stakeholder environment. we have analyzed how mindsets affect the way project holders manage a crowdsourcing project. We then will discuss how varying crowdsourcing management strategies differently shape participants’ experience and their perceived brand ethicality. In order to achieve engaging long-term crowdsourcing management, we will finally identify all involved stakeholders in the crowdsourcing management process and investigate how to manage stakeholder involvement.

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His research focuses on recommendation systems, more precisely he studies the phenomenon of filter bubbles within the framework of ideological news articles recommendations. He tries to understand the impact of recommendation systems on those bubbles and tries to find innovative ways to reduce this bubble phenomenon. His purpose is to make users aware of this phenomenon and to study whether conscious users will diversify the content of the articles they read. For now, he is developing a metric to quantify the filter bubble phenomenon.

She is studying trustworthy AI, which focuses on ensuring the ethical and reliable deployment of artificial intelligence systems among users, stakeholders, and society. Her research is based on three core pillars within this field: Diversity, Fairness, and Transparency. Diversity involves preventing users from being confined within filter bubbles created by recommender systems. Fairness consists of identifying and reducing discriminations (based on gender, ethnicity, or other sensitive variables) in the output of classification models. Finally, transparency is essential for making algorithms understandable and interpretable for users, enabling trust in their outputs.

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