This series explores how researchers and practitioners within and beyond Oxford are using research insights for action.
Join us to hear conversations between researchers and practitioners who are working across disciplines, sectors, and media to understand and create more equitable and just social, economic, environmental, and health systems.

In this seminar, we will discuss Professor Chris Marquis’ book Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism, exploring the history and rapid growth of the B Corp movement, and why socially and environmentally responsible companies are vital for everyone’s future.

Speaker bios:

Professor Chris Marquis is the Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School. His research and teaching focus on how businesses are creating a more resilient and sustainable capitalism by focusing on the elusive triple bottom line of environmental, social and financial performance. He is the author of the recent award winning book Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism. He also studies entrepreneurship and market development in China, and in the fall of 2022 will publish a new book tentatively titled Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. He is the author of more than 20 peer-reviewed academic articles and more than 50 Harvard business cases on topics related to social innovation, sustainable business and doing business in China.

Professor Marquis served two terms as an Associate Editor at Administrative Science Quarterly, and has also been a Senior Editor at Organization Science and Management and Organization Review. He has also served a term as Representative at Large for the International Association for Chinese Management Research (IACMR) and Organization and Management Theory Division, Academy of Management. Before returning to academia, Marquis was a Vice President and Technology Manager at JP Morgan Chase. He currently is on the advisory board of China-focused media platform SupChina

Dr Mary Johnstone-Louis is the Board Chair of B Lab UK, and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School where she is Programme Director of The Ownership Project and Head Tutor for the Oxford Leading Sustainable Corporations programme. Her research explores how business is affecting our world, and how leaders build strategy around the public good. Her work with The Ownership Project at Oxford Saïd focuses on how ownership influences corporate impact, with an emphasis on family enterprises with annual revenues above $1 billion or $1 billion AUM. With the Project team, she is conducting a series of interviews with owners (70+ across 20+ countries to date) of global, multi-generational businesses (average revenue $10+ billion) on how they put purpose ‘into practice’ across their operations and family office activities. She has a longstanding research interest in women in business.

Dr Johnstone-Louis has held fellowships from Green Templeton College and the United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and has been awarded a competitive grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship for her research. She holds an MPhil with distinction from St Antony’s College (University of Oxford), a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and received her doctorate from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Moderator:

Professor Marya Besharov is the inaugural Academic Director for the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, a diverse, equitable and inclusive learning community of academics, practitioners and students from around the world. The Skoll Centre pioneers global learning in Social Entrepreneurship, Systems Change and Knowledge Equity through world-class education programmes, action-centred research and catalytic collaborations.

She was previously on the faculty of the ILR School at Cornell University. An organisational theorist with a background in sociology, she studies how organisations and their leaders navigate competing strategic priorities to achieve both social impact and commercial success. Marya received a BA in Social Studies, an MA in Sociology, and a PhD in Organisational Behaviour from Harvard University. She also holds an MBA from Stanford University.