IEDC

     

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IEDC
IEDC (Bled)
 Prešernova cesta 33
Bled, , 4260
Slovenia
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

64

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

12

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

11 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

47

Females as percent of student body: 

36%
Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs
 
Private Sector (92%)
 
Non-profit (5%)
 
Government (3%)


Description of MBA Program: 

Established in 1986 as the first business school of its type in Central and Eastern Europe, IEDC Bled School of Management is one of the most prominent international management development institutions in Europe. To date, over 53 000 managers and change makers from nearly 70 nations have participated in IEDC programs. With over 70% of its participants coming from countries outside of Slovenia, and the headquarters of a number of centers and organizations – Central and East European Management Development Association, the Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research, the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development, European Leadership Center, and the UN Global Compact Slovenia – hosted by the school, the Bled School of Management is the main regional business meeting place and change catalyst.


Founded amidst the transition from socialist to free market economy, IEDC-Bled School of Management lived through the hardest questions that the tender relationship of business and society has to offer. Navigating the terrain between societal benefit, which stands at the core of socialist ideology, and private profit, which serves as the foundation of capitalists system, IEDC managed to introduce the concept of business ethics to Central and Easter European managers almost as early as the concept of business itself. IEDC has been bridging the two ideologies with a required MBA course on Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, and beyond, through placing issues relevant to the role of business in society into a number of other ‘core’ courses, most notably, accounting, finance, operations, strategy, marketing, and leadership.


Building on the success of the Ethics and Governance course, leadership became the next most important frontier for preparing MBA graduates for successful management of social and environmental issues. In 2004, IEDC-Bled School of Management introduced arts-based leadership development throughout its MBA program, creating a series of mandatory sessions with artists-in-residence and extensive workshops on arts and leadership, whereby art is used as a trigger provoking reflections on different social phenomena and issues. Connecting sessions on Arts & Leadership with courses on Personal Development and Self-Management, IEDC surrounds each of its management students with questions that drive deeper than ethics themselves into the tacit, yet powerful, world of aesthetics. IEDC is convinced that aesthetics stretch the limits of ethics, forcing each manager to explore their deeper purpose, the potential impact of each action, and responsibility for each decision. This is where the abstract conversation on the role of business in society and of each business person in his or her environment becomes concrete, as a powerful piece of music, or an unexpected stroke of color evokes deep emotions and discoveries. In assessing each business endeavor with precision they ask: is there beauty and harmony in the final result? When integrated into business curriculum, art becomes an important tool for deep reflection, real inspiration, and positive action.

In recent years it has also became apparent that ethics and aesthetics themes are not enough, as the fundamental nature of value creation through business is shifting. Now, social and environmental issues are no longer just a morally-right thing to do, but much more so, a very significant business threat that can be turned into an opportunity, a strategic business advantage. With this realization, IEDC hired a full time professor specializing in sustainability as business advantage, and introduced another required course in this domain, Business in Society: Sustainability for Competitive Advantage. The course provides a variety of models for creating mutual benefit for business and society, including strategic philanthropy, Corporate Social Responsibility and Citizenship but focuses intensely on the concept of sustainable value as an approach to total integration of social and environmental performance into core business strategy and operations. The course is positioned in the Strategy track of the MBA program, and includes practical assignments and applied exercises with a goal of advancing participants’ ability to implement relevant changes in their immediate work environment.


Following the success of its work in the field of sustainability, in 2010 IEDC established the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development - an interdisciplinary initiative aimed at creating cutting-edge knowledge in the field of sustainability, promoting the concepts of sustainable development, sustainable value, and embedded sustainability, and providing support for the needs of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) while connecting the international sustainability community to the realities and innovations of the region.

With the establishment of the Chair, issues of social, ethical, and environmental performance of business has become even deeper embedded into the entire IEDC curriculum, with further integration into finance, accounting, marketing, strategy, operations, leadership, and communications courses.


At the heart of the Chair efforts are three key objectives:


• Applied research in the areas of sustainable development, sustainable value, and sustainable enterprise, with the focus on embedding social and environmental performance into the key business activities, including strategy, marketing, operations, logistics, and organizational development,

• Development of innovative teaching methods, teaching materials as well as faculty in the field of sustainability and embedding the subject of sustainable value throughout the entire management curriculum, and

• Sharing of insights and fostering change via presence at international symposia, publication of cases, books, and articles, and organization of unique projects and events aimed at engaging business in sustainability efforts and catalyzing positive change.


Among the Chair’s early achievements is the development of teaching cases on sustainable value, done in partnership with Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, co-authorship of a strategy manuscript, “Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage,” forthcoming in March 2011 via Stanford University Press and Greenleaf Publishing, as well co-founding of groundbreaking global sustainability competition Challenge:Future, which engaged nearly 15,000 young professionals from 199 countries in sustainable innovation and collaboration.


The work of the Coca-Cola Chair is also supported by two other ‘centers of excellence,’ which serve as important promoters of ethical and holistic approach to management:


1.    The Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research seeks to prepare leaders for tomorrow's challenges by:

o Fostering reflective, socially responsible leadership

o Fostering creativity and creative skills in leadership

o Fostering beautiful leadership through artistic practice

o Promoting the importance of the arts in business and life

o Promoting aesthetic visions of organizations and businesses


2. The UN Global Compact Slovenia, established, hosted, and led by IEDC, is a local chapter of the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative, united business and society leaders aiming to create sustainable future.


Finally, as a founder of CEEMAN – Central and East European Management Development Association, which unties 180 business schools and management development institutions from 43 countries, IEDC-Bled School of Management has served as a catalyst for dissemination of concepts and values of sustainable, ethical, and social responsible leaders in the region and beyond. IEDC President and Dean, Prof. Dr. Danica Purg, serves as a steering committee member of the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (UN PRIME), and personally invests in designing new sustainability research projects.



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

IEDC has taken a number of initiatives relevant to its own social and environmental performances – managed at the level of Faculty Senate and supported by the IEDC Green Team. The school campus is located on a shore of the pristine Alpine lake Bled, and living in balance with nature and society is embedded in everything we do.


IEDC Green Team has taken on a number of projects relevant to IEDC operations:


• Water: IEDC has stopped serving bottled water to its EMBA participants, and now provides re-usable bottles as a gift to each enrolled student to be re-filled on campus.


• IT: IEDC organized a comprehensive IT audit, focused on discovery of energy waste due to prior improper IT practices. Server space was optimized to allow for lower energy use, and new standard settings for each computer on campus have been implemented to assure automated energy management.


• Building: the School has taken a comprehensive analysis of green building opportunities when constructing its new major building, the Center for Innovative Learning. The building has superb energy performance, has utilized a partial green roof, and used a wood siding option to diminish its overall environmental footprint, as Slovenia is among the few countries in the world fighting over-forestation.


• Operations: IEDC has made a full audit of its operations with a goal of minimizing its environmental footprint. A number of activities have been transferred into electronic format, and the use of tablets or tablet PC is now investigated to transfer all teaching materials, cases, and assignments into electronic form.


• Sourcing: the School continuously reviews its procurement and sourcing policies to assure maximal use of local products and services in all of its activities.


• Outreach: IEDC provides a number of pro-bono services to various non-profit, public, and community organizations in need of quality management education. Free courses are provided to the entire city of Bled community each year, while great number of guest lectures are organized for schools, kindergartens, universities, hospitals, , and beyond. IEDC also initiated “Green Bled” project aimed at supporting sustainable practices in the Municipality of Bled, and organized a number of trainings and events to promote and advance the concept of sustainable development throughout Slovenia and the region.
 

Academic Department

Course Name: Accounting And Control
Instructor: Dr. Randy Kudar

The Accounting and Control course is created to help MBA students become intelligent users of accounting information. In addition to general discussion of ethical accounting practices, transparency, and financial discipline, the course includes a final session on the general philosophy of business, and asks fundamental questions about the purpose of the corporation and the nature of a healthy economy. A number of sessions at the beginning and the end of the course are dedicated to exploring the emergent issues in management and the fundamental assumptions about the role and purpose of the corporate.

Course Name: Arts and Leadership
Instructor: Dr. Danica Purg, Dr. Ian Sutherland, Dr. Arnold Walravens, Dr. Haris Pasovic

Arts and Leadership couples conceptual lectures with experiential learning through arts based activities (from plastic to performative) to promote reflective, sensitive, dynamic, holistic and responsible views of complex issues facing leaders today. The course uses arts interventions to challenge and provoke the awareness of participants to globally important issues such as sustainability, equality, discrimination, and multiculturalism.

Projects of experiential learning through the arts are led by professional artists and leadership experts from diverse practical backgrounds – musicians, conductors, film and theatre directors, painters, sculptors, designers and conceptual artists. Through the guidance of professionals participants explore creative processes and their application to leadership practices. The aim of this approach is to introduce other existing ways of problem solving, to explore relationships between creativity and responsibility. Since the artistic approach to decision making and selection of opportunities and form of expression is very intimately connected to the artist and her/his ethical, social and environmental beliefs and position, the course addresses those questions through discussions and exercises which place responsible leadership at the core of the subject.

Course Name: Business Ethics & Corporate Governance: Designing a Worthy Organization
Instructor: Dr. Nenad Filipovic, Dr. Arnold Walravens, Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva

The Ethics & Governance course comes at the end of MBA studies with an invitation to move from how and what of business to the core of why. Building on, but going beyond the traditional 'right and wrong' and 'good and bad' discussions associated with the topics of ethics, the course is built around one central question: How do we design organizations that are worthy – of existence, attention, commitment? To answer this question, participants take a look at three aspects of organizational life as objects of design: values, structures, processes, and beyond. The core objective of the course is to ignite a conversation about what a worthy organization looks like, but also provide practical tools for bringing such organizations into reality, with a strong focus on facing and resolving key ethical dilemmas and pressures of managerial life.

Course Name: Business in Society: Sustainability for Strategic Advantage
Instructor: Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva

With the world largest companies on board, skillful management of the relationship between business and the rest of society is rapidly emerging as THE business frontier of the 21st century. Among many frameworks and approaches to business-in-society strategy, sustainability comes forward as a clear leader. At the core, sustainability aims to convert the earth’s most pressing social and environmental issues into thriving business opportunities – assuring sustainable long-term value creation for business and society. This class reviews approaches and frameworks to business-in-society strategy, offers fundamentals of business sustainability, suggests tools and mechanisms for creation of sustainable value, and presents the most interesting cases of sustainable business development worldwide. By the end of the course, participants may expect to:

(1) Understand what sustainability pressures are and why they are relevant to business;

(2) Look at how leading companies are succeeding (or failing) to capitalize on sustainable value creation as a business opportunity, and

(3) Develop practical skills and competencies that participants can apply in their own areas to integrate sustainability into the normal course of business operations.

Course Name: Financial Management
Instructor: Dr. Jim Ellert, Dr. Arshad Ahmad

This course is focused mainly on Anglo-Saxon principles of shareholder value creation but we also contrast other models of the role of the corporation that historically have placed more focus and emphasis on social responsibility (German, Japanese, Swiss, and Chinese, models in particular). When discussing corporate investment appraisal techniques (NPV framework), we provide an example (Royal Dutch Shell) of how some companies adjust the standard NPV approach when considering social and environmental investment decisions. We discuss ethical issues in the context of a case study: The Collapse of Enron and in the context of a discussion of the causes of the recent global financial crisis. When comparing differences in financing patterns across countries, we show how “corruption indexes” across countries influence capital structure choices. We also discuss corporate governance in the context of the collapse of Enron and Iridium LLC case studies.

Course Name: Leading Self and Others
Instructor: Dr. Pierre Casse, Paul Claudel

The ‘Leading Self and Others’ courses is designed to address crucial leadership challenges and dilemmas and prepare managers for addressing them. Throughout the course, participants will:

• Review the most pressing leadership challenges confronting their company in its local environments and the values and behaviors required to face up to these challenges

• Assess personal leadership strengths/weaknesses and styles

• Learn how to enhance the change process in organizations through appropriate individual, team and corporate actions and behaviors

The course puts particular focus on the difference between healthy and unhealthy leadership practices, with cases and exercises aimed at highlighting and addressing such leadership traps as ego, power, manipulation, and control. Concepts of responsible leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility frame the entire course, and serves as the foundation for all discussions and activities.

Course Name: Management Communications
Instructor: Dr. Paul King, Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, Dan Sinnott, Mani Sandher

Effective Management Communication is the language of leadership and has enormous power. This course uses inspirational, real-life, real time actual stories and corporate cases to demonstrate that leaders have an enormous ability to make a positive difference if they have the courage to lead, and use their persuasion and management communication skills to strengthen businesses and communities. Many of the cases discussed include ethical, social, or environmental issues -and all crisis management communications focus on ethical dilemmas.

Course Name: MBA Projects
Instructor: Dr. Nenad Filipovic, Dr. Brane Kalpic, Dr. Colin Egan

This practice-oriented course requires teams of participants to act as consultants for the top management of selected corporate partners. In agreement with the management, they select an area of improvement and work throughout the study program on analyzing the issues and proposing solutions. The course forces participants to take holistic approach to the issues at hand: stakeholder mapping and issue analysis are required components of the process, while all solutions are to be places in the context of sustainable development. Since the projects reflect the overall learning of the participants, we encourage the teams to address all the implications of the issues they deal with, including the ones related to social, environmental and ethical issues. Students are also introduced to ethical principles of consulting work and client relationship management.

All projects follow a systematic three-phase approach. In the first phase participants familiarize themselves with the nature of activities and with the context of their project organization. The result of this analysis is the definition of key success factors and alternative strategies for competing within the space of the organization’s mission. In the second phase participants analyze the competitive position of the client organization and identify its strengths and weaknesses. At the end of this phase, the project team indicates possible areas of improvement and proposes issues to be studied in greater detail. In the third phase, the project team undertakes a detailed analysis, develops and evaluates alternative solutions and proposes recommendations supported by short and medium term action plans.

In the recent years, the number of projects focusing directly on social and environmental performance of business have increased dramatically. For example, in 2009-2011, projects included issues such as sustainability of raw material supply in food industry (crops and fish stocks), risk management across a range of stakeholder issues and pressures, the future of mobility, business plan development for waste management company, and beyond.

Course Name: Operations Management
Instructor: Dr. P. Fraser Johnson

This course has several components relevant to social, environmental and ethical issues:

Process management:

- The efficient and effective use of resources, including materials

- Ethical treatments of people in the operations systems, including production workers

- Lean operations and the elimination of waste in the production system

Supply Chain Management

- Ethical and social implications of global sourcing

- Reverse logistics processes (reusing and recycling)

- Total cost of ownership and life cycle analysis principles

Course Name: Personal Development
Instructor: Dr. Melita Rant

The course "Personal Development" aims at shifting the focus of the participant from her/his environment to her/himself. The purpose of this shift is to enable each individual to gain intimate knowledge of who she/he is and how she/ he is perceived and to offer guidance in aligning this information with their internal aims, perceptions, drivers, actions and purposes. By addressing those, the course touches upon the individual’s position in all relevant social, environmental and ethical issues. As the course is scheduled as sessions from the very beginning of the program to the very end, it offers also an opportunity to observe the changes and direction of each one’s development in time. The course is significantly underpinned and connected to other courses in the program, such as Leading Self and Others, Arts and Leadership, Business Ethics and Corporate Governance and Business and Society.

Teaching Objectives include:

- Understand and manage own work-life balance challenges

- Understand and help manage work-life balance challenges of direct-reports

- Understand the dynamics of major identity transitions involving both personal and professional domains

- Design strategies to better navigate through professional and personal identity transitions

- Understand the role of one’s transformative experiences for personal development, and the responsibility to give back

Pages

Type of Offering

Bled Forum on Europe 2010: The Future of Information Society and Challenges for Good Governance
Date: March, 2010

IEDC-Bled School of Management served as a co-orgnizer of a traditional international conference Bled Forum on Europe, this year entitled “The Future of Information Society and Challenges for Good Governance,”

At the event, Pr. Dr. Danica Purg, President and Dean of IEDC and President of UN Global Compact Slovenia, offered a reflection on the role of art in developing responsible leaders, while Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, professor of sustainable development and leadership at IEDC and vice-president of UN Global Compact Slovenia, talked about sustainable value creation and how can organizations perform well by using social and environmental opportunities to enhance their existing strategic strengths. She provided participants with concepts of addressing the growing need to achieve high business performance while caring also for the social, ethical and personal responsibilities of leadership.

When the Bled Forum Foresight Conference concluded, the participants adopted the Bled Forum on Europe Declaration which will be sent to the relevant global and European stakeholders and policy makers of different levels. Every year The Bled Forum on Europe Declaration identifies the necessary challenges that call for immediate action of various social actors.

Bled Forum on Europe is a regional scientific event (initiated in 1996) involving NGOs, governmental institutions and business sector. Members of the Bled Forum on Europe gather in order to contribute to the debate and policy making on future challenges with the emphasis on Europe, and to influence the future development of the European continent. Main topics of Bled Forum on Europe are the challenges Europe is facing today, the role of the EU in the world, human rights, law régime, and the development of the society.

Fairness as a Source of Sustainable National Competitiveness
Date: January, 2011

IEDC-Bled School of Management and the United Nations Global Compact Slovenija held conference titled "Fairness as a Source of Sustainable National Competitiveness" where the first output of Ethos project was publicly presented. More than 130 Slovenian managers (addressed also by president of the Republic of Slovenia dr. Danilo Türk) discussed and gave feedback to Declaration on Fair Business. Declaration is a document which will bind the signatories to transparent and fair business, to enclose the anti-corruption clause into all contracts exceeding EUR 10,000 and to mutually inform the signatories on potential violations of the declaration.

Project Ethos, organized as a partnership between a number of organizations, is dedicated to advancement of the tenth principle of UN Global Compact, which adresses the issue of anti-corruption as one of the drivers of sustainable development. The mission of project Ethos is to establish mechanisms, processes and know-how with which the economy would be able to fight corruption and increase compliance to ethical and legal norms. Thus, the risk would decrease on a long-term, whereas the healthy competitiveness of companies and economic environment as a whole would increase.

The first output of project Ethos is Declaration on Fair Business, prepared by Ethos Task Force. Members of task force, led by IEDC-Bled School of Management, include government institutions (Anti Corruption Commission, Court of Audits), representatives of interested companies, and independent experts. Declaration introduces the principles of Partnering Against Corruption (PACI) as a guideline for creating and improving compliance programs in signatories. Partnering Against Corruption Initiative was launched by World Economic Forum, initiated by large companies from engineering and construction sector (among others ABB, AMEC, Skanska) and supported by large oil companies (Petronas, Chevron, Rio Tinto Alcan, Saudi Aramco in StatoilHydro).

Conference "Fairness as a Source of Sustainable National Competitiveness" offered the draft Declaration on Fair Business to consideration to Slovenian business leaders. "We wish the document to be realistic, therefore we need the feedback of potential future signatories," said dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development at IEDC and vice-president of UNGC Slovenia. All companies that will sign the declaration will annually meet at Assembly of signatories where they will discuss possible amendments to the declaration and have the ability to exclude the signatory which violates the declaration.

"Project Ethos is a long-term project; the Declaration is its first, but not the last output. Next steps will be the development of process and criteria for certification of companies in the field of compliance, promotion of integrity pacts in concrete public tenders and, if necessary, the change of legislation," said dr. Zhexembayeva.

President of UNGC Slovenia and President of IEDC, prof. dr. Danica Purg said: "Every new action or initiative that guides businesses to strengthen their competitiveness, based on improving their products, solutions or business models, helps in creating sustainable value. Increasing sales with unethical and incompliant actions maybe gives short-term financial results, but does not give a fair picture of one's market success and is bad for all players in the market."

8th Annual ELC Conference: Will European Leaders See Around the Corner and Find Creative Solutions?
Date: May, 2010

The European Leadership Centre (ELC), established by the IEDC-Bled School of Management in 2002, successfully concluded the eight conference entitled "Will European Leaders See Around the Corner and Find Creative Solutions?" The ELC conference was attended by 90 representatives from the business world, governments, unions, non-governmental organizations, media, deans and directors of management institutions, and experts on the leadership issues, from 21 countries.

The conference was led by Prof. Dr. Donna Ladkin, Centre for Executive Learning and Leadership, Cranfield School of Management (UK), who described the conference’s theme as very positive: “Given the number of significant challenges facing all of us who live and work in the European Community, the ELC conference hosted by IEDC-Bled School of Management provided an ideal opportunity for both leaders and those who study leadership to gather and share ideas about ways in which we can work together in our turbulent times. The theme of the conference was a very positive one: how we can find creative solutions to the issues we face."

Prof. dr. Donna Ladkin: “Crisis has also an upside. It forces us to rethink a lot of things we take for granted. It also gave us opportunity to see things differently and to create new process and ways of doing things in a more efficient and sustainable way. A key theme of the 8th ELC conference has been the connection between organization’s profitability and sustainable strategy. We leave the conference with main ideas about the ways we can work together towards common problems.”

In his key-note address, Dr. Erhard Busek, President of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe and President of the Supervisory Board of IEDC, spoke about the results of the crisis and the need for reflection and changes. Further on he stressed the importance of European public and the need for Europe to become important global player. In the frame of a panel on Energy and Sustainability issues, Žiga Debeljak, President of the Board of Mercator Group, introduces ecological solutions of the company, which according to his words optimizes transport and reduces the CO2 emissions. Mercator also motivates chosen local suppler to offer variety of environmental friendly products, while it tries to raise awareness on sustainability issues among its consumers with different campaigns used in its retail stores.

The conference featured also many other respected speakers from businesses and organizations, among them Dr. Nigel Jollands, Head of Energy Efficiency Unit, International Energy Agency, France, Halil Kulluk, President of Intekno Group, Turkey, Prof. Žiga Turk, Secretary General, Reflection Group, EU, Prof. Arnold Walravens, Professor Emeritus of the Technological University Delft and President of the Supervisory Board of Eureko, Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, professor of leadership, organizational change and sustainability at IEDC-Bled School of Management and other eminent speakers.

The 8th ELC conference means a continuation of leaders’ cooperation, European leadership assessment and promotion, arising from the mission and vision of ELC and being implemented since its establishment in 2002. The ELC, under the leadership of Prof. Danica Purg, organizes annual conferences, in which the European business-, political-, and NGO leaders will have a chance to exchange their opinions about European and global questions, bring up new ideas and initiatives for projects and programs for accelerating European leadership competences.

The program content was, besides IEDC-Bled School of Management, contributed also by the International Leadership Association (ILA), Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter (UK) and Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe from Austria.

Creating Sustainable Products and Services
Date: November, 2009

IEDC-Bled School of Management and the UN Global Compact Slovenia, which the school has established in 2007, held a conference titled "Creating Sustainable Products and Services«. The event was hosted by Mercator Group, and gathered 60 participants representing a variety of industries and other fields. The aim of this event was to deepen the understanding of sustainable products and services and to discuss related processes that are ongoing in this field. The event served as a linking of knowledge, networking, and inspiration as well as discussion on concrete and innovative projects.

Event participants - representatives of businesses, governmental organizations, NGOs and the media - were welcomed by Prof. Danica Purg, President of the UN Global Compact Slovenia and President of the IEDC-Bled School of Management. Brief introduction and presentation of best practices titled “Creating a Sustainable Product: Design, Packaging, and More“ led by Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, Vice-President of the UN Global Compact Slovenia and, at that time, One-Year Executive MBA Director at the IEDC-Bled School of Management, were followed by a presentation titled “Sustainable Development as part of Mercator Group strategy” delivered by Mrs Vera Aljancic Falež, Member of the Management Board, and Lucka Kavkler, Head of Environmental Affairs, both Mercator Group.

During her lecture Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, provided some inspiring insights regarding the future market, design, policy and technology potentials in the area of sustainable products and services. According to Dr. Zhexembayeva, “sustainable products and services are becoming the accepted norm and attract more interest than ever before. Customers, who have a genuine concern about the planet, the human race, and the future, are seeking to support businesses and organizations whose commercial activity are sustainable, and do not cause damage to the environment in the long term.” She added: “Considering the delivery of Sustainable Products and Service as an innovative process of change, organizations are shifting from the application of traditional eco-efficient practices which are mainly focused on reducing the risks of operating in the market. They are now exploring new business models and design strategies that can open up new market opportunities by promoting innovative solutions; this provides new opportunities to explore and implement sustainable product and service that offer enhanced customer benefits and contribute to the organizations’ growth.”

Ms Vera Aljancic Falež and Ms Lucka Kavkler from Mercator Group presented the development of sustainable products as part of Mercator's sustainable development strategy. According to Ms Aljancic Falež, »the number of Slovene customers who wish to protect the environment and who take sustainability into account when they make purchases is growing. The global market for sustainable products and services is growing. By observing the buying patterns of our customer, we are happy to confirm that Slovenia is not an exception is this respect.”

Following the introductory presentations, the participants discussed problems and solutions faced by their organizations in their efforts to develop sustainable products and services and achieve growth of the organizations through sustainable development.

IEDC Graduation Speaker 2010: Nancy Adler on “Leading Beautifully: The Creative Economy and Beyond”
Date: December, 2010

At the IEDC Graduation Ceremony held in the Bled Congress Hall, participants from 15 countries received their Bolgna MBA diplomas. The Faculty for Postgraduate Studies at IEDC has conferred academic title of Doctor Honoris Causa to Prof. Nancy J. Adler, the guru in organizational culture and one of the leading authorities in global leadership and cross-cultural management for her outstanding contribution to the global leadership development.

The graduation ceremony began with the address of Prof. Danica Purg, Dean of the Year 2010 (elected by AIB-Academy for Interntational Business), and continued with conferring the Doctor Honoris Causa title to Prof. Nancy J. Adler, one of the leading authorities in organizational culture, global leadership, cross-cultural management and women as global leaders.

Prof. Nancy Adler held a key-note speech at the graduation ceremony titled “Leading Beautifully: The Creative Economy and Beyond”. According to her opinion, leaders need to be also artists because of the challenges that their facing today. As she stated: “There is no way that we’ll have the type of society or the type of planet that we want in the 21st century if we continue using old 20th century solutions. The only way we can get different solutions is if we create and use different approaches. The questions is not anymore can we take the right decisions but can we create options worthy of choosing, not can we make a decision among the options that are already on the table. In order to create worthy options leaders have to be also creators and create worthy options.” Nancy's speech highlighted the importance of relfection in management practice as a key mechanism for building and revising one's values and expanding manager's levels of moral imagination. Art serves as one of the best tools of reflection and interspection.

Sustainability for Strategic Advantage
Date: September, 2009

IEDC-Bled School of Management and the UN Global Compact Slovenia, in partnership with Dnevnik daily newspaper, organized a two-day open seminar titled “Sustainability for Strategic Advantage” with the focus on the economic side of sustainability. The seminar, led by Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, Vice-President of the UN Global Compact Slovenia and professor of sustainable development at the IEDC-Bled School of Management, offered many practical tools for engaging businesses in sustainability efforts.

The partners designed a practice-oriented sustainability seminar focusing on sustainability as strategic opportunity to create value and foster profit. For the first time in Slovenia, a seminar that focused especially on the economic side of sustainability was organized and provided hands-on experience in creating and implementing successful and financially viable sustainability projects. According to Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, who led the seminar, "Individuals and companies are forced to adapt to survive in a world of increased global competition, conscious consumerism, strengthened environmental regulation and diminishing natural resources. When organisations embrace sustainability as a core – rather than peripheral – value, they create competitive advantage. In this paradigm, sustainability recognises the links and interdependencies between business and society, which create new opportunities to deliver enduring value and mutual benefit.”

During the seminar participants, representing line managers responsible for core business activities, such as manufacturing, logistics, operations, marketing, R&D, HR etc., were able to explore cutting edge ideas that are at the intersection of business and society, and shared best practices used for integrating social and environmental agenda into companies’ business strategy. Participants also discussed problems and solutions faced by their organizations in efforts to achieve sustainable development and growth.

2010 South Eastern Europe Management Forum Bled–Kopaonik: Economic Future and Management Challenges
Date: September, 2010

The two-day 2010 SEE Management Forum Bled-Kopaonik entitled “Economic Future and Management Challenges” concluded at IEDC-Bled School of Management. The event, organised by IEDC in cooperation with the Serbian Association of Economists, attracted 300 business, government and non-government leaders from 17 countries. At the Forum the participants sought for answers to questions on economic future and management challenges in order to reach higher growth and welfare in South Eastern Europe and beyond. Sustainability as a mega-trend served as a key theme of the event.

At the SEE Management Forum Bled-Kopaonik the participating business leaders, politicians (among them Mitja Gaspari, Minister for Development and European Affairs, Government of Republic of Slovenia; Bozidar Djelic, Deputy prime Minister for EU Integration, Government of the Republic of Serbia, and Gregor Golobic, Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, Government of Republic of Slovenia) and other public figures of South Eastern Europe (among them Hermann Simon, Chairman Simon Kutcher & Partners; Peter Kraljic, McKinsey, Director Emeritus; Dragan Ðuricin, President Serbian Association of Economists) discussed the actual topics in the following Plenary Sessions and Workshops: Searching for strategy after the crisis in the SEE region; Revised development model; Innovation and learning; Sustainability as a new megatrend; Beating crisis: Policy perspective; Future of Europe: Leadership challenges and Growth champions perspective.

Challenge:Future Summit 2010
Date: May, 2010

From May 14 to May 18, 2010, IEDC-Bled School of Management hosted an international forum that brought together students, business leaders, educators, government, change makers and media to conclude the 2009-2010 Challenge:Future Global Student Competition dedicated to youth, innovation and sustainability. Since its launch on September 24, 2009, the competition has united over 14 000 students from 184 countries. During the forum, the student team that proposes the most innovative, feasible, and sustainable solution was awarded 20,000 EUR. 57 students, representing Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, India, Latvia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom and Vietnam, have advanced to the finals of the competition and met in Bled.

Challenge:Future (www.challengefuture.org) is a global student competition, youth online community and a platform for dialogue aimed at promoting collaboration and innovation for the world’s sustainable future.

Challenge:Future was established by three partners from Slovenia, deeply committed to sustainability, prosperity and innovation: Third Millennium Knowledge, an incubator for new sustainability knowledge leading Challenge:Future strategy and IT development; CEEMAN, a network of 180 business schools, universities and other partners in 43 countries worldwide, headquartered in Bled, Slovenia; and IEDC-Bled School of Management, one of the leading business schools in Central and Eastern Europe.

Challenge:Future encourages students to discuss and come up with creative solutions to some of the challenges the world is facing today, which would contribute to a prosperous, fair and more sustainable future. It also offers various levels of engagement for youth, faculty members, schools and international organizations and partners.

The Challenge:Future 2012, held under the theme of “The Future of Connecting”, consisted of three events:

- BootCamp, held from May 14 to May 16, 2010, focused on personal and leadership development of the participating students

- Summit, held on May 17 and May 18, 2010, promoted dialogue and joint action among students, business, academia, and other institutes of society

- Gala, held on May 18, 2010, celebrated the vision of sustainable future and management innovation.

Held under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. Danilo Türk, the five-day international forum offered keynotes and insights from international speakers, including Donald J. Johnston, OECD Secretary-General from 1996 to 2006 and Joel A. Barker, futurist and best-selling author.

Green and Sustainable Bled: The Next Big Opportunity
Date: January, 2011

IEDC-Bled School of Management hosted more than 60 representatives of local community Bled and all others who are actively involved in the local environment of Bled, and prepared for them a special free seminar titled “Green and Sustainable Bled: The next big opportunity.”

Guests and other citizens of Bled were welcomed by Prof. Danica Purg, President of IEDC, who introduced IEDC’s important role in the international promotion of Bled and talked about 25th Anniversary that IEDC celebrates this year. The citizens of Bled were addressed also by the Mayor of Bled, Mr. Janez Fajfar and afterwards participated at a seminar titled “Green and Sustainable Bled: The next big opportunity” led by Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development at IEDC, where she teaches leadership, organizational behavior, and sustainability.

The lecture was followed by a vivid discussion and work in groups, where citizens talked about the opportunities of city Bled and how this Slovene pearl could become a city of excellence in the area of sustainable development.

Centre for Arts and Leadership Development
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 2
Contact Name: Ian Sutherland
Contact Email: ian.sutherland@iedc.si

As a 'creative environment for creative leadership' IEDC-Bled School of Management is a visionary institution in the realm of Arts and Leadership Development and Practice.

The Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research is dedicated to dynamic, innovative, challenging and provocative projects of experiential leadership exploration. Through music, visual art, film and performance contemporary and future leaders plumb the depths of leadership practices to develop creative, aesthetic, and holistic approaches to responsible leading.

Through cutting edge, real-world research the Centre for Arts and Leadership Development is not only a place of practice but a place of knowledge creation and dissemination. Research activites explore the arts in action, as vital and dynamic aspects of social life with real relevance in everyday life and leadership.

The Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research seeks to prepare leaders for tomorrow's challenges by:

- Fostering reflective, socially responsible leadership

- Fostering creativity and creative skills in leadership

- Fostering beautiful leadership through artistic practice

- Promoting the importance of the arts in business and life

- Promoting aesthetic visions of organisations and businesses

European Leadership Centre
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 5
Contact Name: Barbara Vilfan
Contact Email: barbara.vilfan@iedc.si

In September 2002 the European Leadership Center (ELC) was established to promote European leadership through conferences, workshops, round table discussions, and research.

The ELC founders believe in the importance of good leadership in achieving heightened European competitiveness and also more progressive and socially responsible European development. They are convinced that our European origins provide a unique opportunity to define a new leadership direction towards more statesmanlike, long-term and responsible leadership.

The European Leadership Center therefore positions itself as a center of excellence to spearhead directions and actions for leaders wishing to enhance Europe’s capability of playing a critical and competitive role in the world economy and world affairs. It is a forum for dialogue between business, policy makers, unions, and the media on issues related to European leadership.

Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 2
Contact Name: Nadya Zhexembayeva
Contact Email: nadya.zhexembayeva@iedc.si

The Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development at IEDC-Bled School of Management is an interdisciplinary initiative aimed at creating cutting-edge knowledge in the field of sustainability, promoting the concepts of sustainable development, sustainable value, and embedded sustainability, and providing support for the needs of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) while connecting the international sustainability community to the realities and innovations of the region.

Coca-Cola Company’s continuous support of IEDC-Bled School of Management reflects commitment to investing into future business leaders. The Coca-Cola Company donation supports creation of breakthrough global projects aimed at developing management professionals ready to address complex social and environmental pressures facing the world today.

At the heart of the Chair efforts are three key objectives:

- Applied research in the areas of sustainable development, sustainable value, and sustainable enterprise, with the focus on embedding social and environmental performance into the key business activities, including strategy, marketing, operations, logistics, and organizational development,

- Development of innovative teaching methods, teaching materials as well as faculty in the field of sustainability and embedding the subject of sustainable value throughout the entire management curriculum, and

Sharing of insights and fostering change via presence at international symposia, publication of cases, books, and articles, and organization of unique projects and events aimed at engaging business in sustainability efforts and catalysing positive change.

Among the Chair’s early achievements is the development of teaching cases on sustainable value, done in partnership with Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, co-authorship of a strategy manuscript, “Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage,” forthcoming in March 2011 via Stanford University Press and Greenleaf Publishing, as well co-founding of groundbreaking global sustainability competition Challenge:Future, which engaged nearly 15,000 young professionals from 199 countries in sustainable innovation and collaboration.

United Nations Global Compact Slovenia
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 3
Contact Name: Danica Purg
Contact Email: danica.purg@iedc.si

The Slovenian chapter of the UN Global Compact was established on May 24th, 2007 on the initiative of Prof. Danica Purg, Dean and President of the IEDC-Bled School of Management. Originally founded by 16 companies, which represent the biggest drivers of Slovene economy, UN Global Compact Slovenia now has 52 member-organizations.

The association is housed, managed, and supported by IEDC-Bled School of Management, whereby the business school serves as a meeting point for companies interested in realizing strategic opportunities offered by sustainable and socially responsible practices. IEDC MBA students and other stakeholders receive benefits from the UN Global Compact Slovenia, including access to resources, events, and consulting services on issues relevant to development and implementation of successful social and environmental strategy. A variety of events organized by the UN Global Compact Slovenia are offered to MBA participants throughout the year, while member-organizations are often invited as guess speakers during the MBA program.

Challenge:Future Global Youth Think Tank

Challenge:Future is a global youth think tank creating a sustainable world that works for all. Founded by IEDC-Bled School of Management, CEEMAN-Central and East European Management Development Association, and TMK Lab in 2009, Challenge:Future is a youth organization headquartered at IEDC and managed by its faculty, students, alumni, and staff. In addition to Slovenian chapter and headquarters, 9 student and professional chapters have already been established in Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Denmark, India, Macedonia, Montenegro, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey. Through future thinking and collaboration, we inspire tomorrow’s talent and connect them with today’s opportunities via:

- The annual web-based Challenge:Future Competition – a leading global web-based innovation contest built on ideas of radical inclusiveness, open collaboration, and embedded sustainability.

- The annual Challenge:Future Summit connecting the most innovative youth, pioneering businesses, policy leaders and other change makers in dialogue, reflection, and action. The Summit serves as the final stage of the competition featuring student presentations and judging of solutions, with the best teams and schools recognized at the Gala Awards Ceremony.

- The annual publication of The Future Book, an inspiring and practical collection of provocative expert ideas and intuitive youth foresight designed to foster new visions of the future.

In 2009-2010, Challenge:Future:

- Connected 14.000 members from 964 faculties and universities from 184 countries. What makes Challenge:Future so special is a tremendous diversity of students that creates the bold global image of Challenge:Future as an accessible, fair, and empowering student competition.

- Motivated 550 competing teams from 245 schools and 72 countries to engage their minds and hearts via an eight-month long sustainability innovation competition. Six challenges: Transportation, Communication, Health, Media, Poverty, and Youth in Society were addressed by the 2009-2010 competition.

- Attracted 70.000 unique visitors to its online community, with more than 1.000.000 pages viewed.

- Hosted the Challenge:Future Summit 2010, where, under the patronage of Dr. Danilo Turk, President of Slovenia, nearly 100 of the most promising global youth met in Bled and connected with remarkable business leaders, passionate civil change makers and visionary politicians for in-depth dialogue, reflection, and action.

- Published a community-authored publication, The Future Book, released in September 2010, which made it into the hands of Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State (2001- 2005), Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, and many other world leaders, thinkers, businessmen, and change makers.

In 2011, Challenge:Future is designing a new sustainability innovation competition, and planning another groundbreaking sustainability summit connecting students and young professionals to business, government, media and nonprofit sector via dialogue and meaningful collaboration.

Business & Society: Parners or Enemies?
Author(s): Nadya Zhexembayeva; Chris Laszlo

Linking business strategy and social development has, indisputably, become one of the 'hottest' ideas of the recent years. From Michael Porter to Glamour magazine, it seems that everyone is advocating alignment of social benefit and competitive advantage. As natural resources continue to decline and social expectations of business continue to grow, it is no surprise that many companies are jumping on the bandwagon on its way to a promising destination of mutual benefits for business and society. Yet, most businesses fail to capitalize on this opportunity for a simple reason: it is easy to get excited; it is hard to make it work. The good news is that a number of companies - in Russia and abroad - have figured out how to harvest profits at the intersection of business and society, creating truly sustainable value for shareholders and stakeholders. They do it by understanding the value shift sweeping economies and continents, discovering opportunities to achieve existing business goals with new socially- and ecologically-sound strategies, and engaging their organization's passions and values for higher returns. In this paper, we explore the concepts and frameworks that allow for sustainable value creation grounded in best business practices across countries and industries.

Journal Title: Harvard Business Review Russia Volume: 46 Edition: 3 Page Numbers: 93-101