Leuphana awards honorary doctorate to Edward Freeman
During this year's dies academicus on 3 July 2019, Leuphana University of Lüneburg awarded an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Sustainability to Prof. R. Edward Freeman, PhD. With this award, Leuphana honours the scientist for both his ground-breaking scientific achievements and his lifelong commitment.
The philosopher and economist R Edward Freeman is Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia. He developed the vital foundations of stakeholder theory, which became the basic model of modern economic and social research. This approach shows that the successful management of a company should not only consider the interests of its owners and shareholders in its business policy decisions, but also those of all the stakeholders associated with the company. This includes not only employees and customers, but also neighbours and social interest groups.
With his research and his commitment to business practice, R Edward Freeman has shown ways to explicitly integrate ethical aspects into the strategic management of organisations. Stakeholder theory argues that separating ethics from management is neither possible, nor conducive to successful management.
Vita:
Edward Freeman was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1951. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Duke University and received his doctorate from Washington University in 1978. He taught at the University of Minnesota and the Wharton School before starting work at the Darden Business School of the University of Virginia .