On September 7th, 2019, to promote the academic exchanges of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, the 40th Anniversary of Business School of Beijing Normal University Seminar on Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (2019) was grandly held at Jingshixuetang, Beijing Normal University. The seminar was guided by Department of Management Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, hosted by China Enterprise Management Association, Institute of Strategic Research at Peking University, Business School at Beijing Normal University, Research Center of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Culture at Xiamen University, Beijing Rongzhi Corporate Social Responsibility Institute, organized by Social Responsibility Professional Committee at Chinese Institute of Business Administration, Department of Strategic Management at BNUBS, Innovation, Entrepreneurship Education and Sustained Competitiveness Research Center at BNUBS, co-organized by Management World and Foreign Economic and Management.

△ Seminar on Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (2019)

The theme of this seminar is "the past, present and future of CSR research". More than 200 domestic well-known experts and scholars from colleges and universities gathered here to discuss the course, progress, reflection and prospect of CSR research over the past hundred years as well as the basic, key and prospective issues on CSR research. They are Huang Qunhui, director of Institute of Economics at Chinese Academy of Social Science, Huang Sujian, distinguished professor of BNUBS and president of China Enterprise Management Association, Wu Gang, director of the Second Department of Management Sciences at Natural Science Foundation of China, Sun Zhijun, the party secretary of Business School, Wang Xiaoguang, the director of Beijing Rongzhi Corporate Social Responsibility Institute, Xiao Hongjun, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics of CASS, Jiao Hao, a professor of BNUBS etc.

The party secretary of Business School Sun Zhijun and distinguished professor of BNUBS and president of China Enterprise Management Association Huang Sujian delivered welcoming speeches on behalf of the organizers respectively.

Firstly, Sun expressed his heartfelt thanks and warm welcome to the experts and scholars at this seminar. He believes that "sustainability and CSR" is an important theme of epoch-making significance, which is highly consistent with the ideas and actions consistently advocated and insisted by BNU and BNUBS. The Business School is committed to creating a school-running pattern that combines economics and management education, humanistic quality and social responsibility, following the school’s motto of “Promoting Business and Humanism to Serve the Nation and the World”. This seminar, on the one hand, can further enhance the exchange and interaction among scholars and promote the research on sustainability and CSR. On the other hand, it also makes great contributions to the development of BNUBS.

△ Sun Zhijun, the party secretary of Business School, delivering a welcoming speech.

△Huang Sujian, distinguished professor of BNUBS and president of China Enterprise Management Association, delivering a welcoming speech.

On behalf of the sponsor China Enterprise Management Association, Huang began with his high respects for all the representatives present at the seminar. They enthusiastically gathered here to explore the  academic meaning. China Enterprise Management Association, he said, has been committed to promoting the development of management theory and practice, focusing on the important theoretical problems, hot realistic problems and prospective problems of Chinese enterprise management, building high-end platform for the interaction, academic discussion, cooperation, mutual learning among the enterprise management research scholars. As an important topic that crosses national boundaries and academic fields, sustainability and CSR is related to the future of mankind, has been highly concerned and actively promoted by countries around the world, recognized and respected by industry and business, and also aroused strong interest and research in the academia.

Whereafter, Huang Qunhui, director of Institute of Economics at Chinese Academy of Social Science, and Wu Gang, director of the Second Department of Management Sciences at Natural Science Foundation of China, delivered speeches respectively.

△Huang Qunhui, director of Institute of Economics at Chinese Academy of Social Science, making a speech.

Huang Qunhui said that in today's world, sustainability, as a trend of the times as well as an international event, is not only being injected with positive factors, but also facing many severe challenges. In the face of major changes unseen in the past 100 years, how to boost sustainability and to make the vision of sustainability come true is a major challenge facing all countries and all sectors of the society. The enterprise is an important force to promote the realization of sustainability. It contributes to the redefinition of sustainability for enterprise and is the fundamental of corporate social responsibility. He hopes that standing on the new starting point, 100 later after the idea of CSR was put forward, we can comply with the new requirements of the new era, start and cross the road of CSR research again.

△Wu Gang, director of the Second Department of Management Sciences at Natural Science Foundation of China, giving a speech

Wu Gang said that in the context of economic globalization, corporate social responsibility has become a broad consensus in the international community. The number of research projects on CSR funded by Business Branch of Department Management Sciences at Natural Science Foundation of China has grown rapidly; the topics have become rich and diverse. As a basic research for application, management science is more oriented to the major national needs and enterprise practice. The results of these research projects can provide guidance and reference for the sustainability of enterprises. He also hopes that the experts attended will pool their wisdom to create a spark of innovation, to jointly promote the rapid development of CSR and sustainability.

Then, Zhou Zucheng, professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Chen Honghui, professor at Zhongshan University, Xin Jie, associate professor at Shandong University, Zheng Ruojuan, professor at Xiamen University, Yang Dongnin, associate professor at Peking University, Xiao Hongjun,  researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics of CASS, respectively delivered the wonderful keynote speeches on sustainability and CSR, and obtained the unanimous praise. In the afternoon, there was a thesis seminar on sustainability and CSR (2019), which was divided into three parallel sessions. All the CSR experts from universities across China discussed the papers from different dimensions.  

Periodical Forum is the final part. All attended experts and scholars such as Li Zhijun, the president of Management World Magazine, Zhang Qizi, deputy chief editor of China Industrial Economics and deputy director of the Institute of Industrial Economics of CASS, Bai Changhong, chief editor of Nankai Business Review and Dean of Business School at Nankai University, Song Chengyu, the director of editorial office of Foreign Economies and Management, Liu Jianli, the director of editorial office of Economic Management Journal, exchanged in-depth views and interacted with each other on related topics. All the guests agreed that the successful hosting of the event set up a very good communication platform among experts, scholars and enterprise representatives, which will further improve the corporate social responsibility management system, promote enterprises to better realize sustainability and jointly promote social harmony.