Which EDHEC Vox articles were published in the 1st quarter of 2023?

Sustainable investment and infrastructure

To halt global warming, forget net-zero: aim for net-negative*

January 23, 2023 - by Riccardo Rebonato, Professor at EDHEC and Scientific director of the EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute.

In the fight against climate change, the lever every policymaker has been focusing on has been the reduction in (net) emissions. Curbing the rate at which greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere clearly remains a priority. Yet every serious scientific analysis – in particular the latest IPCC report – agrees that a substantial amount of CO2 must be removed from the atmosphere via negative-emission technologies if we want to have a reasonable chance of limiting the temperature increase by the end of the century to 1.5 to 2C above pre-industrial levels.... read the full article

The rise of renewables is not without risk for investors*

February 9, 2023 - by Frédéric Blanc-Brude, EDHECinfra Director, Laurence Monnier, 1PlanetInfra Director and Leonard Lum, EDHECinfra Data Analyst.

Given the urgent need to combat climate change and put an end to the exploitation of fossil fuels, it would appear renewable energies have a bright future. Having grown steadily for several years, they accounted for 19.1% of gross final energy consumption in France in 2020. Across the Channel, 43% of the energy consumed in the UK now comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power. That said, it is essential we step up green investment even more if we are to sustain low-carbon economic growth... read the full article

Corporate social and environmental responsibility

“To regulate AI, a risk-based approach is probably the most promising way, but only if firms take data ethics seriously"

January 17, 2023 - interview with Björn Fasterling, EDHEC Professor and Researcher at the EDHEC Augmented Law Institute

Data management and protection for firms has been a key subject for years now. But are they really well equipped to follow the law on one hand, and to act ethically on the other hand?

It is interesting that you ask about a possible conflict between ethics and the management of legal compliance and data protection policies. Research has shown that without ethically motivated support in organizations, legal compliance management quickly becomes ineffective, sometimes even counterproductive. The problem is that data protection officers, lawyers and compliance managers in companies tend to focus on meeting formal legal requirements... read the full interview

Why is it so difficult to handle whistleblower reports?*

March 15, 2023 - by Wim Vandekerchove, EDHEC Professor, Nadia Smaili and Paulina Arroyo-Pardo, UQAM Professors.

Whistleblower rights are on the rise, it seems. In February 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights overturned an earlier criminal conviction of Raphaël Halet, one of the LuxLeaks whistleblowers that disclosed tax avoidance practices at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Meanwhile in France, the Mediator drug case still drags on after more than a decade. Pharmaceutical firm Servier recently launched an appeal against convictions it was handed in 2021 for concealing the risks of the Mediator weight-loss pill. Irène Frachon, the doctor that discovered the drug’s potentially fatal side effects, still maintains her courageous whistleblowing efforts... read the full article

Health

3 questions to Loick Menvielle on the new Barometer dedicated to connected health

January 30, 2023 - interview with Loick Menvielle, EDHEC Professor and Director of the Management in Innovative Health Chair.

Why did you think it was relevant to carry out a barometer on connected health?

Firstly, because the last surveys of this type were beginning to be dated, particularly in view of the importance of connected objects since the mid-2010s. On the other hand, because the subject of innovation in health, essentially through connected health, is at the heart of the work of our research chair launched last year by Bristol Myers Squibb and EDHEC Business School, a chair based in particular on the conviction that innovative health cannot be achieved without inclusiveness, and vice versa.... read the full interview

Individual freedom and collective responsibility: yet another challenge for the health care system

February 13, 2023 - by Geert Demuijnck and Loick Menvielle, EDHEC Professors.

The relationship between individual and collective responsibilities has been discussed for centuries by thinkers in ethics, economics, and political science, and also in the health field.  The unprecedented situation that all countries went through during the Covid-19 pandemic raised numerous questions about individual choices regarding vaccination and the contradictions that they generated. The debate about the relationship between individual rights and collect responsibility is particularly complex. Rawls (1971) defined health as a “primary good”... read the full article

Societal issues - diversity, gender, regulation...

How to improve fathers' use of paternity and childcare leave?*

January 27, 2023 - by Hager Jemel, EDHEC Associate Professor and Director of the Diversity & Inclusion Chair, and Laura Lacombe, Chargée d'études for the Diversity & Inclusion Chair.

From 1 July 2021, paternity and childcare leave has been extended from 14 to 28 days and a period of 7 days immediately after the birth of the child has become compulsory. Previously, the law provided for 3 days of employer-funded childbirth leave plus 11 days paid by social security. While the latest national survey by the Directorate for Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Drees) showed a 70% take-up rate for paternity leave before the new law, our recent study shows a higher rate since the law was extended in 2021... read the full article

Campuses and offices must become living and meeting places for students*

February 10, 2023 - by Manuelle Malot and Geneviève Houriet Ségard, Director and Adjunct Director of the EDHEC NewGen Talent Centre.

Because remote working has worked beyond expectations during the confinements and has seduced thousands of employees, it is sometimes believed too quickly that it is a solution for the attractiveness and commitment of the younger generations. But the subject of commitment is obviously more complex and encompasses the evolution of the relationship to work, which has been totally transformed after the health crisis. The aspirations of the new generations, coupled with the deployment of teleworking, have changed their vision of time, place and work relationships... read the full article

3 questions to Fabian Bernhard on gender and family businesses

March 7, 2023 - interview with Fabian Bernhard, EDHEC Associate Professor and Family Business Chair Researcher.

What was the motivation behind your article on flexible work arrangements in family businesses?

I have been researching and working with families in business for more than 15 years. During these years I have noticed that, for family members, working together in the business can be a curse and a blessing. While it can mean coping with family issues at work, it can also offer unique benefits, such as nepotistic privileges. For example, when you are in business with your close family members it can be easier to ask for a day of home office or some flexible schedule. So, together with my colleagues we were interested in the effects of this heightened degree of flexibility in family businesses compared to employees in regular (non-family) work environments... read the full interview

4 questions to Teodor Dyakov on the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank

March 16, 2023 - interview with Teodor Dyakov, EDHEC Associate Professor.

A first - almost naïve - question: why do banks fail?

There are many reasons why banks fail, but I will focus on the essential role of banks in providing liquidity and how that is related to the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). A common saying in the business world is that banks “borrow short and lend long”. In the case of SVB, the bank borrowed from depositors who can redeem their deposits at any time, and hence, the bank borrowed “short”. The bank used deposits to fund a portfolio of loans and bonds whose value can be redeemed at a much longer term, and hence, it lent “long”... read the full interview

3 questions to Gianfranco Gianfrate on the risks associated with crowdlending

March 23, 2023 - interview with Gianfranco Gianfrate, EDHEC Professor and Research Director at the EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute.

Why did you choose to analyse the P2P lending market?

One of the most fascinating questions for finance scholars is to understand whether the FinTech revolution started few years ago will eventually lead to a world without traditional banks. Will financial innovations like digital payments, cryptocurrencies, and crowdfunding make banks useless? This is an interesting question with implications for banks, start-ups, financial regulators and in general for our lives. We choose to study, in particular, whether it is efficient to get loans on crowdlending platforms in comparison with traditional banks... read the full interview

Portraits of our professors

Discover the first article of the new series of portraits of EDHEC professors.

Meet Professor Martin Wetzels, a world-class scholar in Marketing

January 16, 2023 - Portrait of Martin Wetzels, EDHEC Professor.

Being included in the 2% top scientists worldwide by citation impact does not come by chance. For Martin Wetzels, this is only the tip of an iceberg three decades in the making: a dedication to make marketing research a powerful force for change. When he started studying International Management at Maastricht University in the early 1990s, he was almost immediately drawn not to the topic itself but also to the method. The now-renowned institution had just launched this novel and innovative program... read the full portrait

* All articles marked with this asterisk were originally published on The Conversation