Bled, June 7, 2023: This year’s traditional international conference Trends in CSR 2023: Beyond social responsibility was held on June 6, 2023, in Bled in co-organization with the Network for Social Responsibility of Slovenia, Ekvilib Institute, IEDC - Bled School of Business and WISE Institute.
The 115 conference participants were welcomed by Prof. Drikus Kriek, Dean of IEDC-Bled School of Management and Aleš Kranjc Kušlan, Director of Ekvilib Institute, followed by three keynote speeches by Prof. Arnold Smit, professor at Stellenbosch Business School and IEDC devoted his lecture to the values of socially responsible leaders.
This was followed by a lecture by Dr. Robert Biloslav, PhD in Business Informatics and lecturer at the Faculty of Management of the University of Primorska, who researches the development of sustainable business models, dualities in management and wisdom as a virtue for achieving happiness.
The last lecture was given by Lavinia Muth, a German speaker, activist and consultant in the field of social responsibility.
A roundtable entitled ‘Social responsibility - part of the solution or part of the problem?’ was led by Aleš Kranjc Kušlan, Ekvilib Inštitut and the following speakers gave very valuable contributions to the topic: Bojan Ivanc, Gospodarska zbornica Slovenije, dr. Roberto Biloslavo, Fakulteta za management, Univerza na Primorskem, Živa Kavka Gobbo, Društvo za sonaraven razvoj Focus, Alenka Recelj Mercina, NLB d.d.
And two interactive workshops one led by Marina Schmitz and a second by prof. dr. Roberto Biloslavo made the conference even more applicable.
It turns out that the red thread of all topics is trust – trust in one in others and in (business) intuition.
With trust, the conference also closed. To develop social responsibility, we need to dare to go beyond the horizon of normal business practices – to trust each other and to hope that this will have positive effects for a more solidarity society and a cleaner nature.