Darden School of Business, Olsson Center Ranked No. 1 in Business Ethics
January 2012

Research published in the December 2011 issue of the academic journal Business & Society recognizes the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and the Olsson Center as leaders in the field of Business Ethics.The findings are based on a survey administered to 320 business ethics scholars from across the world. Factors such as publication productivity and perceptions of institutional prestige in business ethics research were considered in the report.

Tribute to Juha Nasi, A Pioneer of Stakeholder Theory 
December 2011

The Olsson Center’s R. Edward Freeman served as one of the editors for the Volume 96, 2010 issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, a special issue meant to honor the life and work of the late Juha Nasi. “It was an honor to edit this publication—especially to work in partnership with Salme Nasi, the wife of Juha Nasi--it was a heartwarming experience,” said Freeman, who edited the issue with Salme Nasi of Tampere University in Finland and Grant Savage of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Nasi, a longtime professor at University of Tampere, was one of the founders of Stakeholder Theory and its application to business. In the 1970s when Nasi, Freeman and a handful of others were developing Stakeholder Theory, few could imagine the lasting significance this nascent academic field would have, not only on business scholarship, but also on business practice. “Back then if you asked an executive who the company’s stakeholders were, you might get some strange reactions,” says Freeman. “Now, business students already have some understanding of these concepts before they begin their MBA programs.”

Nasi was an active contributor to Stakeholder Theory even as he struggled with the cancer that would ultimately end his life. On June 25, 2008, shortly before his death, Nasi held a conference in Tampere, Finland where “10 minute papers” were presented. These papers which were to consist of one idea and to be the author’s most important notion on Stakeholder Theory, provide the content for this very special edition of the Journal of Business Ethics.