Prof. Ioannou is a leading Strategy scholar whose research focuses on Sustainability Strategy, ESG Integration, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The broader research question that underpins his entire research program to date is: How do efforts to integrate environmental and social issues into business strategy influence a company’s ability to establish a competitive edge and its impact on the environment and society at large? More specifically, what are the implications for organizational structures and decision-making processes and impacts? Through his research, Ioannis’ overarching goal has been to fill this gap in our understanding, offering novel insights into the emergence of sustainable organizations, the variability of sustainability practices globally, and the implications for performance and impact. This work not only addresses an important academic debate but critically, it also serves as a guide for practitioners and policymakers in crafting strategies and policies that balance profitability with societal and environmental responsibility.
Prof. Ioannou regularly publishes in top-tier peer-reviewed academic journals including some of the most prestigious academic journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Management Science, Organization Science, The Accounting Review and the Journal of International Business Studies. To date, his work is widely cited and he consistently ranks in the top 100 authors on the social science research network (SSRN). He currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Strategic Management Journal and of Management Science (Sustainability) and is on the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Perspectives, having received Outstanding Editorial Board Member Awards in 2015 and 2019 at SMJ. He also served as a Senior Editor for Organization & Environment from 2016 to 2020.
In addition to his academic pursuits, Prof. Ioannou is deeply engaged with the world of practice. He co-chairs the Sustainability Advisory Panel of Merck KGaA and is a member of the ESG Advisory Board of the DWS Group. Prof. Ioannou also serves on the Board of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) and is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Expert Network, focusing on Sustainable Development. Previously, he served on the Stakeholder Working Group of the UK Treasury's Asset Management Taskforce.
Prof. Ioannou frequently presents his research at academic conferences and universities worldwide and is very often invited to deliver keynote speeches on responsible management and sustainability leadership at high-profile practitioner events and conferences globally. He is active on social media and regularly contributes articles to the popular and managerial press, including outlets such as the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and Forbes. In recognition of his impactful work, Prof. Ioannou has been named one of the top social media influencers around the world for issues related to responsible business and sustainability.
Prof. Ioannou graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, majoring in Economics and Mathematics. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University and the Harvard Business School. He joined London Business School (LBS) in 2009 as an Assistant Professor and is currently an Associate Professor with tenure. Prof. Ioannou has taught core Strategy courses on the MBA and EMBA programs at LBS, as well as several other degree programs, including the Masters in Finance.
He is also a sought-after contributor to multiple LBS executive education programmes, including modules on Responsible Business and Sustainability in senior executive programs such as the Senior Executive Programme (SEP). Prof. Ioannou's 6-week online course on Sustainability Leadership and Corporate Responsibility (www.london.edu/SLCR) has enrolled more than 500 senior leaders and Board members from around the world, empowering them to become transformational change agents and enabling them to reconceptualize critical global challenges as sustainable growth opportunities, thereby achieving positive social impact.
In 2022, his co-authored paper published in the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) in 2012 with George Serafeim on "What drives corporate social performance? The role of nation-level institutions" won the JIBS Decade Award for 2022.The award is designed to recognize the most influential paper published in the JIBS ten years prior to the award. In 2016, Prof. Ioannou was awarded the 2016 ARCS Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award; an award that recognises a scholar in the area of corporate sustainability who is likely to make significant contributions to the advancement of corporate sustainability scholarship. At the same event, Prof. Ioannou’s work with R. Durand and O. Hawn received the 2016 ARCS Outstanding Paper Award.
A key contribution of his work is to theorize about and provide rigorous empirical evidence for the emergence of the “responsible organization” (in a recent study published in Management Science, with G. Serafeim and B. Eccles). In this piece of work, Ioannou and co-authors provide evidence regarding significant long-term outperformance of this type of organization compared to the traditional corporate form, both in terms of operating as well as stock market performance. For a brief presentation of this work see here.
Prof. Ioannou has also studied how companies tackle the inevitable trade-offs that arise due to a genuine sustainability commitment. In a paper published in the Academy of Management Review with R. Durand and O. Hawn, they developed a model of organizational decision-making regarding ESG issues that explains why different companies respond differently when faced with the same ESG pressure and why some do not respond at all. This study, published in Academy of Management Review, has also inspired a simulation titled “The Trade-Off: Can you balance Purpose and Profit?” by the Financial Times (freely available here).
In another study with Caroline Flammer, Prof. Ioannou explores the impact of the Great Recession on long-term corporate strategies, revealing the critical role of investments in innovation and stakeholder relations during times of crisis. Specifically, the findings show that during the Great Recession, companies significantly reduced their workforce and capital expenditures. Yet, they maintained the same level of investments in R&D and CSR in an attempt to remain competitive during (and after) turbulent times. For a recent webinar linking these findings to the current pandemic, see here.
His work on CSR and Access to Finance, with G. Serafeim and B. Cheng, has received the Best Paper Award at the Annual Academic Conference of the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment as well as the Emerald Citations of Excellence 2017 Award. His work with O. Hawn received the Best Paper Award from the Social Issues in Management division of the Academy of Management and was published in the Best Paper Proceedings of the 2012 Academy of Management (AOM) meeting. Recently, his paper with O. Hawn and R. Durand presenting a general model of corporate responses to normative pressures as they relate to socio-environmental issues was published in the 2016 AOM Best Paper Proceedings. The same paper inspired an FT simulation on the trade-offs that arise when companies try to integrate sustainability into their core business (see here). Previously Prof. Ioannou had two more papers published in the AOM Best Paper Proceedings: his dissertation work on the impact of spinoffs on their parent companies in the US automobile industry (2009), and a paper with G. Serafeim on the Impact of CSR on Investment Recommendations (2010).
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