[Interview] Research Life at ESC Clermont BS

Linking research and teaching, and vice versa

ESC Clermont faculty have implemented a combined research/teaching strategy with the objective of developing research projects with the teaching specializations delivered on the same themes.

In this way, the school reinforces the link between the research expertise of the faculty and the specializations offered in the program portfolio. In addition to their teaching activities, the professors carry out studies or research, sometimes financed by companies, which give rise to intellectual contributions such as the publication of academic articles or the dissemination of their work to professionals and the general public.

As one of the leading French ‘Grandes Ecoles’ of management, ESC Clermont BS also attaches great importance to its pedagogical activities and encourages the production of teaching cases as well as academic articles reporting on the pedagogical innovation experiments carried out at the school.

5 Questions to Anne Albert Cromarias, Academic and Research Director

Talent management, ecological accounting, emotional leadership, ecological redirection… at the beginning of April, 8 teacher-researchers from the École were featured in the audiovisual magazine “Xerfi Canal”. We took advantage of this opportunity to ask Anne Albert Cromarias, teacher-researcher in strategic management and Director of Faculty and Research, the following 5 questions.

CAN YOU SUMMARISE THE SCHOOL’S RESEARCH STRATEGY IN A FEW WORDS?

Research activity is particularly important, since it is scrutinized by national validators (The Ministry of Higher Education and Research, via the CEFDG; The ‘Conférence des Grandes Ecoles’ consortium), international accreditors (AACSB, EFMD, AMBA) and the magazine press which regularly publish school and program-rankings.

The ESC Clermont Business School’s research policy, which is still recent, is therefore aimed at responding to these demands, but also at creating knowledge in connection with our initial and continuing education programs and encouraging our teacher-researchers to develop original and motivating research projects.

WHAT ARE THE RESEARCH THEMES OF THE TEACHER-RESEARCHERS?

Our research falls under the generic theme of “sustainable management”, which is also the theme of our research laboratory CleRMA (Clermont Recherche Management), under the joint supervision of the school and UCA university.

Within sustainable management, the research themes are very varied, depending on the disciplines (HR, marketing, finance, etc.), but also on the school’s specialization and on each person’s interest in specific subjects.

The Xerfi Canal letter gives a good overview of the variety of research topics dealt with today, but is of course not exhaustive…

HOW DO THE SCHOOL’S RESEARCH ACTIVITIES FIT IN WITH THE REVEAL 2027 STRATEGIC PLAN?

Research activity actively contributes to each of the school’s missions as set out in the Reveal 2027 strategic plan:

• By creating useful (and used) knowledge for our courses, in the form of actionable knowledge.
• By supporting organizations, through action research or intervention research, to help them better understand and adapt to their environment, and find solutions adapted to their economic, social and/or environmental context.
• By publishing the school’s intellectual contributions in a variety of media, with an international and national audience, and widely distributed.
• By anchoring our research projects in our territory, with a strong added value for the actors concerned, in a proven economic, social, and environmental logic.

More specifically, our research policy is based on three actions:

• Increasing the number and quality of articles published in peer-review journals and stimulating other types of intellectual contributions.
• Providing the means and support for the development of intellectual contributions.
• Strengthening the research-teaching link in programs and developing pedagogical research.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PROMOTE RESEARCH AND HOW DO YOU ASSESS ITS IMPACT?

Research only makes sense if it is widely disseminated, among the academic community (other teacher-researchers), companies and the general public. Each target has its own specific channels: academic journals for articles; action research or intervention research for companies; professional or general media (e.g., articles in Les Echos, The Conversation, or others) for the general public.

All intellectual contributions published by ESC teacher-researchers are therefore compiled together, classified by type, and accounted for. This exhaustive inventory enables us to have a precise overview of our research… and to provide precise data to accreditors and filing magazines.

IF WE WERE TO RETAIN ONLY 3 HIGHLIGHTS IN THE LIFE OF THE RESEARCH THIS YEAR…

– The “Best Human Resources Management Case” prize awarded by AGRH and HR Reference to Marina Bourgain’s Catwalk case (co-authored with Sabrina Pérugien, IAE Savoie Mont Blanc).

– The FNEGE label for 2 books:
Cédrine Lebrument’s “Marketing territorial et participation citoyenne. Le cas de la marque Auvergne Nouveau Monde”,
“Management of human resources in SMEs: strategic and social approaches”, co-ordinated by Marc-André Vilette.

– The Xerfi Canal newsletter consists of interviews with 8 professors from the School, each of whom gave a 5-minute presentation of their current research work.