Bankinter and the Comillas Pontifical University hold the ninth edition of the Business Ethics Research Awards
Joaquín Chico Céspedes receives the first prize for a research project that leverages artificial intelligence to analyse how corporate purpose and sustainability work together to drive performance in major global corporations
Corporate purpose serves as the common thread running through the three award-winning research projects, reflecting one of the major current debates on ethics and organisational management.
Once again, the event highlights academic research that encourages ethical leadership, transparency and sustainability in business, and affirms the collaborative commitment between the academic and business communities.
Summary generated with artificial intelligence:
Today, the Economic and Business Ethics Chair at Comillas Pontifical University (Comillas ICADE) and Bankinter held the ninth edition of the Business Ethics Research Awards. The awards ceremony took place at Bankinter's corporate headquarters (Paseo de la Castellana, Madrid) and brought together award-winning researchers, jury members, executives and institutional representatives.
The first prize was awarded to Joaquín Chico Céspedes for his DBA thesis (Doctorate of Business Administration in Management and Technology), entitled “The Interplay Between Corporate Purpose and Sustainability as a Driver of Performance: An Empirical Study of Fortune Global 500 Companies Using Artificial Intelligence”, defended at Comillas Pontifical University and supervised by doctors Alberto Andreu Pinillos and Alejandro Rodríguez Gallego. The study explains how purpose and sustainability are strategically aligned to generate business outcomes, utilising artificial intelligence tools applied to Fortune Global 500 companies. In addition to the certificate, the award is accompanied by a crystal trophy and a cash prize of €4,000.
The second prize was awarded to Flávia de Santis Zacchello for her doctoral thesis, “La influencia del Propósito en la toma de decisiones de la Alta Dirección y sus implicaciones ético-humanísticas para las personas, las empresas y la sociedad”, supervised by Professor Joan Fontrodona at the Institute of Business and Humanism of the University of Navarra. The research delves into the role of purpose in senior management decision-making and its ethical and humanistic implications for people, companies and society. The award is consists of a certificate and €2,000.
The third prize was awarded to Igor Alejandro González Villa for his doctoral thesis, “La integración del propósito corporativo en la cultura organizacional: análisis de las empresas cotizadas en el IBEX 35 y el Dow Jones”, supervised by doctors Luis Mañas Viniegra and Dr Xosé Antón Álvarez Ruiz and defended at the Faculty of Information Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid. The study analyses how corporate purpose is integrated into the organisational culture of major listed companies on both sides of the Atlantic. The award is consists of a certificate and €1,000.
In this ninth edition, corporate purpose has emerged as a common thread among the award-winning work, at a time when organisations are seeking to align their reason for being with sustainable value creation and with all their stakeholders. Once again, the submissions stood out for their academic level and international focus, confirming the growing prestige of the call for entries and the sustained interest in addressing business ethics from a rigorous and global perspective.
The Business Ethics Research Awards have established themselves as a benchmark in the academic world, rewarding rigorous reflection and critical thinking applied to ethical challenges in the corporate environment. The initiative was launched in 2017 following agreement between the Economic and Business Ethics Chair at Comillas ICADE and the consumer entity of Bankinter Group to promote a more ethical, sustainable and committed business culture.
A multidisciplinary jury with an international vision
The jury for this edition was chaired by Alfonso Saez Alonso-Muñumer, General Director of Consumer, Payments and New Businesses at Bankinter, and was made up of professionals from the academic, business and ethical areas: Paloma Rodríguez-Arango, head of Corporate Reputation and CSR at Bankinter; Almudena Rodríguez Beloso, head of Institutional and Corporate Relations at Valora; Inés Gomis Bertrand, managing partner at Temple Asesores; Juan Benavides Delgado, a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid; Fernando Velasco Fernández, senior lecturer and head of the chair at the Rey Juan Carlos University; Javier Fuertes López, lecturer at Comillas and director of the Unijes Ethics Group; Diana Loyola Chávez, lecturer at Comillas ICADE; and Marta González Álvarez, lecturer at the University of Burgos and a member of the Economic and Business Ethics Chair at Comillas ICADE.
José Luis Fernández Fernández, head of the Economic and Business Ethics Chair at Comillas ICADE, moderated the deliberations and acted as secretary of the jury.
During the event, Alfonso Saez, chairman of the jury and managing director of consumer, payments and new business at Bankinter, stated: “At Bankinter, we consider ethics to be a structural element of business activity, as it influences the quality of decisions and the sustainability of long-term projects. This is why initiatives such as these awards are particularly relevant, as they recognise research that helps to integrate ethics into real-world organisational management and strengthen the link between the academic and business worlds, promoting solutions that can be applied to modern-day challenges.”
José Luis Fernández Fernández, director of the Chair of Economic and Business Ethics at Comillas ICADE, emphasised that “the collaboration between Universidad Pontificia Comillas and Bankinter demonstrates the value generated by partnerships between academia and business when they share objectives of social interest”, since “the combination of academic rigour and business experience produces tangible synergies that enrich both academic knowledge and organisational management practices, with a view to improving the economic and social landscape”. He also noted that “business ethics today constitutes an area of research of increasing significance for gaining deeper insight into the complexity of management and management processes in organisations that are more responsible and committed to the common good”.
Through initiatives such as this, Bankinter and Universidad Pontificia Comillas reinforce their commitment to a more ethical, critical and socially committed approach to business management.
About the Comillas ICADE Economic and Business Ethics Chair
The Iberdrola Economic and Business Ethics Chair at the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences of the Comillas Pontifical University (Comillas ICADE) is a forum for analysing, discussing and researching topics related to business ethics, social responsibility and corporate citizenship. It provides a meeting point for academics, entrepreneurs, managers and other professionals keen to promote ethical leadership in organisations in the context of a global economy.
