Canadian University Honors UVA Darden Professor Freeman with Degree

For his work to expand and enhance perceptions about the role and purpose of business, the University of Sherbrooke on 24 September presented University of Virginia Darden School of Business Professor R. Edward Freeman with an honorary doctorate in management.

In awarding the honorary degree, the Quebec-based university specifically cited Freeman’s work related to stakeholder theory, which posits that a company has responsibilities to multiple key stakeholders — not just shareholders.

The university, which also hosted a convocation address by Freeman, noted that Freeman’s work had played a “revolutionary” role in the field of business education by creating a new way to teach and study the ethics of organizations.

In an address to the students, Freeman posed, “One of the most important questions for you to ask is, ‘What do I stand for’ or ‘What is my raison d’etre’ — my purpose?”

He added, “Discovering your own purpose can be a lifelong pursuit, but having a purpose is one of the most important parts of being fully human.”

Freeman, University Professor and the Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration at Darden, is the author or editor of nearly 200 articles and more than 25 volumes in the fields of stakeholder management, ethics and leadership, including Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, which was first published in 1984.

The holder of multiple honorary degrees and teaching awards, Freeman also serves as an academic director of Darden’s Institute for Business in Society and Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics and is a senior fellow at the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics.

As he concluded his speech, Freeman laid out a challenge to the Sherbrooke students. “You have a great project ahead of you. … You can make business and capitalism better,” he said.

“You can make our political institutions even more democratic and open to everyone,” he added. “And, you can create the businesses and nonprofits and NGOs and other organizational forms that let us all flourish.”