Rob van Tulder

Rob van Tulder, PhD, is professor of international business-society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management, of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has been teaching and researching on major issues – he calls them ‘wicked problems’- at the interface between business and society. Trained in political sciences (in particular international relations) and economics (in particular development economics), he published a wide variety of scholarly books and articles on issues like innovation, sustainability, small countries, regional integration and skills. Main focus thereby has been the multinational enterprise as prime carier of globalization. In 1997, he was awarded the Gunnar Myrdal Prize (together with his co-author Winfried Ruigrok) for the book ‘The Logic of International Restructuring’. He was also twice short-listed for the ‘best management book’ in the Netherlands in the area of sustainability strategies. He founded the department of Business-Society Management at RSM Erasmus University, which is nowadays leading in the area of sustainability. Since 2009, he is also the academic director of the Partnerships Resource Centre, which actively supports processes of cross-sector partnerships for sustainable development goals around the world with research and advice. In his view, the importance of teaching and research from different (pluralist) perspectives cannot be underestimated. For this, he developed a formula called ‘skill sheets’ – a book and a website - that is used at a large number of universities. The holistic approach applied thereby is also based on his previous experience in the world of sports, where he used to be a professional coach and tennis player. He is also one of the rare professors at department RSM that holds a diploma as “game leader”.