• The business school of the University of Amsterdam
• One of Europe's major comprehensive universities
• Truly international in research, curriculum, staff, and students
• 3000 students, 130 faculties of which 46% non-Dutch with 28 different nationalities
• Rooted in the financial and business capital of the Netherlands
• Promoting excellence and leadership in all business areas
• Research fully integrated into the study programmes
• Small-scale interactive seminars, linking theory to practice
• Taught by renowned academics and practitioners
  
  
  

Mission

The mission of ABS is to offer an inspiring international learning community to study business and management, where both staff and students can develop their capacities to optimum effect.

We aim to foster independent minds with an impact on international business and society at large by conducting high-quality academic research on innovative and socially relevant themes, and by offering research-based teaching that meets the highest international standards. We are committed to advancing the understanding of business and its role in society, and to leverage synergies between our School and its institutional and corporate environment.

In line with this mission, the key stakeholders of ABS are:

• students, in offering inspiring learning opportunities to develop their talents
• academic staff, in offering inspiring conditions for their professional development
• the university, in contributing to its mission, positioning, and objectives
• the international scientific community, in contributing to the advancement of theory in the various business and management related disciplines
• the business world, in offering excellent graduates in a range of fields, in training employees and executives, and in undertaking (joint) applied research and disseminating research findings
• society at large, in contributing to the understanding of societal problems and their possible solutions, and in preparing students to become internationally oriented professionals and responsible world citizens.
  
  
  

Vision

Our vision of the future is to build ABS into a business school with a reputation that matches the reputation of its parent institution, the University of Amsterdam.

This means that our long-term objective is to become a leading European business school known for critical thinking and social responsibility. We envision ABS as an institution that produces outstanding research that has a direct impact on our educational activities and our engagement with the business world.

More specifically, we want to build ABS into an institution that:

• attracts highly-qualified faculty who develop innovative knowledge that is highly relevant to the business world and society at large, and who disseminate this knowledge through publications in top-tier scientific and professional journals and through corporate engagement
• attracts highly-talented students and provides them with an intercultural learning environment that offers research-based expertise in the various degree programmes and executive education, and helps them develop their professional skills by cooperating closely with corporate partners.
  
  
  

Values

The core values on which we build towards realizing this vision are excellence, independent thinking, social engagement, and entrepreneurship:

• Excellence is one of our core values. Only the faculty who publish consistently in reputable international journals is granted tenure, provided that they also satisfy our quality requirements in teaching, academic leadership and, links to practice. Similar research performance is expected from already tenured full-time faculty. However, excellence is not limited to the research activities of our academic staff. We also want to be known for excellent teaching, outstanding students and, flawless operations.
• Critical thinking is deeply rooted in the culture of our university. We believe that the ability to think independently is a key success factor in business, and more generally in life. To stimulate independent thinking, our education philosophy is ‘research-based teaching’: we link teaching to research and ask students to carry out research where possible. The approach is strongly evidence-based and students learn to separate facts from opinions. We aim to train our students to become reflective practitioners that combine an open mind with a critical attitude.
• Social engagement stems from our orientation on key themes relevant for international business and society, and the broad range of stakeholders that ABS has identified. Moreover, much of our research pays explicit attention to the ethical, social, environmental and governance issues faced by business. A general concern for the role of business in society also comes to fore in our teaching approach and the themes discussed in class. A critical approach to the relevance of these topics and their value for companies and their stakeholders is also taken here.
• An entrepreneurial and creative attitude is evidenced in the very set-up of a business school in the context of a traditional comprehensive university, and in the way, we have pursued its further development over the years. We aim to leverage the broad-based university and contribute to the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of the Amsterdam region in which ABS is based to become even more relevant for our students and corporate connections. Moreover, faculty in different research programmes also publish on topics of innovation and entrepreneurship in main journals and integrate that into their teaching and outreach activities.
  
  
  

Ethics, responsibility, sustainability

The ABS mission and vision explicitly state that we want to foster independent minds that have an impact on international business and society. We take the social aspect of this mission and vision very seriously through particular attention to ethics, responsibility, and sustainability in research, education and outreach activities. ABS has been working on these issues since its inception.