Our People

Professor Laura Spence

Fellow, Visiting Fellow

Professor of Business Ethics at Royal Holloway, University of London and Visitor at

Saïd Business School

PGC Teaching & Learning in HE, PhD (Brunel), International Business Masters Exchange Programme Diploma (Rotterdam School of Management), BSc (Bath)

Laura J. Spence is a business ethicist with a special interest in critical perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the application of social and moral theory to business practice. She has published on a wide range of topics in journals such as Accounting, Organisations and Society, British Journal of Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, Human Relations, and Journal of Management Studies. Laura is Consulting Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics (FT50 Journals List). She is co-author of the leading Business Ethics textbook (5e), published with Oxford University Press.

Laura Spence is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences on business ethics in relation to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), reflecting her extensive empirical work and collaborations globally. Recent research focuses on feminist critique of CSR, gender inequality and value creation, NetZero and the Sustainable Development Goals for SMEs. She is a visitor at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation and collaborating with members of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University.

Professor Spence served on the UK’s Research Excellence Framework 2021 Subpanel for Business and Management, leading on Business Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability. She is a Fellow of the British Academy of Management Peer Review College.

Laura is Professor of Business Ethics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she has led the Centre for Research into Sustainability. She has previously served as Associate Dean (Research), and Director of Research Impact for the Faculty of Management, Economics and Law and the School of Business and Management.