SIG 01: Business for Society

The Business for Society SIG is dedicated to research and educational programmes that analyse the conditions under which business can (or actually does) interact positively with its social and natural environment.

The objective of our SIG is to bring together scholars from various fields of social sciences (management, law, sociology, economics, political science, education, social psychology, history, philosophy, engineering, etc.), while sharing a common interest in B4S projects. We try to build a community of engaged scholars by:

  • Exploring ways and methods, of identifying of actors and contexts which allow organisations to contribute to sustainable development, and
  • Fully grasping the ambiguities, contradictions as well as the potential for innovative and transformative practices of this approach.

SIG chair: Rémi Jardat (ISTEC) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Programme chair: Corinne Vercher (Université Paris 13) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

SIG General Track

01_00 BUSINESS FOR SOCIETY GENERAL TRACK

Our general track welcomes papers exploring ways and methods, of identifying actors and contexts, which allow organisations to contribute to sustainable development. The objective of our general track is to bring together scholars from various fields of social sciences (management, law, sociology, economics, political science, education, social psychology, history, philosophy, engineering, etc.), but sharing a common interest for the B4S meaningful issues, and fully grasping the ambiguities, contradictions, as well as the potential for innovative and transformative practices of the B4S project. The general track is especially devoted to contributions that are not explicitly covered by other tracks within the SIG.

Chairs: Jérôme Méric (IAE-Université de Poitiers) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Corinne Vercher (Université Paris 13) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Julienne Brabet (Université Paris Est-Créteil) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Rémi Jardat (ISTEC) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Keywords: Sustainable development; Alternative business models and Non-profit models; Psychoanalysis; Regulation Social innovation; Critical perspectives. 

 

SIG Standing Tracks

ST_01-01 Accounting and control for sustainability

This topic aims to attract papers, which critically review, and advance theory and practice in the study of accounting and control for sustainability, highlighting the potential richness of this strand of research for accounting, management, and sustainability studies. We welcome papers on management accounting and control for sustainability (e.g. the integration of sustainability into performance measurement systems, their uses for sustainability strategy) and sustainability disclosure (e.g. new developments in sustainability/ integrated reporting). The stream is carried out in collaboration with the Environmental Management Accounting Network Europe (EMAN EU). Selected papers will be invited for publication in the second guest edited volume of “Accounting and Control for Sustainability” - Emerald.

Proponents: Lucrezia SONGINI (Eastern Piedmont University and Bocconi School of Management) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Anna Pistoni (Insubria University; Italy)
Stefan Schaltegger (Leuphana University; Germany)
Igor Alvarez Etxeberria (University of Basque Country, Spain)

Keywords: Accounting and control for sustainability; Sustainability performance measurement and management systems; Management control for corporate sustainability; Sustainability balanced scorecard; CSR disclosure, sustainability reporting, integrated reporting; The role of accounting, finance and control departments in sustainability.

ST 01_02 Finance Economy and Society

The multifaceted crisis has highlighted the limits and risks of an embedded economy: predominance of financial markets, excessive commodification, growing speculative movements have caused disturbance in the real sector of the economy. This track encourages contributions on alternative business and social models by raising the following questions: How and what alternative sources of financing can provide a socially innovative and economically viable system? Should the current financial system be further regulated? How can social and economic actors (co)operate, (co)evolve and (co)construct socially innovative models? How can stakeholders be brought to engage in mutually beneficial and rewarding ethical and social relationship?

Proponents: Catherine Karyotis (Neoma Business School) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sharam Alijani (Neoma Business School)
Isabelle Maque (IAE Université de Poitiers)
Joseph Onochie (Baruch College)

Keywords: embedding; alternative model; sustainable finance.

 

Topics sponsored by the SIG

T_01-01 Developing leadership theories for not-for-profit sector

The not-for-profit sector faces immense pressure as a result of recession and significant reduction funding. As very few not-for-profits can meet this challenge by themselves, the majority of organizations are combining their forces with other not-for-profits and for-profit organisations. The literature on leadership is dominated by studies of the for-profit sector and there are much fewer systematic studies of leadership in the not-for-profit sector or social enterprise. This stream explores this gap and addresses the practice of leadership in the not-for-profit sector, the nature of its distinctiveness (if any) and the lessons that can be drawn for furthering leadership scholarship.

Proponents: Dorota Bourne (Queen Mary University of London) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dariusz Jemielniak (Kozminski University)

Keywords: leadership; not for profit sector; new models and approaches.

T_01-02 Equality and Inclusion in Social Enterprises

Social enterprises have attracted wide academic and policy interest recently as they are meant to play a crucial role in providing services, employment, and social capital in local economies. Social enterprises are also claimed that can tackle inequality through social inclusion programs and promoting diversity. However, little is known about whether they achieve these claims in practice and the ways and mechanisms, they use in order to materialize and institutionalize such claims. The present stream therefore examines the extent to which social enterprises are tackling equality, inclusion and diversity issues, or whether they are reinforcing existing patterns of inequality.

Proponents: Olivia Kyriadikou (Athens University of Economics and Business) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Helen Salavou (Athens University of Economics and Business)

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Equality; Leadership; Social innovation; Inclusion.

T_01-03 Institutional resistance, war of positions and power maintenance

When addressing institutions and institutional change, received literature increasingly emphasizes the role of agency and power. The aim of this track is to investigate an area of agency that is relatively unexplored: strategic acts initiated by self-interested actors to maintain status quo. In this respect, the track aims at both clarifying the issue of ‘institutional resistance’ and eliciting how resistance materializes in organizational life. We articulate the concept into the resistance that elites enact to maintain hegemony, this latter defined ‘maintenance protocol’ (Fleming and Spicer, 2014), and the resistance of dominated actors that respond to established hegemony.

Proponents: Edoardo Mollona (Università di Bologna) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Luigi Maria Sicca (Università degi studi di Napoli Federico II)
Ilaria Boncori (University of Essex)
Alessia Contu (University of Massachussets)
Andrea Fumagalli (Università di Pavia)
David Levy (University of Massachussets)
Mariella Pandolfi (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Luca Solari (Università degli Studi di Milano)

Keywords: power; resistance; hegemony; institutional change; symbolism; agency.

T_01-04 Institutions and change

Institutionalism and management theories are more concerned with regularities rather than events, crises involving uncertainty. Paradoxically enough, institutions defined through their persistence, seem increasingly to be dominated by multi factorial causes of change. The track explores this apparent paradox and the two sides of organizations understood as persisting institutions and changing social systems. Our purpose is to understand better why institutions and organizations change, despite their inertia and their domination over individual members through the routines and regularities. Thus, we look for papers that contribute to the advance of institutional theory by coupling persistence and change. How do individual actors or coalitions of actors (traders, entrepreneurs, managers, ordinary employees) and actants (such as Eurozone crises) contribute to institutional dynamics? To what extent are managers effectively monitoring institutional change?

Proponents: Xavier Deroy (Neoma Business School) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jean-François Chanlat (UNIVERSITE DAUPHINE)
Stewart Clegg (UTS)
Yvon Pesqueux (CNAM)

Keywords: Institutions; Change; Culture; Events; Uncertainty.

T_01-05 Race discrimination and the management of ethnic diversity at the workplace

The recent European elections are a strong sign of rising racism in Europe. Moreover, there has been growing evidence of widespread race discrimination in employment across EU Member States. Ethnic minorities and immigrants are locked out of much of the workplace in Europe, denied jobs because of their race, segregated into lower-paying jobs, victims of pay discrimination, and victims of the glass-ceiling and racial harassment. We welcome papers, which explore race discrimination at work from a multilevel and comparative perspective, including topics such as the experience of ethnic minorities and immigrants in the EU/ power/privilege/hierarchy/equality/inclusion/exclusion/and combating race discrimination at work.

Proponents: Joanna Vassilopoulou (University of Kent) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mustafa Özbilgin (Brunel University)
Victoria Showunmi (Univeristy of London)

Keywords: Race discrimination; Diversity management; Racism.

T_01-06 Responsible innovation

Responsible Innovation (RI) is defined as “a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products” (von Schomberg 2013: 63). It is expected that the consideration of ethical and social aspects during innovation processes will lead not only to technological innovations which are socially acceptable but also socially desirable (cf. Matter 2011). In this track, we focus on the characteristics and implications barriers of RI in the business context. A special issue of Journal of Responsible Innovation will be published based on a selection of the presented papers.

Proponents: Vincent Blok (Wageningen University) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Xavier Pavie (Essec Business School)
Victor Scholten (Delft Technical University, Netherlands)

Keywords: responsible innovation; innovation ethics; stakeholder engagement in open innovation.

T_01-07 From Sustainable Global Value Chains to Responsible Global Value Chains

This Topic is an international network of academics, experts, and reflexive practitioners interested by this crucial question: How uncertainties (climate, financial, technological, and political) and initiatives (strategic decisions, organizations, NGO campaigns, social movements, and regulations) intervene on global supply chains so that they become more Sustainable Global Value Chains (SGVC). We welcome approaches and cases studies to know more about:

  • A model of Sustainable Global Value Chains (Circular industry, Base of the pyramid approach…),
  • Business models promoting or limiting SGVC,
  • Dedicated organizational sets (CSR, BoP approach),
  • Specific regulations and governance,
  • Required knowledge and skills.

Proponents: Pascale de Rozario (Conservatoire national des arts et métiers - CNAM Paris, Umr Cnrs LISE - Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory for Economic Sociology) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Karen Delchet-Cochet (Institut Supérieur de Commerce ISC Paris Business School)
Alistair Smith (World Banana Forum, NGO)
Julienne Brabet (Université Paris-Est Créteil)
Yvon Pesqueux (Conservatoire national des arts et métiers - CNAM Paris; EA 4603 LIRSA - Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory on Action).
Paolo Cesar Lopes Pereira (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Keywords: Sustainable Global Value Chains; Business Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility; Social Embedness; Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives.