Center for Globalization and Governance
Faculdade de Economia. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Lisbon, Portugal
The Role of Leadership, Responsibility, and Ethics: Behavioral Issues of Implementing CSR
Convenors:
- Andreas Georg Scherer, University of Zurich, Switzerland andreas.scherer@iou.uzh.ch
- Guido Palazzo, University of Lausanne, Switzerland guido.palazzo@unil.ch
- Gary R. Weaver, University of Delaware, USA weaverg@lerner.udel.edu
The process of globalization has increasingly changed the relationship of business and society, undermining the paradigmatic assumption of a neat separation between the public and the economic sphere. This can be seen in the emergence of transnational social and environmental problems, like human rights, corruption or global warming, that cannot be sufficiently addressed by national regulation and the welfare institutions of the nation state alone. Modernity’s nation state is increasingly overstrained in trying to moderate the outcomes of the economical, political and social systems. With its enforcement powers territorially bound the nation state continuously loses its political steering capability. Under these conditions multinational corporations have become addressees of public concern, due to their role as potential source of relief or as factual wrong-doers. In response business has increasingly engaged in activities that traditionally were considered to be part of governmental responsibilities.
This new role of corporations has been acknowledged in the literature on Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship and Business Ethics. This stream of research emphasizes structural aspects and is primarily focused on the business-society macro-level of analysis (Matten & Crane 2005; Palazzo & Scherer 2006; Scherer & Palazzo 2007). Given the important role of leadership for the direction and the depth of an organization's CSR engagement, it can be expected that the profound changes on the macro-level of society will have an impact on the role and responsibilities of organizational leaders. However, the implementation of corporate responsibility, the crucial role of leadership and of individual behavior have not yet been sufficiently addressed and have only recently been revived through works on moral values, personal responsibility, and the role of CEQs (Brown & Trevino 2006; Doh & Stumpf 2005; Maak & Pless 2006; Trevino, Weaver, & Reynolds 2006).
The task for this workshop is to discuss the consequences and implications of the new, enlarged role of the business firm for leadership and individual behaviour. In particular, we want to address the need of leaders and leadership theory to acknowledge public demands for responsible conduct of global business firms. We specifically invite papers which take a critical perspective on the emerging role of leadership responsibility in the multinational firm.
We would like to see the workshop group advance the discussion in two main directions that address the philosophical, theoretical, and practical domains:
1. Implications for leadership theory building
Possible topics might include (but are not restricted to) the following:
- What role does leadership play in a globalizing world?
- What are descriptive, instrumental, or normative implications for leadership (theory)?
- Do leaders have an extended responsibility beyond maximizing profits?
- How can the current leadership debate, especially research, on value-based transformational leadership be linked with the global CSR debate?
- What implications would a growing political role of organizations have for its leaders/for leadership?
- How can (responsible) leaders build legitimacy for their organization in a globalizing world?
- How can responsible leadership contribute to social innovations or social entrepreneurship?
2. Implementing CSR: Behavioral issues
Papers here might address questions such as the following:
- How can CSR be implemented successfully in organizations?
- What is the impact of leadership on the CSR engagement and performance of a corporation?
- How do leaders make sense of their emerging global decision-making context with its broader societal expectations?
- Why do leaders engage in social responsible actions or behaviors?
- What are the relationships between CSR, leadership, ethical decision making, ethical climate, and other aspects dealing with ethics and morality in organizations?
- We invite both theoretical and empirical contributions that help us to better understand the role of leadership responsibility in a globalized world. Papers that argue across the potentially relevant disciplines (organization studies, leadership studies, business ethics & CSR, international management, legal studies, political theory, etc.) would be particularly welcome.
EGOS has a long tradition of providing a forum for exchange and discussion rather than presentation of papers only. Therefore, the conference is organized in workshop form, which implies that every participant spends the conference in the subgroup where his/her paper is presented. Half the time is dedicated to paper presentation while the other half is free for discussion within the group. Therefore it is also a prerequisite that participants of the subgroup are familiar with all papers presented. The papers will be accessible on the conference website one month in advance. This workshop format allows for an intense, three-days immersion in a particular area of research and provides opportunities for profound exchange and learning within a group of international scholars. Further information can be found on the conference website: http://www.egosnet.org/ .
The tentative schedule for submissions to the conference is as follows:
January 10, 2010: Deadline for short papers of 3000 words, to be submitted to the EGOS website (please see www.egosnet.org )
March 1, 2010: Notification of acceptance of papers
June 1, 2010: Full papers to be uploaded to the EGOS website
Please check the EGOS website for up-to-date information on deadlines and procedures. Abstracts and papers will be available on the EGOS website (www.egosnet.org). Any inquiry concerning sub-theme # 41 should be directed to the following address:
Prof. Dr. Andreas Georg Scherer
IOU/University of Zurich
Email: andreas.scherer@iou.uzh.ch
Tel: +41 (0) 44 634 5300
Prof. Dr. Andreas Georg Scherer
Chair of Foundations of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm
Director of IOU / Institute of Organization and Administrative Science
University of Zurich, Universitätsstrasse 84, CH-8006 Zürich
Phone: +41 (0)44-634 5302, 5300 (secretary), fax: +41 (0)44-634 5301
Email: andreas.scherer@iou.uzh.ch , homepage: www.iou.uzh.ch/bwl
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