Sub-theme 72: The New Crossroads of Boards of Director’s Work: Taking on Grand Challenges and Evolving Ecosystems ---> CANCELLED!
Call for Papers
Organizations are at crossroads, and so too are boards of directors. Defined as a crisis situation or a point in time when
a critical decision must be made, a crossroad symbolizes an urgent invitation to or even a call for urgent action. A similar
call was made in 2001, after the Enron corporate scandal, leading to the emergence of the corporate governance as a discipline,
and an increase of scholarly work. In this sub-theme proposal, we argue that as organizations are being increasingly responsible
for broader social issues, there is a pressing need to revisit the crossroads of boards’ decision making and the challenges
associated with them, and to define avenues that require urgent scholarly attention in support of contemporary corporate governance.
When looking back to what was urgent then in 2001 and what is relevant and urgent now, we see a curious shift
of priority topics associated with the corporate governance (CG) work, from focusing on boards’ task function to boards’ mechanisms
and its members, with more attention to the societal issues of CG today. In the earlier 2000’s, crossroads of corporate governance
were concerned with comparative analysis of the corporate governance practices across countries, including the topics of value
maximization, ownership, control, CEO pay, and ethics (Jensen, 2005). A few years down the road, the urgent topics shifted
to the study of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, governance mechanisms, control mechanisms and disclosures,
board diversity, corporate governance in family firms and in other cultural contexts (Pandey et al., 2022). However, thus
far little attention has been given to the larger social concerns of the boards’ work, including, but not limited to issues
like providing and protecting for human mental and physical health in society, addressing issues of national security, taking
on grand challenges like climate change and global peace, and providing norms surrounding the use of artificial intelligence
and digital technologies.
Indeed, the past several years have pulled boards to engage with more and more
societal issues as part of their routine decision making as ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted public health as one
of the grand challenges to be addressed in order to provide for the well-being of society as a whole (Montiel et al., 2022).
In addition, the mental burden of the Covid-19 pandemic has taken its toll on numerous stakeholders (Sinclair et al., 2020),
turning attention to how to mitigate the negative impact of the increasingly emotional and mental nature of work on society
(Gallup Consulting & Gallup, 2017). There is also a reawakening, on individual and societal levels, of the desire to engage
in meaningful, sustainable efforts, to be busy with the right things for individual, organizational and societal gain (Bapuji
et al., 2020; Lysova et al., 2019). In sum, there is much opportunity in investigating the role of business and their boards
with public mental and physical health issues (e.g. Husted, Ledley, Montiel, Brown & Park, 2022).
The
war between Russia and Ukraine and a consequent energy crisis made is also clear that peace is not the topic that is up to
the politicians but is also a concern of corporations. In 2022, one of the significant decisions that many international multinationals
had to make it whether to stay in Russia and continue their business as usual, or whether to close its operations. According
to the Council on Foreign Relations's Global Conflict Tracker, there are currently 27 ongoing conflicts worldwide. Which role
should business play in national and international conflicts? What does this mean for boards of directors? Much of management
research is turning to this important topic with the idea that firms might become effective peacebuilders (Ford, 2015; Forrer
& Katsons, 2015; Ganson et al., 2022); yet, the corporate governance literature seems to be silent about the topic.
Finally, addressing concerns with digital security is one of the leading challenges of contemporary organizations.
As tensions in digital organizations intensify, organizations increasingly find it difficult to implement security governance
as part of their regular organisational activities, particularly as they wrangle with ethical issues (Martin, 2020; Martin
& Shilton, 2022). In a fast-paced digital world, organizations need to achieve their strategic goals and maintain a competitive
advantage with digital innovation, while they simultaneously need to protect and secure the assets by implementing digital
security governance mechanisms. Both demands strive for business survival in the long run, but mandate for complete opposite
organizing strategies (risk taking vs. risk reduction), revealing tensions (Schinagl & Shahim, 2020).
How
do boards of directors deal with these challenges? Dealing with these wicked and complex concerns requires integrative leadership,
collaborating through partnerships (Alban-Metcalfe & Alimo-Metcalfe, 2010; Van Bueren, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 2003),
addressing social activism (DesJardine, Marti & Durand, 2021; Thompson & Davis, 1997), conducting effective strategic
dialogue (Bourgoin, Marchessaux, & Bencherki, 2018), confronting governance paradoxes (Sundaramurthy & Lewis, 2003),
addressing faultlines (Veltrop, Hermes, Postma, & Haan, 2015), taking an open systems perspective (Brown, deBakker, Bapuji,
Rehbein & Spicer, 2022) and overcoming decision-making barriers (Boivie, Bednar, Aguilera, & Andrus, 2016), among
other leadership and governance tactics.
With this Call for Papers, we aim to contribute to the research
on boards of directors and their stakeholders, general corporate governance, and the related areas of ESG performance, social
activism, board decision-making and collaboration. We seek to contribute to organizational studies, management, corporate
governance and leadership literature. We seek papers that adopt any relevant and fruitful epistemological, theoretical, and
methodological perspective to address relevant questions, including socio-psychological approaches (particularly dealing with
upper echelons or leadership), institutional theory, power or political perspectives and communication theory, linguistics,
narrative, discourse, or rhetorical analysis. Papers can focus on the performative effects of codes and rules, the performative
effects of language and of framing on executives and non-executives and their stakeholders; attend to the interactive and
communicative construction of institutions; and involve a retrospective and prospective process, prescriptive, and descriptive
approaches to studying board governance processes.
Below is a list of relevant, but not exhaustive topics
and questions related to the sub-theme:
What are the responsibilities of corporate boards and other governance overseers in the crossroads of business and society?
How do social movements, corporate political activists, the media, and other stakeholders shape the roles of corporate overseers?
How have new organizational forms (hybrid organizations, blockchain) influenced corporate governance and vice versa?
Moving beyond agency, what leadership theories and frameworks help shape an organization’s board decision-making practices, especially in light of newer technology and an increasingly connected world?
How has board decision making changed (or not changed) in light of increasing uncertainty and the grand challenges posed by society?
How might boards address the ethical tensions inherent in tackling some of these grand challenges?
References
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