Back to listProgram

PDW 05: In Search of New Research Directions and Methods for Critically Studying Social Responsibility

Convenors:
Loreta Tauginienė
Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
Mike Geppert
Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany

Call for Applications

Facilitators:
Graham Hollinshead, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Dirk Matten, York University, Canada
André Spicer, Cass Business School, United Kingdom

Purpose

Questions about whether corporations are able to act in social responsible and ethical ways are old ones and have been answered quite controversial in the social sciences. There are also numerous normative publications, advising us on how social responsible businesses should look like, including manuals for managers on ethical behaviour. Corporate scandals like the current one about Volkswagen, a company which has widely been seen as a successful and social responsible business, raise not just critical questions about social responsibility in general but also why it is quite difficult to study what companies do in practice and whether they actually do what they say.

Mainstream research in the field often just measures and reports what organisations say in regard of social responsibility. Therefore, this Pre-Colloquium Development Workshop (PDW) calls for critical studies which alternatively look into questions of how social responsibility is actually managed in practice and by whom, both locally and across national borders.

This PDW invites papers and project proposals which focus on new research questions and alternative research methods, that can be applied in critical studies of social responsibility in and around organizations.

The PDW consists of two parts:

  • In the first part, the convenors will reflect on the use of qualitative methods and empirical work to study institutional social responsibility as organizing.

  • In the second part, participants will develop their working papers in progress as well as project ideas in roundtable discussions. Each roundtable will be led by a facilitator.


The PW ends with a collective discussion on the potential prospects and pitfalls of qualitative research in organization studies as well as how to publish qualitative research in management journals.

Participants will be expected to read the papers of their fellow session presenters, attend both parts of the PDW, and engage actively in discussions.

 

Application

This PDW is open to researchers at all career stages who are interested in exploring the potential of using qualitative methods and perspectives in their research and would like to discuss how best to do so. However, preference will be given to PhD students/early career scholars. To be considered as an early-career scholar, the applicant needs to have completed his/her doctoral/PhD thesis within the last five years.

Please submit – via the EGOS website! – a single document of application (.doc, .docx or .pdf file) that includes:

  • On the first page: a short letter of application containing full details of name, address (postal address, phone and email), affiliation (date of PhD completion for early career scholars), and a statement of why you consider it valuable to attend this PDW as well as an indication of what journal(s) the paper is likely to be submitted to;

  • A two-page proposal (about 1,000 words in length) of the project idea that you want to develop to a publishable stage. The purpose of the roundtable session is to discuss work in progress as well as project ideas, not fully-developed papers.


Attendance of this PDW is limited to 20 participants.
 

Loreta Tauginienė is Associate Professor of Management at Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania. Her research interests are social responsibility of higher education institutions, academic ethics, academic integrity, public engagement, and responsible research and innovation (RRI). She is a co-author of two books and of the forthcoming “Handbook of Research Methods of CSR”.
Mike Geppert is Professor of Strategic and International Management at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany, and Visiting Professor at the Turku School of Economics, Finland. His research focuses on international comparisons of management, organization, work and employment relations in locally and internationally operating organizations. Previous work has appeared in leading journals in a variety of academic fields, such as the ‘British Journal of Management’, ‘European Journal of Industrial Relations’, ‘Human Relations’, ‘International Journal of Human Resource Management’, ‘Journal of International Management’, ‘Journal of Management Studies’, and ‘Organization Studies’, reflecting his multidisciplinary research interests and commitment to interdisciplinary work.