News & Announcements

There has been a simmering sense that the way contemporary organisations operate needs radical revision. This has been fired by an increasing concern about the longer term ecological, social and economic assumptions of doing business. A chorus of voices has called for the development of more sustainable ways of managing. Notably, the United Nations has proposed the institutionalisation of sustainable development as a central principle in economy and society. For them, sustainable development involves ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Bruntland report). Embracing sustainable development means significantly shifting how business is done. It implies engaging in sustainable economic development that requires us to change unsustainable patterns of production, distribution, consumption and disposal. It also implies social development that involves the amelioration of social and economic inequality. Finally, it implies environmental protection that requires stewardship of the various natural resources that are put into our charge.

Only a few years ago, calls for sustainable management were rather faint, one could even say marginal. Now they have become central to organisational discourse and practice; many organisations recognise that they have responsibility for the broader costs of doing business. In some cases this has resulted in attempts to ‘greenwash’ what are effectively destructive economic activities. In other cases, it has meant fairly marginal changes to the status quo. In more progressive companies, there has been a fundamental rethinking of the purpose of businesses and organisations more generally. This has lead to an explosion of concern for fair trade, green businesses, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, poverty eradication, and more broadly, sustainable management of enterprise. 

This remarkable explosion of sustainable business initiatives has piqued the interest of management researchers. Some for instance have called for the development of sustainable organisations, some have sketched out how companies can create sustainability, others have studied the drivers of sustainable business initiatives, and still others have launched trenchant criticisms of sustainability. Underlying much of this growing interest in sustainability is a wider rethinking of the purpose of organisations. This involves asking some fundamental questions about what a sustainable organisation would look like and what the foundations of this sustainability might be. 

During this conference, we would like to encourage investigation into the intellectual foundations of sustainability. This involves asking fundamental questions about how we theorise sustainability and what impact this might have on organisations. In particular, we are interested in broadening how sustainability is conceptualised and studied in management research. To do this, we propose drawing on insights from disciplines such as sociology, economics, ecology, anthropology, cultural studies, geography and political science. We hope by doing so, the field can begin to sketch new foundations from which sustainability can be understood by scholars and realised by practitioners. Moreover, we hope to forge a stronger theoretical and empirical basis on which future research on the topic of sustainability can build.

To encourage investigation of the foundations of sustainability, we will run a small, focused conference. We hope to solicit papers that focus directly on the theme of foundations of sustainability. In particular, we are interested in papers that draw on the disciplines underlying organisation and management theory. We envisage a range of papers that address the following themes:

·         The economic foundations of sustainability

o   How can 'performance' and 'effectiveness' be reconceptualised?

o   What constitutes a sustainable competitive advantage?

o   What are the resources underlying sustainable strategies?

·         The social foundations of sustainability

o   How does sustainability change the social contract between organisations and their stakeholders?

o   How can organisations develop strategies for eliminating poverty and ameliorating social and economic inequality?

o   How do relationships between organisations and managers in developed and developing parts of the world contribute to sustainability?

·         The ecological foundations of sustainability

o   How can the interface between organisations and the physical environment be reconceptualised?

o   How should management respond to the crisis of climate change?

·         The cultural foundations of sustainability

o   Should organisations be concerned with the sustainability of the values, traditions and practices which constitute the cultures of societies or groups?

o   How does corporate activity influence the reproduction of cultures?

o   How do innovations in products and services influence culture, for example through their impacts on patterns of consumption?

·         The political foundations of sustainability

o   What is the role of government and regulation in moving organisations toward sustainability?

o   What forms of organisational governance promote sustainable management?

o   What is the political role of private organisations in developing sustainable management?

Professor Garry D Bruton is a professor of entrepreneurship at the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University where he holds Fehmi Zeko Faculty Fellowship. Garry was one of the founders of the entrepreneurship program at TCU which is ranked as one of the top 20 in the United States by US News & World Report - 2009. 

 

Professor Bruton’s research focuses on entrepreneurship in emerging economies and he has published or has forthcoming over 65 academic articles in leading journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of International Business Studies, and Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice. In addition,Garry has co-authored three text books –small business management (McGraw-Hill), technology and innovation management (Cengage), and international management (Cengage).

 

In 2005 Professor Bruton was the first holder of the Hall Chair in Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets offered by the Fulbright Foundation. He is currently the President of the Asia Academy of Management and editor of the Academy of Management Perspectives. Garry in addition serves on the editorial board of five other academic journals. 

Andreas Georg Scherer is Professor of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm. He is Director of the Institute of Organization and Administrative Science (IOU) and holds a chair at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). He has earned his doctorate in Strategic Management (1994) and his doctoral habilitation degree (2000) in International Management both at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany). From 2000-2002 he was Professor of Management and Public Administration at the University of Constance (Germany). His research interests are in Business Ethics, Critical Theory, International Management, Organization Theory, and Philosophy of Science. He has published nine books, most recently the Handbook of Research on Global Corporate Citizenship (co-edited with G. Palazzo). His work has appeared in Academy of Management Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Management International Review, Organization, Organization Studies, and in numerous volumes and other journals. He is Associate Editor of Business Ethics Quarterly and is a member of the editorial boards of Business and Society, Business Research, Management International Review, Organization, and Organization Studies. More details on: www.iou.uzh.ch/bwl

There is no conference fee and we encourage a variety of modes of participation from the presentation of academic papers to the contribution to debate through taking on the role of discussant.

In addition to leading academics in the fields of sustainability and organisation studies, the conference will also bring together promising new researchers, with up to ten travel and accommodation bursaries offered to doctoral students on the basis of their proposals.

In general, the goal is to encourage creative and imaginative contributions that engage with the conceptual foundations of sustainability. We invite empirical and conceptual studies that evaluate and build on extant research on strategy and organisation, as well as contributions that seek to advance this field of research. We encourage participants to reflect on the theoretical frameworks for strategy and organisation that will dominate research in the next decade. 

An abstract of up to 1,000 words should be submitted by 6^th April by email to Jo Brudenell at: j.m.brudenell@durham.ac.uk

Acceptance of abstracts will be notified by 30^th April

Full papers to be submitted for circulation by 31^st July.

If you wish to attend the conference as a discussant, please register your interest with Jo Brudenell: j.m.brudenell@durham.ac.uk

 

Professor Steven Floyd, Professor Bill Harley, Associate Professor André Spicer, Jo Brudenell and Margaret Turner.