17^th Philosophy of Management Annual Conference

June 27-30, 2025 (EM Normandie, Oxford, UK)  

Call for Submissions:

 

The 17^th edition of the Philosophy of Management Annual Conference will be held in Oxford, UK, at the Ecole de Management Normandie (Oxford, UK Campus) from 27 to 30 June 2025. As usual, each paper will be guaranteed a 45-minute slot for an unhurried presentation and in-depth discussion. 

GENERAL TRACK

We welcome submissions that explore the diverse facets of management in private or public organizations through a philosophical lens. Whether it's applied ethics, social, moral, and political philosophy, ontology, epistemology, axiology, or aesthetics, we encourage scholars to propose novel, critical, timely, and/or controversial arguments. Submissions can also adopt a 'meta-' standpoint for raising and answering questions such as "What is philosophy of management?", "Is philosophy useful for managers?", "Is management a science or an art?", "Can management be part of the humanities and, if not, what else should it be part of?". We are looking forward to receiving your submissions by 10 February 2025.  

 

KEYNOTE:

TOM DONALDSON (Mark O. Winkelman Professor, Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania)

Business Ethics in a Multipolar World

The "Unipolar Moment" (Mearsheimer, 2019) has passed. It lasted from the fall of the Soviet Union through 2017. We now live in a multipolar world with the Global South rising and the economic power of the BRICS intergovernmental organization expanding. While the Unipolar Moment lasted, optimists from the West could predict the eventual triumph of liberal democratic ideals, spoken using the universal language of human rights, equity, and international law. This optimism now seems suspect. A large portion of the planet is traveling in the opposite direction. Samuel Huntington's warning that cultures tend to revert to their cultural, religious, and philosophical roots as foreign control recedes requires our prompt attention (Huntington, 1996). Business ethics, too, would do well to take notice. However much we may hope, the growing use of Hindu or Neo-Confucian ethics is unlikely to recede and revert to purely Western ideals. Indian and Chinese business managers will continue to dig deeper into their cultural roots. The Western language of ethics will persist, which is good. But to remain relevant, business ethicists should begin to develop multicultural skills when expressing ethical values. This means that multinational Western-domiciled corporations with host county operations in different cultures will need to craft mission, credo, and ethics statements in ways that infuse local cultural values and heritage. It means that business ethics researchers should become ethically multilingual. Researchers need to adjust surveys to reality and explore ways in which basic Western values such as equal rights can be expressed using different moral concepts.

 

SPECIAL TRACKS

The Conference is associated with the journal Philosophy of Management and, in addition to the general track, will host three Special Tracks for papers aiming to be submitted after the conference to one of the incoming special issues of this journal. If submitting for one of these Special Tracks, please mention it in the title of your paper.

1° Special Track: "Doing business in non-democratic regimes"

Convenors:

David Bevan, St Martin's Institute of Higher Education, Malta

Alicia Hennig, Technical University Dresden, Germany

In business ethics, there is a considerable research gap when it comes to business ethics in non-democratic (i.e., authoritarian and autocratic political) environments. While "authoritarian regime" is a term used to describe any form of undemocratic rule, more narrowly interpreted it is a specific type of autocratic rule. According to the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, there are currently 90 democracies and 89 autocracies, with autocracies rising. Today, around 72 percent of the world population is living in autocratic political environments, where censorship and the suppression of civil society are regularly exercised and where freedom of expression, as well as cultural and academic expression, is severely limited. Yet, there are multinational companies with their headquarters in liberal and democratic societies operating in such political environments and under those constraints. Their presence under these types of political regimes is constrained by limitations upon their CSR practices, limits to their corporate values and culture, and limits to conducting business transactions in an ethical manner. But to what extent is this political reality currently reflected in the discipline of business ethics?

A comprehensive literature review across six major business ethics journals on business ethics literature dealing with non-democratic regimes (Hennig & Bevan, work in progress) reveals that only a fraction of publications (< 1.5 percent of the publications, except for the Business & Human Rights Journal) mention keywords like autocratic, authoritarian or repressive in this context. Only 44 publications across all six journals mentioned our keywords (and their variations) multiple times, indicating any focus on that topic. Our study brings to light a substantial lack of research activity, and this Special Track seeks to address the gap.

Here are some indicative, guiding questions as suggested areas for conceptualisation, descriptive/empirical and normative inquiry. Do foreign businesses operating in authoritarian environments reflect on (their) ethics in business? Do they understand the political and socio-ethical conditions that come with these different political environments? Do companies take into account the political conditions and their impact on business operations? And further: what is the role of foreign businesses in these different political environments? How do they themselves define their role?

These are only exemplary questions, and we want to particularly encourage submissions from neighbouring and complementary disciplines, such as international relations/political sciences, sociology and, of course, philosophy. 

Empirical submissions should identify the ethical issues at stake and ideally complement their empirical questions with normative questions. In general, submissions should also propose solutions to the identified ethical issues that need to be addressed by companies and/or other actors, e.g. government, civil society, etc.

 

2° Special Track: "Hermeneutics and phenomenology in management studies: Time to be postcritical?"

Convenors:

·       Robin Holt, University of Bristol Business School, UK

·       Ghislain Deslandes, ESCP Business School, France

·       Loréa Baïada-Hirèche, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, France

One of the great challenges of our age is the significant, lasting and almost universal decline in the human commitment to work – as witnessed by the sudden prevalence of terms such as burn-out, great resignation, brown-out, etc. In this context, what does an academic discipline concerned with the management of work have to offer? The response from critical management studies has been to provide alternative understandings that create a proper environment and stimulus for work that is fair, rewarding and productive, work that is recognized as useful, even ennobling. Yet these alternatives proffered by the field of critical management studies have rarely gained traction: precarity, ennui, anxiety, despoliation, resignation and inequality remain prevalent. Two of the most influential authors in the field, André Spicer and Mats Alvesson (2024), have suggested why: the constant and consistent struggle of criticism and self-criticism, and even deconstruction, has cast critical management studies into a pall of "negative framing" (p. 25), a framing that is not only gloomy and hostile but somewhat joyless. It appears that the weariness and myopia pervading the phenomena of work has seeped into its analysis (see also Fleming et al 2020). This Special Track is dedicated to reviving critique, or even going post-critique, in finding alternatives to, or extensions of, critical management. It acknowledges that the question of the importance of work to human flourishing has been kept alive by critical management studies. The Special Track shares with critical management studies the view that it is mostly through work that humans experience the autonomy by which they lead flourishing lives (Henry, 2023; Stiegler, 2010).

Spicer and Alvesson's critique is not isolated. Virtually every field of the social sciences and humanities - from philosophy to art history, literary studies, and so on – has witnessed a serious attempt at challenging critique in recent decades (Latour, 2004). The concerns are multiple but centre on a common theme: why should understanding and explanation be predicated on an oppositional and pervasive negativity? It was a risk recognized by Michel Foucault (1997), who, in What is Critique? urged those who resented and objected to being governed 'like that' to not only oppose or propose alternate rulers, but to experiment with how practices of governance might be 'otherwise': without affirmation, the experimental attitude to affectively sense and intellectually pursue 'otherness' becomes attenuated, withers, and dies (Butler, 2004). Here, affirming is not an affirmation of what 'is' but of 'what might become', and so it is always unsteady, askew, untimely. In this spirit, affirmation snakes back toward the negative, at least the negative dialectics espoused by Adorno (2005), for whom all objects will escape their concepts, leaving to critique the task of comprehending the incomprehensible. But here critique, rather than cast in opposition to management, becomes integral to it, at least in those aspects of transgression that create an organization that is loose, provisional, malleable (Raffnsøe, 2015).

This Special Track asks: what would it be like if, in management studies, we pursued a creative and inventive hermeneutic, a coming together in a spirit of assemblage and not exclusion and opposition (Deslandes, 2023; Holt & Zundel, 2023; Ricoeur, 1974)? We might think here, for example, of Eve Sedgwick's notion of reparative reading - as opposed to paranoid, accusatory reading – through which we might develop a wider range of methods based on a renewed repertoire of "critical moods" (Felski, 2015, Ricoeur, 1974). Or we might think of a reading of organisational phenomena that leaves more room for love and generosity (Tasselli, 2019), or, more precisely, an approach which is capable of sharing enthusiasm and recovering its affirmative power, as a condition of the possibility of preserving "the socio-poetic force of our shared world" (Anker and Felski, 2017, p. 15).

In doing so, we might perhaps succeed in recovering the maturity, sociality and exposure to alternatives to which critical thinking has also been dedicated, based on a generative intellectual connection with others as a response to the challenges posed by the ambient nihilism of our age. In this Special Track we welcome contributions from a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that heighten our understanding of management practice, work, organizations, and business school education and research.

Questions to address might include, but are not limited to:

1. What may be some new "critical moods" in organisation studies? One may consider insights from phenomenological trends of thought.
2. What is the meaning of the prefix 'post' in postcritical management studies?
3. On "second naivety" (Paul Ricoeur): can this hermeneutic concept inspire a new way of thinking about our relationship with critique in management?
4. How can negative framing, nay saying and caustic suspicion be overcome in critical management studies? Is this even desirable? Is negative ever positive, as in Ernst Bloch's sense of utopia being the negation of the negative?
5. How may one engage in reading organisations with 'generosity'? One may consider reparative reading and inventive hermeneutics.
6. To what extent can managerial practices encourage a 'hermeneutic of trust' in professional relations rather than an approach based on suspicion and control?
7. How can we make more room for affects in a field traditionally dominated by rationalist paradigms? Understood in the manner of Platonic eros, how can "love" transform work relations and "managed" work?
8. How can subjectivity enrich critical research, rather than spoiling it?
9. How can management recognise and integrate ethical values, such as trust, empathy and loyalty, into management approaches/practices?
10. What is the role of meaning and knowledge in postcritical thinking?

References

·       Adorno, T. (1951/2005). Minima Moralia. London: Verso.

·       Anker, E., & Felski, R. (2017). Critique et postcritique. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

·       Butler, J. (2004). What is critique? An Essay on Foucault's Virtue. In S. Salih & J. Butler (Eds.), The Judith Butler Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

·       Deslandes, G. (2023). Postcritical Management Studies: Philosophical Interpretations. Cham: Springer.

·       Felski, R. (2015). The Limits of Critique. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

·       Fleming, P., Olaison, L., Plotnikof, M., Pors, J.P., & Pullen, A. (2020). Crawling from the wreckage: Does critique have a future in the business school?. Available at: http://www.ephemerajournal.org/content/crawling-wreckage-does-critique-have-future-business-school

·       Foucault, M. (1997). What is Critique? In J. Schmidt (ed.), What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Questions and Twentieth Century Answers (pp. 23-61). California: University of California Press.

·       Henry, M. (1963/2011). L'Essence de la manifestation (4th edn.). Paris: PUF. English version: Henry, M. (1973). The essence of manifestation (Trans. G. Etzkorn). The Hague: Nijhoff.

·       Holt, R., & Zundel, M. (2023). The Poverty of Strategy : Organizations in the Shadow of Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

·       Latour, B (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30(2), 225–248.

·       Raffnsøe, S. (2015). What is critique? The Critical State of Critique in the Age of Criticism. Outlines, 18(1), 28-60.

·       Ricoeur, P. (1974). The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (ed. D. Ihde). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

·       Spicer, A., & Alvesson, M. (2024). Critical Management Studies: A Critical Review. Journal of Management Studies, 23, 1-39. doi:10.1111/joms.13047.

·       Stiegler, B. (2010). For a New Critique of Political Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

·       Tasselli, S. (2019). Love and Organization Studies: Moving beyond the Perspective of Avoidance, Organization Studies, 40(7), 1073–1088.

3° Special Track: "Gift-giving and Management"

Convenors:

·       Roberta Sferazzo, Audencia Business School, France

·       Guglielmo Faldetta, Kore University of Enna, Italy 

While relationships have been recognized as important and meaningful in management and organization studies (Klein & Laczniak, 2013), they are often valued more for their utility in serving the self-interest of economic participants. Even acts of altruism or generosity are often carried out for instrumental reasons and typically lack a genuine focus on relationships, as evidenced by certain philanthropic actions. From a philosophical point of view, this logic is mainly based on utilitarianism, where social interactions are reduced to nothing more than a collection of individual preferences. On the other hand, the logic of duty explains giving as referring to internalized moral norms, social norms and expectations, and sanctions. Under this logic, individuals would perform an act of giving because they feel somehow obliged to do so, and from a philosophical perspective this could be related to a Kantian approach. Both logics fail to deeply consider social relationships as an end per se. Academics have recently highlighted the existence of meaningful relationships in organizations based on a culture of solidarity (Frémeaux et al., 2023), on fraternity (Zozimo et al., 2023), on generalized generosity (Frémeaux and Moneyron, 2023; Whitham, 2021), and on generalized gratitude (Fehr et al., 2017; Locklear et al., 2022), to mention a few. The principle which combines gratitude and generosity refers to people's desire to give back what they have previously received (Faldetta, 2011, 2018). This helps us to understand the logic of gift-giving following Ricoeur's (2005) analysis of mutual recognition, which stresses that we give because we have received.

This Special Track invites scholars interested in studying the logic of gift-giving as applied to management and organizations, moving beyond the often simplistic and incomplete explanations rooted in self-interest, individualism, obligation, and sense of duty. More specifically, we ask authors to investigate the philosophical foundations of gift-giving. As an example, to illustrate the quest for this support, one can refer to economic anthropology and build on Mauss' 1924 classic work on "The Gift", or on Hann's 2006 work, "The gift and reciprocity: perspectives from economic anthropology". In this sense, we invite scholars to go beyond the well-known philosophical approach provided by Derrida (1991), according to whom the only gift is a 'pure' one, which requires that both the giver and the receiver remain unaware of the act of giving. What we are looking for are philosophical approaches that can be used in the management field, in order to give substance to a relational view of the logic of gift-giving. In this sense, gift-giving and other related notions such as gratuitousness, reciprocity, relationality, and alterity can be a way to adopt a new conceptual lens to think about human relations in business organizations.

The Special Track Chairs welcome contributions that clearly articulate their theoretical as well as practical implications of implementing philosophical approaches to gift-giving to the managerial and organizational field. Suitable topics of interest may be related (but not limited) to the following questions:

-       What is the relation between gift-giving and management?

-       How can the gift-giving paradigm be connected to the concepts of altruism, solidarity, generosity, fraternity, reciprocity, cooperation, and friendship (to mention a few)?

-       What is the dark side of gift-giving (e.g. asymmetry of power, bribery, corruption, violence)?

-       How can the gift-giving paradigm shape and impact workplace relationships?

-       What are the tensions and paradoxes that can emerge in applying the unconditional gift-giving paradigm to the management field?

-       How can the gift-giving paradigm be connected to the environmental sustainability topic?

-       How can the logic of gift-giving shape management education?

References :

Derrida, J. (1991). Donner le temps. I. La fausse monnaie. Paris: Galilée.

Faldetta, G. (2011). The logic of gift and gratuitousness in business relationships. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(Suppl 1), 67-77.

Faldetta, G. (2018). A relational approach to responsibility in organizations: The logic of gift and Levinasian ethics for a 'corporeal' responsibility. Culture and Organization, 24(3), 196-220.

Fehr, R., Fulmer, A., Awtrey, E., & Miller, J.A. (2017). The grateful workplace: a multilevel model of gratitude in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 42(2), 361–381.

Frémeaux, S., & Moneyron, J. D. (2023). Generalized generosity: Lessons from a social and educational organization. Online First. European Management Review, 21(3), 631-644.

Frémeaux, S., Grevin, A., & Sferrazzo, R. (2023). Developing a culture of solidarity through a three-step virtuous process: Lessons from common good-oriented organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 188(1), 89-105.

Hann, C. (2006). The gift and reciprocity: perspectives from economic anthropology. In Kolm, S. C., & Ythier, J. M. (eds.). Handbook of the economics of giving, altruism and reciprocity (pp. 207-223). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Klein, T. A., & Laczniak, G. R. (2013). Implications of Caritas in Veritate for Marketing and Business Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(4), 641–651.

Locklear, L.R., Sheridan, S., & Kong, D.T. (2022) Appreciating social science research on gratitude: an integrative review for organizational scholarship on gratitude in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 44(2), 225–260.

Mauss, M. (1924/1967). The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. Stockton-on-Tees: Norton Library.

Ricoeur, P. (2005). The Course of Recognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Whitham, M. M. (2021). Generalized generosity: how the norm of generalized reciprocity bridges collective forms of social exchange. American Sociological Review, 86(3), 503–531.

Zózimo, R., Pina e Cunha, M., & Rego, A. (2023). Becoming a Fraternal Organization: Insights from the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Journal of Business Ethics, 183(2), 383-399.

Submission process 

 The submission should be a short paper (approximately 1,500 words) setting out the research question, gap, approach, and main lines of argument.

Ø    The short paper should be anonymized and submitted online at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=phom25

Ø    Submissions to one of the Special Tracks should mention the respective special track name in the paper title.

Ø    If you encounter difficulties in uploading your paper or if you have any queries about the call, the submission process, the venue, or the conference, please get in touch with Marian Eabrasu at < meabrasu@em-normandie.fr >   

Key dates: 

Ø    Deadline for short paper/extended abstract submission: 10 February 2025 

Ø    Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2025 

Ø    Conference: 27-30 June 2025 

Additional information about the conference: 

Ø    The venue is the Jericho Building on the City of Oxford College premises.  

Ø    Fee estimates £340, including conference registration and catering.

Ø    The programs of the last two conferences can be found at PHOM 2023 and PHOM 2024 .

 

Conference Committee: 

Marian Eabrasu (Chair) (EM Normandie, Business School, France) < meabrasu@em-normandie.fr >

 

David C. Bauman (Regis University, USA)

David Bevan (St Martin's Institute of Higher Education, Malta)

Alicia Hennig (Technical University Dresden, Germany)

Nigel Laurie (former London Facilitators, UK; Royal Holloway, University of London) 

Cristina Neesham (Newcastle University, UK) 

Robert Phillips (York University, Canada)

Grant Rozeboom (St Mary's College of California, USA)

Wim Vandekerckhove (EDHEC Business School, France)

Pat Werhane (De Paul University and University of Virginia, USA) 

David Carl Wilson (Webster University, USA) 

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Dr Cristina Neesham
Professor of Business Ethics and Sustainability
Associate Dean Ethics, Responsibility & Sustainability (ERS)
Newcastle University Business School
Newcastle University, United Kingdom
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