CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Paper Development Workshop at AOM
Firm Responses to Populism: Historical Approaches and Lessons for Today
Organizers: Christopher A. Hartwell (ZHAW, Switzerland) and Timothy Devinney (Manchester, UK)
Friday, Aug 9 2024 2:30PM - 4:00PM CT at Swissotel in Élevé River View 2
The purpose of this professional development workshop (PDW) is to bring together scholars working on populism to develop papers on examples from history that can help to answer the question of how firms in the past dealt with populist leaders and regimes. International business and management papers such as Devinney and Hartwell (2020, 2021), Hartwell and Devinney (2021, 2023), Blake et al. (2022), Feldmann and Morgan (2022), Nyberg and Murray (2023), and Panibratov et al. (2023), as well as an earlier examination by political scientists (de Sousa et al., 2020), have belatedly begun to grapple with the effect that populism has on business as well as on political institutions. However, there is scarce work done on the historical responses of firms to populism and how they survived, supported, resisted, or otherwise acted under the varieties of populism which have existed globally since the late 19th century.
As part of a planned special issue of Business History Review, we hope to bring in scholars working in this area, and in particular at the nexus of history, management, and strategy, to examine just how firms have dealt with prior waves of populist governance in the past, looking to understand responses at the firm level across various vectors. While we understand that much of the historical context for such an examination may come from mainly developed countries (and, in particular, the rich literature and material from the United States), we encourage submissions that especially focus on a non-Western context, as in the Global South, which has been a potent breeding ground for populism for decades. As this is meant to be a historical examination, we are also interested in papers which shed light on previous episodes of populism (i.e., prior to the 21st century)
The papers for this PDW that deal with the follow questions would be welcome and fit the theme of the special issue:
• How did firms adapt their strategies to populist electoral success?
• What sort of policies did populists pursue with regard to business and how were these received?
• What was the level of business support for populism and did this change or alter after electoral success?
• Did different varieties of populism affect business differently? That is, did right-wing or left-wing variants have a specific approach? Can the populism studied in a particular paper be characterized as pro-business or anti-business?
• What channels were affected by populist policies? Talent acquisition, operations, investment, others?
• Did firms become politically involved in resistance to populism? Did they become politically involved in support of populism?
• Were corporate boards or firm leadership aware of the threats from populism and did they discuss the political risk? Was anything done organizationally to mitigate the risk?
• Did populism affect multinational enterprises (MNES) differently than domestic businesses?
• What was the role of institutions in exacerbating or mitigating the effects of populism on business? Were businesses aware of this at the time?
• What was the role of populism in altering, fostering, or reducing trade flows and patterns? How did businesses deal with this?
• What was the role of migration in enhancing or mitigating populism's political success? What role did populism play in influencing migration flows?
Acceptance into the PDW does not guarantee acceptance for the Special Issue of Business History Review but is instead meant to improve papers and ideas on this topic on their way to submission.
If interested, prospective authors should submit an extended abstract (5 pages) or full paper addressing the themes noted above and/or the questions shown in the overview (following). We encourage scholars at all stages of their career to submit but note that the focus needs to be on the historical business experience with populism.
We anticipate that the workshop itself will entail the 90 minute session where the papers are to be read m advance by attendees and where authors have from 5 to 10 minutes to present. This will include active discussion among all participants of each paper, with a focus on improving the historical aspects of the papers and prepping them for possible submission to BHR. The "short presentation" format will be done specifically to maximize comments and helpful suggestions on developing the papers; to that end, we also will invite other AOM attendees who are not presenting at the PDW but who have done work in political risk/populism/nonmarket strategy and other affiliated areas to attend and to contribute their thoughts and commentary.
To submit your abstract/paper, please send it to christopher.hartwell@zhaw.ch no later than June 13, 2024. We anticipate there will be a Zoom call at the end of June for the special issue, and thus a decision will be returned within a week after the deadline.
Hope to see you there in Chicago!
Sincerely,
Christopher Hartwell
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Christopher Hartwell
Professor
ZHAW School of Management and Law
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