Category Archives: Call for Papers

MREV – Call for Papers: Echoes of an Era – A Century of Organisational Studies

Managing Editor:
Wenzel Matiaske, Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg (Germany)

Hundred years ago, Henri Fayols “Administration Industrielle et Générale”, a milestone in the history of organisational thought, was published. This centenary motivates the editors of the management revue to launch a stream on the history of organisational studies. In the forthcoming volumes, and rather on an infrequent basis, we would like to publish contributions which not only introduce the reader to one or several, interrelated seminal works of organisational theory but also provide accompanying commentaries and an analysis of their history of effects.

The reason for this format is, given our discipline’s forgetfulness of history, to provide orientation, which not only serves teaching and young management scholars. While reference to classic thought contributes to scientific advancement in other fields of the social sciences, in our field some research issues are being addressed repeatedly – without putting the associated arguments and findings in an adequate historical context. In this respect, addressing the history of thought should be understood as a contribution to the advancement of management research.

We would like to avoid a strict delimitation of the era being addressed. Contributions on contemporaries of Fayol like Frederik Winston Taylor, Frank B. and Lillian Gilbreth or Henry L. Gantt und Karol Adamiecki are as welcome as contributions are on Fayol’s predecessors or successors. By no means we are exclusively committed to the “engineers of the organisation”; economists, legal scholars and particularly the labour science community and psychologists should also be given due attention. A temporal upper boundary shall nevertheless be the 1970s, when, most notably induced by Alfred D. Chandler, strategic management and the reflection on it started to thrive.

This stream will be open to submissions until the end of 2017 in the first place. It will be maintained and edited by Wenzel Matiaske (Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg, Germany). Submissions shall accord with the formatting guidelines of the management revue. Please submit your manuscripts electronically via our online submission system using “Stream Echoes of an Era” as article section.

Looking forward to your contribution!
Wenzel Matiaske

 

MREV/EURAM – Call for Papers: Entrepreneurship and Managerialization in SMEs and family firms

Guest Editors:
Paola Vola, University of Eastern Piedmont, Novara, Italy
Sylvia Rohlfer, CUNEF, Madrid, Spain
Lucrezia Songini, University of Eastern Piedmont, Novara, Italy

The competitive landscape of the twenty-first century is dynamic, highlighting the need for organizations to be entrepreneurial. Thus, a scientific dialogue on entrepreneurial orientation and spirit in family businesses and SMEs has emerged as a relevant topic. However, the capacity to conjugate entrepreneurial spirit of family businesses and smaller enterprises with the managerialization of the organizational structure and mechanisms as well as the professionalization of people involved in the company is critical for the long-term survival and development of those firms.

Research on managerialization of SMEs and family firms points out that they are characterized by a lower adoption of managerial mechanism, as a consequence of the strong linkages between the owners/managers and the enterprise; and/or the lack of managerial knowledge at the ownership, governance and management levels. It is commonly underlined that the management in these firms is characterized by some degree of informality and that individual and social control systems are more suited to these enterprises, due to common shared values and languages, informal relationships etc. (Marlow, Taylor and Thompson, 2010; Saundry, Jones and Wimberley, 2014; Rohlfer, Munoz and Slocum, 2016).

However, some authors stated that formal mechanisms could help family owned businesses to cope with the interests and problems of both the company and the family, and their specific agency costs (Rue and Ibrahim, 1996; Schulze et al., 2003; Songini, Gnan et Malmi, 2013; Della Torre and Solari, 2013). Literature on family firms recognizes the importance of managerialization and professionalization in smoothing succession’s process.

This special issue of Management Revue and the corresponding Track 03_09 – Entrepreneurship and Managerialization in SMEs and family firms, under SIG 03 – Entrepreneurship, at EURAM 2017, provides an opportunity to take stock of developments on these issues, particularly on the adoption of management mechanisms and the professionalization of SMEs and family firms and their balance with entrepreneurial spirit.

We are looking for contributions that explore the ability of successful SMEs and family business to maintain fresh entrepreneurial spirit while consolidating management and control mechanisms, and introducing professional managers, but also for contributions that analyze the consequences of losing momentum in that balance.

Thus, we invite papers that make an important theoretical and/or empirical contribution to our understanding of such issues; international and comparative papers are particularly welcome. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

  • How and why SMEs and family firms restructure and reorganize the management of the firm in the light of managerialization and professionalization?
  • How can SMEs and family firms balance entrepreneurial spirit and managerialization/ professionalization? How do they maintain this balance along time and during generations?
  • What is the role of family members and non-family members in balancing entrepreneurial spirit and managerialization/ professionalization?
  • What is the role of women (family and non-family members) in such a balance?
  • What is the role of managerial mechanisms and professional managers in SMEs and family firms’ development and growth?
  • What are the implications of managerialization and professionalization on key employee relations characteristics, such as pay and conditions, employee voice and labor management relations?
  • How and why owner/managers ́ approaches to managerialization and professionalization vary in relation to issues such as firm, sector, national contexts and employee characteristics, among others?
  • What are the implications for owner-managers and other stakeholders, including employees?
  • Which theories can best help us explain and understand managerialization and professionalization in SMEs and family firms, and the relation with entrepreneurship?

This is not an exhaustive list.

Management Revue is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary European journal publishing both qualitative and quantitative work, as well as purely theoretical papers that advances the study of management, organization, and industrial relations. Management Revue publishes articles that contribute to theory from a number of disciplines, including business and public administration, organizational behavior, economics, sociology, and psychology. Reviews of books relevant to management and organization studies are a regular feature (http://www.management-revue.org/).

European Academy of Management
The European Academy of Management (EURAM) is a learned society founded in 2001. It aims at advancing the academic discipline of management in Europe. With members from 49 countries in Europe and beyond, EURAM has a high degree of diversity and provides its members with opportunities to enrich debates over a variety of research management themes and traditions (http://euramonline.org/programme2017/tracks/sig-03-entrepreneurship-ent.html).

Potential authors
Authors are encouraged to submit research manuscripts that are likely to make a significant contribution to the literature on entrepreneurship and managerialization and professionalization in SMEs and family firms for a double-blind review process. Contributors to the Track 03_09 “Entrepreneurship and Managerialization in SMEs and family firms” at EURAM 2017 Conference are encouraged to discuss their sub- mission prior or during the conference. Even if conference participants will benefit from a fast review process, submissions are not solely restricted to conference participants.

Deadlines
Full papers for this special issue of Management Revue must be with the editors by 31 July 2017. All submissions will be subject to a double-blind review process. Papers invited for a “revise and resubmit” are due on the 30 November 2017. Final decision will be made by May 2018. The special issue will be published in late 2018.

Submission and guidelines
Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.management-revue.org/submission/ using SI “Managerialization” as article section.

The guest editors welcome informal enquiries by email:
Paola Vola
Sylvia Rohlfer
Lucrezia Songini

Literature

Aldrich, H. & Cliff, J. (2003). The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: toward a family embeddedness perspective, Journal of Business Venturing, 18(5), 573-596.

Bettinelli, C., Fayolle, A. & Randerson, K. (2014). Family entrepreneurship: a developing field. Found. Trends Entrep., 10(3), 161–236.

Brannon, D. L., Wiklund, J. & Haynie, J. M. (2013). The varying effects of family relationships in entrepreneurial teams. Entrep. Theory Practice, 37(1), 107–132.

Chenall, R. (2003). Management control system design within its organizational context: findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future, Accounting Organizations and Society, 28 (2-3), 127-168.

Corbetta, G., Marchisio, G. & Salvato C. (2005). Fostering Entrepreneurship in Established Family Firms – Crossroads of Entrepreneurship, Springer.

Della Torre, E. & Solari, L. (2013). High-performance work systems and the change management process in medium-sized firms. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), 2583-2607.

Durán-Encalada, J. A., San Martín-Reyna, J. M. & Montiel-Campos, H. (2012). A Research Proposal to Examine Entrepreneurship in Family Business. Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, 8(3), 58-77.

Fayolle, A. (2016). Family entrepreneurship: what we need to know. In K. Randerson, C. Bettinelli, G. Dossena, & A. Fayolle (eds.), Family Entrepreneurship: Rethinking the Research Agenda (pp. 304–306). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Hoy, F. & Sharma, P. (2010). Entrepreneurial Family Firms. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.

Jennings, J. E. & McDougald, M. S. (2007). Work–family interface experiences and coping strategies: implications for entrepreneurship research and practice. Academy of Management Review, 32(3), 747-760.

Malmi, T., & Brown, D. A. (2008). Management control system as packageOpportunities, challenges and research directions. Management Accounting Research, 19(4), 287-300.

Marlow, S. Taylor, S & Thompson, A. (2010). Informality and formality in medium-sized companies: contestation and synchronization. British Journal of Management, 20(4): 954-966.

Randerson, K., Bettinelli, C., Fayolle, A. & Anderson, A. (2015). Family entrepreneurship as a field of research: exploring its contours and contents. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 6(3), 143–154.

Randerson, K., Dossena, G. & Fayolle, A. (2016). The futures of family business: family entrepreneurship. Futures, 75, 36–43.

Rohlfer, S., Muñoz Salvador, C. and Slocum, A. (2016). People management in micro and small organizations – a comparative analysis. FUNCAS: Estudios de la Fundación. Series Análisis, no. 79.

Sharma, P. (2016). Preface. In K. Randerson, C. Bettinelli, G. Dossena, & A. Fayolle (eds.), Family Entrepreneurship: Rethinking the Research Agenda (p. xiv). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Songini L. (2006). The professionalization of family firm: theory and practice. In Poutziouris P., Smyrnios K. & Klein S. (eds.), Handbook of Research in Family Business (pp. 269-297). UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Songini, L. & Gnan, L. (2009). Glass ceiling and professionalization in family SMEs, Journal of Enterprising Culture, 17(4), 1-29.

Songini, L., Gnan, L., & Malmi, T. (2013). The role and impact of accounting in family business, Journal of Family Business Strategy, 4, 71-83.

Songini, L. & Gnan, L. (2014). The glass ceiling in SMEs and its impact on firm managerialization: A comparison between family and non-family SMEs, International Jounal of Business Governance and Ethics, 9(2): 287-312.

Songini, L. & Vola, P. (2014). The role of Managerialization and Professionalization in Family Busines Succession: Evidences from Italian Enterprises, in L. Gnan, H. Lundberg, L. Songini & M. Pelllegrini (eds.) Advancing European Entrepreneurship Research (169-196), IAP, Information Age Publishing Inc.

Songini, L. & Vola, P.(2015) The Role of Professionalization and Managerialization in Family Business Succession. Management Control, 2015/1, 9-43

Songini, L. & Gnan, L. (2015). Family Involvement and Agency Cost Control Mechanisms in Family Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Journal of Small Business Management, 53(3), 748–779.

MREV – Call for Papers: Workplace Flexibility

Guest Editors:
Sascha Ruhle, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (Germany)
Stefan Süß, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (Germany)

Special Issue

Flexibility has been an ongoing issue for various fields of research and practice and a considerable amount of literature dealing with the concept of flexibility has developed. This diversity has led to various perspectives on dimensions and aspects of flexibility. However, two major fields of flexibility can be distinguished. The organizational perspective understands workplace flexibility as the degree of adaptability of an organization in an uncertain and changing environment (Dastmalchian & Blyton 2001). In addition, workplace flexibility can encompass the individual perspective of the workforce, especially the degree of flexibility regarding aspects of where, when, and how work is performed (Hill et al. 2008). Within both streams of research, various aspects of flexibility have been addressed, such as organizational structures (Feldman & Pentland 2003), type of employment (Lepak et al. 2003; Sayah & Süß 2013), management and strategic human resource management (Wright & Snell 1998), time and location of work (Allen et al. 2013), demands towards employees (Vahle-Hinz et al. 2013) and work (Ruiner et al. 2013), leadership (Barrow 1976), and the role of Communication Technologies (Diaz et al. 2012).

Regarding the consequences of flexibility, literature often assumes positive results for both iindividualand organization, when flexibility increases. For example, evidence has been found that flexibility at work is positively related to self-reported health (Butler et al. 2009). Furthermore, it can increase organizational attractiveness (Nadler et al. 2010; Thompson et al. 2015), profit (Kesavan et al. 2014) and firm performance (Martínez Sánchez et al. 2007). However, there is also a missing consensus and ongoing discussion regarding possible consequences of flexibility. Research has identified potential downsides of flexibility, such as blurred work-life boundaries (Pedersen and Lewis 2012), the risk of stigmatization (Cech & Blair-Loy 2014), unsupportive work climate and inequitable implementation (Putnam et al. 2014). Other relationships, for example between flexibility and work-family conflict (Allen et al. 2013; Shockley & Allen 2007), remain unclear. Further, if the flexibility is only an organizational facade (Eaton 2003; Nystrom & Starbuck 1984) which is communicated but not lived in the organization, even more, negative consequences such as violations of psychological contracts might occur, especially when flexibility is used as a facade to justify the transformation of standard work arrangements to non-standard work arrangements.

Subsequently, a lot of questions remain unanswered:

  • What is the core of flexibility in organizations?
  • Which origins can be identified of the ongoing need for various types of flexibility?
  • What types of flexibility can be systematized and how are those different types related to organizational consequences, such as success or attractiveness?
  • How useful are flexible work arrangements and how can positive consequences be promoted and negative consequences be avoided, or at least weakened?
  • Which consequences result from a gap between offered and truly supported types of flexibility, e.g. the role of organizational facades?
  • How does embeddedness of Information and Communications Technologies in work practices enable and assist workplace flexibility?
  • What are the consequences of the ongoing flexibilization of work on the economic and social level?

Potential authors

The aim of this special issue is to increase our understanding of the above-mentioned aspects of workplace flexibility, especially from an organizational perspective. We encourage empirical – qualitative or quantitative – submissions from various research fields, such as business administration, industrial and organizational psychology, work sociology and other disciplines dealing with the topic of the Special Issue.

Deadline

Full papers for this special issue of management revue must be submitted by 31 December 2017. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due 31 May 2018. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.mrev.nomos.de/ guidelines/submit-manuscript/ using ‘SI Workplace Flexibility’ as article section.

Submission Guidelines

Manuscript length should not exceed 8,000 words (excluding references) and the norm should be 30 pages in double-spaced type with margins of about 3 cm (1 inch) on each side of the page. Further, please follow the guidelines on the website http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/ and submit the papers electronically by sending a ‘blind’ copy of your manuscript (delete all author identification from this primary document).

We look forward to receiving your contribution!

Sascha Ruhle
Stefan Süß

 

MREV – Call for Papers: Corporate responsibility: In the dilemma between trust and fake?

Guest Editors:
Simon Fietze, University of Southern Denmark
Wenzel Matiaske, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (Germany)
Roland Menges, Technical University Clausthal (Germany)

Special Issue

Trust is the currency that creates markets. This is knowledge of the merchants at the latest since modern markets have emerged along the medieval trade routes. Quality and reliability in the business are also building blocks of trust and the assumption of responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of entrepreneurial activity. Whether the latter should be integrated into social and legal relations and norms in the form of voluntary corporate responsibility, has been the subject of economic discussion since the beginnings of the discipline and since the separation of the spheres of economic and moral action in the Scottish moral economy.

Over the past decades, both supra-national organisations such as the UN and the EU have been focusing on soft law – from the global compact through the AA1000 to the Green Paper of the EU Commission – as well as the national states, to promote social and environmental responsibility for companies in the age of globalisation. These initiatives have led to lively activities and debates both in the business world and in different scientific disciplines. For companies, it has now become a “fashion” to campaign social and ecological responsibility using the concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This commitment has meanwhile led to the fact that CSR activities should partly contribute to value creation instead of aligning them with corporate objectives and values. Such a development leads to the loss of trust and the assumption of responsibility becomes a “fake”.

Against this backdrop, some of the social and economic observers remained sceptical, advocating tougher legal norms or fiscal implications. Finally, lawyers pointed out that (successful) standardisations often develop not only from the “top” but also from the “bottom”, i.e. they emerge from the action routines of the economic actors as emergent effects. However, not only the recent scandals – from the ENRON case to the VW case – raise questions about the effectiveness of co-operative self-commitment as well as external control.

Moreover, corporate responsibility is related to the concept of consumer responsibility. Whereas market-optimists believe that reliable changes in consumption patterns rely on responsible individual action, more market-skeptics warn of a counterproductive “privatisation of sustainability”.

In this light, this special issue will be on theoretical and empirical contributions to the topic “Corporate responsibility: In the dilemma between trust and fake?” from economic, sociological, (economic) historical and legal perspectives. Possible topics are:

  • Economic and history of ideas cases and questions of corporate responsibility
  • The “pseudo” corporate responsibility
  • Organisational and sociological theories and findings on corporate responsibility
  • Theory and empiricism of the audit
  • Theoretical and empirical studies on consumer responsibility
  • Criminal law considerations for corporate actors
  • Institutional factors of corporate responsibility
  • The trust of social entrepreneurship

This is not an exhaustive list.

Deadline
Full paper for this special issue of management revue must be submitted by September 30th, 2017. All contributions will be subject to a double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due January 31st, 2018. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system using ‘SI Corporate Responsibility’ as article section.

Hoping to hear from you!
Simon Fietze
Wenzel Matiaske
Roland Menges


Call for Papers: Hamburg International Conference for Logistics (HICL) – 12./13. Oct. 2017

The eleventh Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), hosted by the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) invites you to participate on the 12 & 13 October 2017 and for an additional Ph.D. seminar on the 11 October 2017.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence and automation, as well as ever-increasing capacities of smart devices, have created a whole new business ecosystem. Additionally, customers are demanding more innovative, more diverse and greener products. This creates numerous challenges for all actors in the supply chain; yet, they also present a chance to create solutions and practices that improve performance and productivity. HICL 2017 focuses on research concepts and ideas that enable these tools and ideas to be used in logistics and SCM. For this year’s theme: Logistics and Supply Chain Management meet Digitalization

Empirical, theoretical, methodological and practical contributions addressing topics related to one of the following tracks:

  • Innovation and Technology Management
  • Risk and Security Management
  • Sustainability and City Logistics
  • Maritime and Port Logistics
  • Advanced Manufacturing and Industry 4.0

Conference Chairs

  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Wolfgang Kersten (Institute of Business Logistics and General Management, TUHH)
  • Prof. Dr. Thorsten Blecker (Institute of Business Logistics and General Management, TUHH)
  • Prof. Dr. Christian M. Ringle (Institute for Human Resource Management and Organizations, TUHH)
  • Prof. Dr.-Ing. Carlos Jahn (Institute of Maritime Logistics, TUHH)
  • Prof. Dr. Kai Hoberg (Supply Chain and Operations Strategy, Kühne Logistics University)

Important Dates

26 May 2017: Abstract Submission closes
03 July 2017: Paper Submission closes

More information

Call for Papers: The Ethical Dimensions of Corruption (October 20-21, 2017)

12th Talks at Zittau Concerning Business Ethics

Call for Papers
The Ethical Dimensions of Corruption Zittau, October 20-21, 2017

Organizer:
Technical University Dresden
International Institute Zittau
Chair for Social Sciences
Markt 23, 02763 Zittau

For most western countries corruption, especially in its forms of grease money or petty payments, have been seen as cultural idiosyncrasy of African, South-American or East-European countries. For years, corruption has been dismissed as a cultural phenomenon especially in less-developed or developing countries, mirroring low salaries, weak infrastructure, disorganized administration and unstable political conditions. If corruption ‘happened’ in Western countries at all, this has been downplayed as a kind of ‘some-bad-apples-theory’ where a few ill-motivated actors jeopardize the honesty of the whole system. What this theory fails to explain, however, is why it is western multinational corporations that have been involved in contemporary corruption scandals in recent years. Even though most of these companies ostensibly had anti-corruption programs and monitoring systems in place, such measures obviously did not prevent management from engaging in corrupt activities. It seems therefore that corruption is a widespread and common practice

and a universally prevalent phenomenon, even if the practices and degree of corrupt behavior may vary in relation to cultural settings or in different sectors.

Thus, for example, certain sorts of gift-giving in some cultures are deeply embedded in custom and are seen as social mechanism for stabilizing relationships inside and outside the business con- text, whereas in other countries such acts of gift-giving are by and large uncommon. In the latter, gift giving is viewed as an illegitimate means of influencing the decision of the other party by creating a specific sort of obligation as well as imposing additional costs to the company. While the intention of gift giving may not be to obtain a favor from the donee in return, one of its aims may nevertheless be to cast the giver in a favorable light and to create an atmosphere of ‘friendship’ and ‘intimacy’ valued highly in some cultures, but seen as illegitimate leverage in others.

The same cultural difference in attitude can be observed with obligations vis-à-vis family members or other social groups. To take the example of employee recruitment in western countries today, we see that recruitment principally depends on qualifications and work experience and only to a lesser extent on recommendations, while in some other countries and in former times family relationship is or was seen as a guarantee of loyalty and trustworthiness and might explain why ‘nepotism’ happens and was considered acceptable.

Nevertheless, some elements of corruption are perceived as illicit in nearly all countries – irrespective of whether other corrupt practices are common in these countries or not. A very good indicator for this is the fact that most types of bribery payments are not made public and are illegal in most countries. In spite of this, even the most stringent legal regulations concerning corrupt practices leave room for interpretation. On the other hand, for companies working in a corrupt environment it is not easy to figure out the family ties of their counterparts or whether costs charged for administrative handling are legal payments or hidden bribes for some groups of state officials. Thus, according to which industry a corporation belongs, it might face specific problems related to corruption.

The aim of the 12th Talks at Zittau is to provide an overview of corrupt practices from an ethical perspective. Corruption will be considered in its broadest sense, including bribery and petty payments, nepotism and cronyism, gift-giving, embezzlement of public property, or money launder- ing. Theoretical, as well as empirical contributions, are welcome. Topics may include but are not limited to:

Theories on Corruption:

  • Theoretical explanations of corrupt behavior
  • Classification of corruption
  • Cultural perspectives on corruption
  • Corruption in the international context
  • Corruption and multinational corporations

Empirical Findings on Corruption

  • Influencing factors on corruption
  • Corruption and foreign investment
  • Measuring corruption
  • Influence of Corruption on economic development
  • Corrupt structures across countries

Case Studies on Corruption

  • Analysis of corruption scandals
  • Corruption in different industries
  • Corruption in the public sector
  • Specific forms of corrupt behavior
  • Motivation for corruption

Measures against Corruption

  • International anti-corruption programs
  • National anti-corruption policy
  • Industry self-regulation against corruption
  • Anti-corruption training programs
  • Best practice examples of anti-corruption measures

Theoretical, managerial, and empirical contributions from both academic and practitioners’ side are welcome. We highly appreciate contributions which open up a new perspective on corruption and related practices to foster a critical discussion on this topic.

Submissions, including title of contribution, extended abstract (500 to 1000 words) and short CV in Word or pdf format should be made latest until

June 30, 2017.

All submissions will be double-blind reviewed. Notice on acceptance will be sent until

August 11, 2017.

Registration deadline for the conference is

September 30, 2017.

Submissions and conference registration should be made via our homepage which will be opened by beginning of May

http://www.dnwe.de/regionalforum-sachsen.html

Further information

Call for Papers: Alternativen ökonomischer Lehre und Forschung (Arbeitskreis Politische Öknonomie)

Organisatoren: Das Institut für Plurale Ökonomik (Siegen) und der Arbeitskreis Politische Ökonomie

Thema: Alternativen ökonomischer Lehre und Forschung

Veranstaltungsort: Siegen

Termin: 23.-25.11.2017

Im November 2015 fand der Kongress Teaching Economics in the 21st century in Berlin statt, der ursprünglich auf eine Initiative des Arbeitskreises Politische Ökonomie und der World Economic Association zurückging. In der Zwischenzeit hat sich einiges getan: die private Cusanus-Hochschule hat erfolgreich einen zusätzlichen Bachelorstudiengang eingerichtet, an der Universität Siegen läuft seit dem Wintersemester 2017/18 der Masterstudiengang Plurale Ökonomik und ein Institut für Plurale Ökonomik ist in Gründung. Zudem erscheinen seit der Berliner Tagung weitere heterodox-plurale Lehrbücher (u.a. das von INET angeregte Core-Projekt) und die Forschungsstelle für gesamtwirtschaftliche Weiterentwicklung fördert neben einer eigenen Buchpublikation einige Forschungsprojekte, die sich zum Teil mit Fragen der heterodoxen Forschung und Lehre befassen. Neben der neulich erfolgten Gründung der „Gesellschaft für sozio*ökonomische Bildung und Wissenschaft (GSÖBW)“ sind schließlich die zahlreichen zwischenzeitlichen Aktivitäten und Diskussionen im Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik hervorzuheben.

Die Konferenz dient dazu, den u.a. in Berlin entwickelten Diskussionszusammenhang weiter zu entwickeln. Die Vorstellung plural-heterodoxer Studiengänge, die Kritik an zentralen Konzepten der Standardökonomie gerne auch mit Bezug auf aktuelle, (inter)nationale wirtschaftspolitische Entwicklungen und die Vorstellung deutschsprachiger, aber auch v.a. angelsächsischer Alternativlehrbücher sollen neben plural-heterodoxen Lehr- und Lernformen unter Einschluss avancierter alternativer Forschungsansätze, die den vorherrschenden Mainstream ergänzen sollten, im Vordergrund der Tagung stehen.

Anregungen und Beiträge von studentischer Seite sind ausdrücklich erwünscht.

Bitte senden Sie/sendet Ihr einen Abstract im Umfang von max. 500 Worten bis zum 1.9 an: Helge.Peukert@uni-siegen.de

MREV/EURAM – Call for Papers: Entrepreneurship and Managerialization in SMEs and family firms

Guest Editors:
Paola Vola, University of Eastern Piedmont, Novara, Italy
Sylvia Rohlfer, CUNEF, Madrid, Spain
Lucrezia Songini, University of Eastern Piedmont, Novara, Italy

The competitive landscape of the twenty-first century is dynamic, highlighting the need for organizations to be entrepreneurial. Thus, a scientific dialogue on entrepreneurial orientation and spirit in family businesses and SMEs has emerged as a relevant topic. However, the capacity to conjugate entrepreneurial spirit of family businesses and smaller enterprises with the managerialization of the organizational structure and mechanisms as well as the professionalization of people involved in the company is critical for the long-term survival and development of those firms.

Research on managerialization of SMEs and family firms points out that they are characterized by a lower adoption of managerial mechanism, as a consequence of the strong linkages between the owners/managers and the enterprise; and/or the lack of managerial knowledge at the ownership, governance and management levels. It is commonly underlined that the management in these firms is characterized by some degree of informality and that individual and social control systems are more suited to these enterprises, due to common shared values and languages, informal relationships etc. (Marlow, Taylor and Thompson, 2010; Saundry, Jones and Wimberley, 2014; Rohlfer, Munoz and Slocum, 2016).

However, some authors stated that formal mechanisms could help family owned businesses to cope with the interests and problems of both the company and the family, and their specific agency costs (Rue and Ibrahim, 1996; Schulze et al., 2003; Songini, Gnan et Malmi, 2013; Della Torre and Solari, 2013). Literature on family firms recognizes the importance of managerialization and professionalization in smoothing succession’s process.

This special issue of Management Revue and the corresponding Track 03_09 – Entrepreneurship and Managerialization in SMEs and family firms, under SIG 03 – Entrepreneurship, at EURAM 2017, provides an opportunity to take stock of developments on these issues, particularly on the adoption of management mechanisms and the professionalization of SMEs and family firms and their balance with entrepreneurial spirit.

We are looking for contributions that explore the ability of successful SMEs and family business to maintain fresh entrepreneurial spirit while consolidating management and control mechanisms, and introducing professional managers, but also for contributions that analyze the consequences of losing momentum in that balance.

Thus, we invite papers that make an important theoretical and/or empirical contribution to our understanding of such issues; international and comparative papers are particularly welcome. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

  • How and why SMEs and family firms restructure and reorganize the management of the firm in the light of managerialization and professionalization?
  • How can SMEs and family firms balance entrepreneurial spirit and managerialization/ professionalization? How do they maintain this balance along time and during generations?
  • What is the role of family members and non-family members in balancing entrepreneurial spirit and managerialization/ professionalization?
  • What is the role of women (family and non-family members) in such a balance?
  • What is the role of managerial mechanisms and professional managers in SMEs and family firms’ development and growth?
  • What are the implications of managerialization and professionalization on key employee relations characteristics, such as pay and conditions, employee voice and labor management relations?
  • How and why owner/managers ́ approaches to managerialization and professionalization vary in relation to issues such as firm, sector, national contexts and employee characteristics, among others?
  • What are the implications for owner-managers and other stakeholders, including employees?
  • Which theories can best help us explain and understand managerialization and professionalization in SMEs and family firms, and the relation with entrepreneurship?

This is not an exhaustive list.

Management Revue is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary European journal publishing both qualitative and quantitative work, as well as purely theoretical papers that advances the study of management, organization, and industrial relations. Management Revue publishes articles that contribute to theory from a number of disciplines, including business and public administration, organizational behavior, economics, sociology, and psychology. Reviews of books relevant to management and organization studies are a regular feature (http://www.management-revue.org/).

European Academy of Management
The European Academy of Management (EURAM) is a learned society founded in 2001. It aims at advancing the academic discipline of management in Europe. With members from 49 countries in Europe and beyond, EURAM has a high degree of diversity and provides its members with opportunities to enrich debates over a variety of research management themes and traditions (http://euramonline.org/programme2017/tracks/sig-03-entrepreneurship-ent.html).

Potential authors
Authors are encouraged to submit research manuscripts that are likely to make a significant contribution to the literature on entrepreneurship and managerialization and professionalization in SMEs and family firms for a double-blind review process. Contributors to the Track 03_09 “Entrepreneurship and Managerialization in SMEs and family firms” at EURAM 2017 Conference are encouraged to discuss their sub- mission prior or during the conference. Even if conference participants will benefit from a fast review process, submissions are not solely restricted to conference participants.

Deadlines
Full papers for this special issue of Management Revue must be with the editors by 31 July 2017. All submissions will be subject to a double-blind review process. Papers invited for a “revise and resubmit” are due on the 30 November 2017. Final decision will be made by May 2018. The special issue will be published in late 2018.

Submission and guidelines
Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.management-revue.org/submission/ using SI “Managerialization” as article section.

The guest editors welcome informal enquiries by email:
Paola Vola
Sylvia Rohlfer
Lucrezia Songini

Literature

Aldrich, H. & Cliff, J. (2003). The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: toward a family embeddedness perspective, Journal of Business Venturing, 18(5), 573-596.

Bettinelli, C., Fayolle, A. & Randerson, K. (2014). Family entrepreneurship: a developing field. Found. Trends Entrep., 10(3), 161–236.

Brannon, D. L., Wiklund, J. & Haynie, J. M. (2013). The varying effects of family relationships in entrepreneurial teams. Entrep. Theory Practice, 37(1), 107–132.

Chenall, R. (2003). Management control system design within its organizational context: findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future, Accounting Organizations and Society, 28 (2-3), 127-168.

Corbetta, G., Marchisio, G. & Salvato C. (2005). Fostering Entrepreneurship in Established Family Firms – Crossroads of Entrepreneurship, Springer.

Della Torre, E. & Solari, L. (2013). High-performance work systems and the change management process in medium-sized firms. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), 2583-2607.

Durán-Encalada, J. A., San Martín-Reyna, J. M. & Montiel-Campos, H. (2012). A Research Proposal to Examine Entrepreneurship in Family Business. Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, 8(3), 58-77.

Fayolle, A. (2016). Family entrepreneurship: what we need to know. In K. Randerson, C. Bettinelli, G. Dossena, & A. Fayolle (eds.), Family Entrepreneurship: Rethinking the Research Agenda (pp. 304–306). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Hoy, F. & Sharma, P. (2010). Entrepreneurial Family Firms. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.

Jennings, J. E. & McDougald, M. S. (2007). Work–family interface experiences and coping strategies: implications for entrepreneurship research and practice. Academy of Management Review, 32(3), 747-760.

Malmi, T., & Brown, D. A. (2008). Management control system as packageOpportunities, challenges and research directions. Management Accounting Research, 19(4), 287-300.

Marlow, S. Taylor, S & Thompson, A. (2010). Informality and formality in medium-sized companies: contestation and synchronization. British Journal of Management, 20(4): 954-966.

Randerson, K., Bettinelli, C., Fayolle, A. & Anderson, A. (2015). Family entrepreneurship as a field of research: exploring its contours and contents. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 6(3), 143–154.

Randerson, K., Dossena, G. & Fayolle, A. (2016). The futures of family business: family entrepreneurship. Futures, 75, 36–43.

Rohlfer, S., Muñoz Salvador, C. and Slocum, A. (2016). People management in micro and small organizations – a comparative analysis. FUNCAS: Estudios de la Fundación. Series Análisis, no. 79.

Sharma, P. (2016). Preface. In K. Randerson, C. Bettinelli, G. Dossena, & A. Fayolle (eds.), Family Entrepreneurship: Rethinking the Research Agenda (p. xiv). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Songini L. (2006). The professionalization of family firm: theory and practice. In Poutziouris P., Smyrnios K. & Klein S. (eds.), Handbook of Research in Family Business (pp. 269-297). UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Songini, L. & Gnan, L. (2009). Glass ceiling and professionalization in family SMEs, Journal of Enterprising Culture, 17(4), 1-29.

Songini, L., Gnan, L., & Malmi, T. (2013). The role and impact of accounting in family business, Journal of Family Business Strategy, 4, 71-83.

Songini, L. & Gnan, L. (2014). The glass ceiling in SMEs and its impact on firm managerialization: A comparison between family and non-family SMEs, International Jounal of Business Governance and Ethics, 9(2): 287-312.

Songini, L. & Vola, P. (2014). The role of Managerialization and Professionalization in Family Busines Succession: Evidences from Italian Enterprises, in L. Gnan, H. Lundberg, L. Songini & M. Pelllegrini (eds.) Advancing European Entrepreneurship Research (169-196), IAP, Information Age Publishing Inc.

Songini, L. & Vola, P.(2015) The Role of Professionalization and Managerialization in Family Business Succession. Management Control, 2015/1, 9-43

Songini, L. & Gnan, L. (2015). Family Involvement and Agency Cost Control Mechanisms in Family Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Journal of Small Business Management, 53(3), 748–779.

Reminder – MREV – Call for Papers – Corporate responsibility: In the dilemma between trust and fake?

Seminar at the IUC Dubrovnik (April 3-7, 2017) & Special Issue

Seminar Organizers & Guest Editors:
Simon Fietze, University of Southern Denmark
Wenzel Matiaske, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (Germany)
Roland Menges, Technical University Clausthal (Germany)

Trust is the currency that creates markets. This is knowledge of the merchants at the latest since modern markets have emerged along the medieval trade routes. Quality and reliability in the business are also building blocks of trust and the assumption of responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of entrepreneurial activity. Whether the latter should be integrated into social and legal relations and norms in the form of voluntary corporate responsibility, has been the subject of economic discussion since the beginnings of the discipline and since the separation of the spheres of economic and moral action in the Scottish moral economy.

Over the past decades, both supra-national organizations such as the UN and the EU have been focusing on soft law – from the global compact through the AA1000 to the Green Paper of the EU Commission – as well as the national states, to promote social and environmental responsibility for companies in the age of globalization. These initiatives have led to lively activities and debates both in the business world and in different scientific disciplines. For companies, it has now become a “fashion” to campaign social and ecological responsibility using the concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This commitment has meanwhile led to the fact that CSR activities should partly contribute to value creation instead of aligning them with corporate objectives and values. Such a development leads to the loss of trust and the assumption of responsibility becomes a “fake”.

Against this backdrop, some of the social and economic observers remained skeptical, advocating tougher legal norms or fiscal implications. Finally, lawyers pointed out that (successful) standardizations often develop not only from the “top”, but also from the “bottom”, i.e. they emerge from the action routines of the economic actors as emergent effects. However, not only the recent scandals – from the ENRON case to the VW case – raise questions about the effectiveness of co-operative self-commitment as well as external control.

Moreover, corporate responsibility is related to the concept of consumer responsibility. Whereas market-optimists believe that reliable changes in consumption patterns rely on responsible individual action, more market-skeptics warn of a counterproductive “privatization of sustainability”.

In this light, this year’s seminar at the IUC Dubrovnik will be on theoretical and empirical contributions to the topic “Corporate responsibility: In the dilemma between trust and fake?” from economic, sociological, (economic) historical and legal perspectives. Possible topics are:

  • Economic and history of ideas cases and questions of corporate responsibility
  • The “pseudo” corporate responsibility
  • Organizational and sociological theories and findings on corporate responsibility
  • Theory and empiricism of the audit
  • Theoretical and empirical studies on consumer responsibility
  • Criminal law considerations for corporate actors
  • Institutional factors of corporate responsibility
  • The trust of social entrepreneurship
  • This is not an exhaustive list.

Deadline
Potential contributors to the seminar at the IUC Dubrovnik are encouraged to submit an abstract of 1-2 pages before February 28th, 2017 electronically via online submission system of Management Revue using ‘IUC Dubrovnik’ as article section: http://www.management-revue.org/submission/

All contributors to the seminar are invited to submit their paper for the special issue of Management Revue. Full papers must be submitted by July 31st, 2017. All contributions will be subject to a double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due October 31st, 2017. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system using ‘SI Corporate Responsibility’ as article section.

Hoping to hear from you!
Simon Fietze
Wenzel Matiaske
Roland Menges

Call for Papers: BAM2017 – Re-connecting management research with the disciplines: Shaping the research agenda for the social sciences

In the 30 years since the establishment of BAM, the field of management has become more mature, however, the social sciences in general are much more mature, and as such may be deemed to have a first mover advantage. For example, economics, psychology, social anthropology and sociology were recognized as distinct social sciences and established key publications and academic journals to disseminate their research in the 19th century. By comparison, management as an academic discipline was not recognized until the 20th century, well after these other disciplines. Furthermore, the social sciences also have a longer history of producing PhDs – some of whom became the founding scholars of the management community. This may have a number of effects, including the fact that many management scholars today have PhDs in non-management disciplines. The process of research training (in social science departments) institutionalizes the student into the core discipline (or field) that may have enduring effects. A second major factor that is perhaps limiting the ability of management to influence the related social sciences may be perceptions of its nature as ‘applied’ or bounded to a greater extent than others. We might expect to find that management imports theory from related social sciences, empirically tests the theory, and then exports the results back to the social sciences (and to practitioners), leading to export through applied journals (such as Journal of Applied Psychology). Any major developments in theory, however, would be expected to be most often developed in the social sciences, because developing theories that have general application is a primary element of their activity. On the other hand, management scholars who develop theory would be focused on business applications, which may result in theory that is not of general interest to the social sciences and, hence, less likely to be exported. If management is inherently applied, we might draw parallels with the relationship between management and the related social sciences and the relationship between medicine and the natural sciences. John Kay has argued the following: “In the last fifty years, the application of scientific method to medical subjects, and the development and adoption of knowledge gained in physics, chemistry and biology, has transformed their (doctors’) effectiveness. (However) Medicine remains a practical subject.” Therefore, it may be a perfectly natural state of affairs that management imports from the core social sciences, much the same way as medicine has done from physics, chemistry, and biology. However, some business schools are bucking the trend, and are moving into being at the forefront of debates by re-connecting with the social sciences. Alternatives to the ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ metaphor of research include questioning whether the social science of any field (e.g. religion, social movements, politics, law, science etc.) are any more or less applied than any other, questioning whether there is any such thing as ‘applied’ research and the adoption of other epistemologies and methodologies which disrupt such frameworks of thought.

These issues will be explored at the Conference, fittingly to be hosted by Warwick Business School, where the first BAM Conference was held 30 years ago.

Further information