Call for Papers
Corporate Governance: An International Review
Special Issue Conference on

„Challenges in
Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies”

the 2nd Edinburgh Forum on Emerging Markets,

4./5.12.2015; University of Edinburgh Business School

Guest editors: Seth Armitage, Wenxuan Hou, Till Talaulicar, Li Jin, Subrata Sarkar

Conference Chair: Joseph Fan

In this call for papers for the Special Issue of Corporate Governance: An International Review, submissions are invited with a focus on the complex interface between firm-level governance mechanisms in emerging economies, their legal, economic and political institutions, and various organizational outcomes, including business strategy and performance. The Special Issue welcomes both theoretical and empirical papers.

Specific topics on corporate governance challenges in emerging economies include, but are not limited to:

• Comparisons between emerging and developed economies
• The role of institutions and national business systems in corporate governance
• Convergence towards best practices versus path-dependence
• Complementarities and substitution among governance mechanisms at different levels
• Regulatory framework, market development and investor protection
• Ownership and control structures and their dynamic evolution
• Institutional voids and governance in business groups
• The family-centric governance model and its organizational effects
• The governance of financial institutions and institutional investors
• The governance implications of corruption and bribery
• The role of political connections and relational contracting in governance
• The governance roles of reputation and culture
• The integrity of executives, responsible leadership and business ethics
• State corporatism and the role of the state as a shareholder
• Law, regulation and enforcement

Further information

Deadline for submission (full article): 15.9.2015

Call for Papers

Managing the human? Towards diverse, engaged and critical HRM studies

Special Issue of ephemera Journal

Issue Editors: Frans Bévort, Per Darmer, Mette Mogensen and Sara Louise Muhr

Today considerations about the management of so-called ‘human resources’ is taken up almost routinely both in governmental programs, in organizations as well as in the private lives of citizens (Jackson et al., 2014; Lengnick-Hall et al., 2009). This, in tandem with the increasing power of HRM practices in contemporary corporations, signals how HRM has succeeded to construct itself as a ‘serious’ and ‘established’ field of research.

The field of HRM has for a long time been criticized by a lively tradition of work, which has engaged with the development of management in late capitalism and through this criticised HRM for its one-sided and restricted way of engaging with the human as a manageable ‘resource’. One stream of research often drawing upon Marxist theory and/or labour process theory (e.g. Braverman, 1973; Burawoy, 1979; Legge, 2005; Storey, 1995) and one based on a more Foucauldian perspective, criticizing HRM and related ideology and practices (e.g. Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992; Townley, 1993; 1994; Grey, 1994; Barratt, 2002). Grounded in the argument that HRM is an ideological force, contemporary studies have continued the critique of the organization and management of the human workforce/resource (Weiskopf and Munro, 2012; Fleming and Sturdy, 2011; Watson, 2004; Janssens and Steyaert, 2009; Delbridge and Keenoy, 2010). Such perspectives reach into discussions of, for example, humanism, posthumanism, human capital, affective labour, and the sociology of work (see also Beverungen et al., 2013; Dowling et al., 2007; Figiel et al., 2014; Chertkovskaya et al., 2013; Murtola and Fleming, 2011).

In this way, the history of HRM has been characterized by disciplinary disputes, methodological disagreements and most of all ideological differences, which seem to uphold the boundaries between two separate conversations (e.g. Watson2007). This has led to one part of the literature operating on a practical/strategic, level and the other part of the literature engaged with ideology critique. The former is easily picked up by practitioners, resulting in its dominance in business schools and HRM teaching. The latter, meanwhile, is engaged in a critique that leaves little room for action and thus falls short of converting theoretical critique into practical implications. A way to bring the field further, we argue, is to develop a constructive and engaged critique of HRM – one that can both theorize the human in HRM and take practice into account – possibly as a form of critical performativity (Spicer et al., 2009).

The issue editors invite papers that strive to connect different theoretical and methodological resources to current HRM practices and research. Promoting pluralism, diversity and empirical sensitivity in critical engagements with HRM, not only new insights to the present theorizing of HRM are expected, but also papers that may suggest alternative practices, roles and identities to its various organizational actors (Hallet, 2010). At the core of HRM is the concept of ‘the human’ and how ‘the human’ can be used as a resource to gain for example political, economic or commercial gains. This special issue seeks to reflect upon how humans are seen as an organizational ‘resource’ in the first place and how various ways of ‘organizing the human’ influence the way HRM is theorized and practiced.

Deadline for submissions: 1.12.2015

Further information

Call for Proposals

Alternative Arbeits- und Organisationsformen

4. Workshop des Forums ‚Kritische Organisationsforschung‘
8./9.10.2015; TU Chemnitz

Der Schwerpunkt des Workshops liegt auf der Reflexion und Diskussion alternativer Arbeits- und Organisationsformen. Im Kontext der seit 2008 auftretenden multiplen Krisenereignisse erleben Diskussionen über sogenannte alternative Formen des Wirtschaftens einen (erneuten) Aufschwung. So werden etwa unter den Stichworten „solidarische Ökonomie“ (Voß 2010), „Gemeinwesensökonomie“ (Elsen 2007), „Economie Sociale“ (Jeantet 2010) oder unter Bezugnahme auf das Konzept der „Commons“ (Helfrich 2012) alternative Praktiken des Wirtschaftens und Organisierens thematisiert, welche im Selbstverständnis auf Partizipation, Selbstverwaltung und Solidarität ausgerichtet sind. In diesem Zusammenhang erfahren schließlich auch Kooperativen (Cheney et al. 2014; Paranque/Willmott 2014) und Genossenschaften neue Aufmerksamkeit (Allgeier 2011). Jenseits des wiedererwachten Interesses an emanzipatorisch-experimentellen Formen des Organisierens werden damit erstens auch Fragen nach den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer Demokratisierung der Wirtschaft (Demirovic 2007, Wächter 2010) sowie der Partizipation und Mitbestimmung in Organisationen berührt. Zweitens verschränkt sich die Reflexion alternativer Organisationsformen auch mit aktuellen wachstumskritischen Debatten (D’Alisa et al. 2014). Berührt und möglicherweise in Frage gestellt wird damit ein Hauptnarrativ der Managementforschung, welches sich beispielhaft im Vokabular des Wettbewerbs oder der Exzellenz findet.

Vor diesem Hintergrund sind die Ziele des diesjährigen Workshops:

1. eine Vermessung und Kartierung der Formen alternativen Organisierens und Arbeitens vorzunehmen;
2. über die emanzipatorischen Möglichkeiten als auch der (organisationalen und gesellschaftlichen) Grenzen von auf Solidarität, Selbstverwaltung und Gemein-wesensorientierung abzielenden Organisationsformen zu diskutieren;
3. Einblicke in lokale als auch darüber hinausreichende Praktiken, Diskurse und Narrative zu gewinnen, welche die spezifische Initiierung und Herstellung von ‚Alternativen‘ bedingen, diese begünstigen (etwa i.S. von ‚shelter organizations‘ – Doucouliagos 1990), scheitern lassen oder auch verhindern können.

Im Rahmen dieses Schwerpunkts sind sowohl konzeptionelle Beiträge als auch über theoretisch fundierte empirische Einreichungen, welche auf die Ziele Bezug nehmen oder auch weitere Themen für die Analyse alternativer Arbeits- und Organisationsformen adressieren, willkommen.

Einreichungsfrist (Abstracts): 30.6.2015 (verlängert)

Weitere Informationen