APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING

Dear all,

This is a final reminder about the CR3 conference. The deadline for  
abstracts (max. 1000 words) is on November 15. See more information  
below.

Best wishes

Martin Fougère
Hanken School of Economics

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CR3 Conference: The Power of Responsibility

April 8-9th, 2011, at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland

The CR3 conference is a cooperation between three business schools;  
Audencia Nantes School of Management (France), Hanken School of  
Economics in Helsinki (Finland) and ISAE/FGV in Curitiba (Brazil). The  
first CR3 conference will take place at Hanken School of Economics in  
Helsinki, Finland on April 8th and 9th, 2011. Its theme is 'the power  
of responsibility'. The deadline for abstract submissions is November  
15th 2010.

The Power of Responsibility

The concepts of Corporate Responsibility (CR) and Global  
Responsibility (GR) are reshaping the ways we think about business and  
society. From global governance initiatives such as the UN Global  
Compact to local efforts of greening offices, actions are taken in  
many areas to mobilize organizations and individuals through the  
notion of responsibility in order to work towards a more sustainable  
world. While much of the groundwork on popularizing CSR/CR/GR has been  
prescriptive - focused on 'selling' responsibility as a powerful
principle that should be adopted by all institutional actors and which  
should conduct the actions of managers and employees - there is little  
doubt that CR has become globally influential as a real world  
phenomenon. This suggests that the academic study of CR should now be  
ready for more descriptive accounts of both 1) powerful CR actions  
that have contributed to make a positive difference and 2) aspects of  
CR practice that are problematic, including in terms of power  
relations and power effects. For this conference, we thus encourage  
descriptive studies of both the positive and negative sides of power.

Taking an explicit power perspective on CR can lead our discussions in  
different
directions. A few examples follow, but this list is far from  
comprehensive. First, a power perspective may be used to study power  
relations within supply chains, for instance by showing how some  
powerful corporations have been successful in applying demanding codes  
of conduct in their entire supply chain, or by examining the potential  
detrimental effects of bargaining power imbalances between small  
suppliers and multinationals. Second, it could be thought of in terms  
of how stakeholder engagement may lead to an empowerment of  
traditionally marginalized groups, or how stakeholder co-optation may  
aim to neutralize progressive critique, or how stakeholder exclusion  
may render certain
groups powerless. Third, it may entail studying how the  
'responsibilization' of the different actors works as a global project  
of liberal governance, through a
'governmentality' lens: both the productive and problematic aspects of  
power could be discussed. Fourth, it may be expressed through a  
critique of CR discourse which tends to downplay power dimensions  
through its 'win-win' bias and its oxymoronic articulations: here too,  
it is important to make explicit 'the power of responsibility'.

We conceive of this conference as a meeting space where it is possible  
to exchange scholarly views from different geographical places,  
disciplinary locations, and ideological positions. We welcome  
normative, descriptive and critical contributions, both conceptual and  
empirical, specifically aimed at one of eight streams:

1. Articulating the political role of business through CR: Paradigm  
shift or business as usual?
2. Responsible Management Education: Beyond complacency and contestation
3. Business-NGO relations: Power, challenges and opportunities
4. CR and the Base of the Pyramid: Empowering the poor while  
exploiting new markets?
5. CR in the Supply Chain
6. Differences within and/or outside organisations: Diversity as  
Corporate Responsibility
7. Great expectations: Stakeholder Engagement for Global Responsibility
8. Social Responsibility Investors: How Do They Use Their Power? How  
Can Corporations Respond to SRI Power?

Confirmed keynote speaker

Prof. Guido Palazzo: "The multinational corporation as a political actor"

Guido Palazzo is Professor of Business Ethics at HEC, University of  
Lausanne and a visiting Fellow at the Universities of Oxford and  
Nottingham. He has two main research interests, a) globalization and  
corporate responsibility and b) ethical and unethical decision making  
in corporations. His work is published in the Academy of Management  
Review, the Journal of Management Studies, the Business Ethics  
Quarterly and the Journal of Business Ethics. He is associate editor  
of the Business Ethics Quarterly and the European Management Review.
In 2008 he won the Max-Weber Award for Business Ethics of the German  
Industry Association. Guido Palazzo works with numerous multinational  
corporations
and NGOs in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility.

The other plenary session will include a panel discussion on "Art and  
Corporate Responsibility".

A selection of the papers submitted to the conference will be  
published (after revisions) in the Electronic Journal of Business  
Ethics and Organization Studies (http://ejbo.jyu.fi/).

Important dates
- November 15, 2010: deadline for abstracts
- December 15, 2010: scientific committee decisions
- January 31, 2011: early-bird registration (120 euros for doctoral  
students, 200 for others)
- February 28, 2011: registration deadline (150 euros for doctoral  
students, 250 for others)

For more information please visit http://www.cr3.fi or write us at [log in to unmask]