Dear Faculty, Students and Friends,
On behalf of Professor Ed Freeman, the Institute for Business in Society, and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, we are pleased to invite applications for the 2026 Summer Seminar on Stakeholder Theory, which will be held from Sunday, July 26th-Wednesday, July 29th in Charlottesville, Virginia.
We encourage junior faculty at business schools and advanced PhD students from all business disciplines to apply.
The Summer Seminar is an opportunity to join a community of the best junior faculty and PhD students in the world in learning and sharing how to integrate the stakeholder perspective into their research. Through the Seminar's four days of structured dialogs, lectures by leading stakeholder experts, participant paper presentations, individual and team feedback sessions, and structured opportunities to collaborate on papers across disciplines, past seminars have served to create an active, interdisciplinary network of young scholars who's research leverages stakeholder theory.
We hope the activities of the Seminar fully integrate participants into that network of young scholars working in this field, and into the Darden scholarly community, and also give participants connections to leaders in stakeholder theoretical research.
Each successful applicant will bring to the seminar at least one (unpublished) paper-in-progress, wherein they have developed a stakeholder idea within the parameters of their discipline. They will also have the opportunity to develop at least one additional paper while at the Seminar in partnership with other attendees, with input and assistance from Darden faculty and other leaders in stakeholder theoretical approaches.
Travel expenses to and from Virginia are the responsibility of each attendee. We have scheduled the Seminar to coincide with the Academy of Management meetings, hopefully making the scheduling and cost of travel more bearable for international participants. Participation in the Summer Seminar including tuition, 4 nights' lodging, and most meals (breakfast, lunch, and some dinners) for participants only will be funded by the Institute for Business and Society.
To apply, please reply to Karen Musselman (MusselmanK@darden.virginia.edu) by 17 April 2026, attaching each of the following documents as a separate WORD document (total of 3):
1. A one-page Statement of Purpose, outlining your interest in stakeholder theory, past work or courses in the area, and how you believe additional training in stakeholder theory might impact your work.
2. A current CV.
3. A one-paragraph abstract of an unpublished paper that you are writing, or that you would like to write, that leverages some aspect of stakeholder theory. Past participants have shared abstracts from working papers, papers in very preliminary stages, unpublished work they are trying to polish and submit to a journal, or even simply a brief description of a set of research questions they aspire to pursue, and with which they feel the seminar will help them.
We encourage you to share this invitation with any junior faculty, PhD students, and research scholars whom you believe might have interest in applying for this fantastic, scholarship-funded opportunity. We are looking forward to seeing many of you Tampere this summer!
Warmly,
R. Edward Freeman Joey Burton
University Professor Executive Director
Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration Institute for Business in Society
Stephen E. Bachand University Professor of Business Admin BurtonJ@darden.virginia.edu
Business Administration Distinguished Chair
Senior Fellow, Olsson Center for Applied Ethics
Academic Director, Institute for Business in Society
FreemanE@darden.virginia.edu
