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Emmanuel Raufflet

HEC Montréal

Submission Deadline (conference): 31 March 2014 ( Postponed: April 15)

Submission Deadline (journal): 31 December 2014

Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increased exponentially over the last few

decades. Many articles and special issues have been published that define and document the

roles and responsibilities of business organizations in different contexts (see, for example,

Fleming et al., 2013; Jack et al., 2012; Scherer et al., 2009). A large proportion of the research on

CSR has addressed organizational dimensions such as motivation, internal processes,

implementation challenges, and strategic aspects that focus on the integration of ethics and

strategy (Behnam and Rasche, 2009; Singer, 2010) or the business case for responsibility (Porter

and Kramer, 2006; Brammer and Millington, 2008; Caroll and Shabana, 2010; Schreck, 2011).

In this expanding body of CSR literature, insufficient attention has been paid to the role that

ideologies play in the way corporate actors understand, design, and conduct business, and

therefore indirectly define CSR. The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated the impact of ideologies

on markets, organizations, and society. What appears prima facie as only a lack of governance,

bankers' greed and malfeasance, or the irrationality of the financial markets cannot be

understood without reference to ideologies, and the values or worldviews related to them

(Padelford and White, 2009; Lusch and Webster, 2011; Davies and McGoey, 2012).

The relevance of ideology in the study of culture and institutions has been highlighted by

scholars from different disciplines (Alverson, 1986; Denzau and North, 1994; Van Dijk, 1998).

Based on the works of Cheal (1979), Schmid (1981), and Van Dijk (1998), we broadly understand

ideologies as patterns or frameworks of ideas. Moreover, ideologies have far‐reaching impacts

on societies and societal institutions on the different inter‐related levels of analysis. Ghoshal

(2005) has pointed to the relevance of ideology to theory (e. g., in the form of ideas and values

that play a part in management or marketing philosophies) (Nowotny, 1964; Brown, 1999) and

everyday theory (e. g., in the form of ideas and values that play a part in business philosophies;

see Jones, 1960). Ideologies also influence and shape business education (Ghoshal, 2005).

As part of the overarching structure of belief systems in a society, ideologies are social

phenomena that constitute or inform the mental models of individuals. The effects of ideologies

may unfold in an eclipsed or indirect manner; however, individuals can also play an active part in

the way they consciously and unconsciously refer to ideologies or allow ideologies to shape their

personal belief systems (DiMaggio, 2002; for an example, see Becker, 2011). Both the personal

experiences of individuals and their social intercourse (i.e., the communications between

individuals) play a part in this process (Bacon, 1902). Durkheim believed that "our basic mental

architecture, those 'categories of the understanding' [...] were socially acquired" (Bergesen,

2004, p. 397; Durkheim 1912).

The effects of ideologies unfold on different levels of analysis:

On a macro‐level, ideology has informed understandings of the different forms of capitalism

(Hall and Soskice, 2001; Matten and Moon, 2008), which are used in turn to build or guide

institutions. These institutions shape the context in which companies operate and expectations

between business and society are formed, including interpretations of CSR. On a meso‐level,

ideologies influence the formal and informal structures of businesses and other kinds of

organizations (Thérien, 2012), their institutional logic (Thornton et al., 2012), industrial and

professional associations, cooperation and coordination schemes, as well as participation and

decision‐making rules (Chelli and Gendron, 2013). At an organizational level, ideologies are

mobilized to shape ethics and justify internal policies and interactions within organizations. On a

more micro‐level, they are part of the belief systems of individuals and exert partly conscious,

partly unconscious influence on their decision‐making processes. This influence has been

discussed in, for example, gender and family studies (for example, Kroska 2002), and has also

found expression in business ethics (Forsyth, 1980; Barnett et al., 1994; Davis et al., 2001).

Furthermore, ideology is used by agents and managers as a strategy to legitimize specific

corporate stances and behaviors (Jackall, 2010).

Business ethics and CSR are academic fields of study that generate knowledge on the basis of

ideas about the relationship between business and society, and the roles self‐interested and/or

ethically motivated behaviors play (and should play) in this regard (Barnett et al., 1994). The

age‐old debate regarding the contested notion of CSR, which devotes business to society, as

promoted by Bowen (1953), and the neoclassical economic view of CSR, as advocated by

Friedman (1962, 1970) (Husted and Salazar, 2006) has been a central feature in the construction

of CSR as a field of study (Acquier et al., 2011).

This Special Issue of the Journal of Business Ethics provides an opportunity to challenge the

assumptions around CSR, the functioning of business organizations, and the role of business

organizations in society.

This Special Issue

This Special Issue will investigate the links and relationships between the business organization–

society nexus and ideology. We welcome theoretical and empirical papers from various

disciplines on diverse levels and foci. The questions below are indicative of the scope of the

Special Issue:

Society and history:

• What is the role of ideology in the creation of public policies that affect businesses?

• How do business representatives or associations explicitly or implicitly mobilize

ideologies to enhance their interests and shape public policies in the context in which

they operate?

• Long‐term changes: How have ideologies regarding the roles and responsibilities of

corporations in society evolved over a long period of time (the last 50 or 100 years)?

How have these changes been brought about? What are the processes that have

contributed to bringing about these changes?

CSR:

• Is CSR ideologically neutral or is it of "tainted origin"? To what extent does it contribute

to the promotion of specific ideologies? What are the ideological underpinnings behind

the different definitions of CSR?

• Professions and norms: To what extent are CSR norms and practices ideologically

loaded/tainted?

Organizational:

• How do ideologies translate into organizational strategies and practices in functional

areas, such as human resources management, finance, or marketing?

Business education and professions:

• To what extent do business education programs make ideological underpinnings

explicit? What are the interactions between the ideologies underlying different

academic disciplines? To what extent-and how-are these ideologies integrated

between different disciplines or around the study of empirical issues?

Individuals:

• How do individuals decide what to believe in when facing ideologies that pull in

different, and often contradictory, directions?

• How do individuals make sense of conflicting ideas and values?

We welcome submissions from various disciplines, including empirical and theoretical

contributions related to this topic.

Calendar:

1. 2016 Publication of the Special Issue

The deadline for the submission of papers for the Special Issue is December 31, 2014.

2. Workshop

A workshop dedicated to the topic of the Special Issue will be held at Freie Universität Berlin

(June 26.‐28., 2014). Participation in this workshop is not obligatory for a paper submission to

the Special Issue.

Submission of papers for the workshop: until March 31, 2014

Decisions: until April 30, 2014

Please forward your papers to the three editors:

Michaela.Haase@fu‐berlin.de

Emmanuel.Raufflet@hec.ca

JReichel@uni.lodz.pl

Submission to the special issue – deadline December 31, 2014 – is required through

Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/busi/

Please follow JBE guideline:

http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/applied+ethics/journal/10551

for manuscript presentation

In their papers, all authors should express concern for the topic related to the Journal of

Business Ethics.

This call for papers is supported by the International Working Group on Business Ethics

Education (IWBEE), Freie Universität Berlin. The IWBEE is an international and interdisciplinary

association of scholars, students, practitioners, and others interested in business and society,

business and economic ethics, sustainability, or CSR. On the basis of its interdisciplinary and

international composition, the group has a particular interest in the study of the cultural aspects

of the relationship between business ethics and society on the one hand and business ethics

education on the other.

http://www.wiwiss.fuberlin.

de/institute/marketing/International_Working_Group_on_Business_Ethics_Education__I

WBEE_/index.html

Michaela Haase (Freie Universität Berlin), Emmanuel Raufflet (HEC Montréal), Janusz Reichel

(University of Lodz)

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