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Colleagues:

Please see the call for submission below. Part I is open to all.  At Part II, you will receive feedback from a leading behavioral ethics scholar should you decide to submit an abstract. See below for details.

Bringing Organizational Context Back into Behavioral Ethics

PDW at Academy of Management Annual Conference in Boston
Friday, August 3rd, 9:00-1:00
Marriott Boston Copley Place in Tremont
Sponsors: SIM and OB

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Organizers: Scott Sonenshein and Linda Treviño

Research in behavioral ethics has proliferated over the past decade but much recent research has emphasized moral psychology that has not accounted for organizational context. We seek to use this PDW to reignite research that is distinctly organizational-organizing processes, multi-level theories, and contextualized behaviors relevant for business ethics. This PDW serves to not only reinvigorate the role of context in behavioral ethics research but also to stimulate the development of high quality research in business ethics that accounts for context suitable for a special issue the organizers plan to develop.

To meet these aims, the PDW has two parts.
1) 9:00-11:00 (Open to everyone; registration not required) Four behavioral ethics luminaries (Joshua Margolis, Sim Sitkin, Ann Tenbrunsel, and Gary Weaver) will discuss how they think organizational context can contribute to behavioral ethics research. Afterwards, we invite three scholars well-versed in a particular methodology (experiments [Karl Aquino], surveys [Dave Mayer] and qualitative methods [Niki den Nieuwenboer] to share insights into how each method can be used to account for organizational context. Each methods expert will also provide an example from his or her research to illustrate the use of the method to account for organizational context and take questions from participants.

2) 11:00-1:00 (You must submit the required information outlined below). We will pair submissions with a facilitator (Niki den Nieuwenboer, Joshua Margolis, Dave Mayer, Sim Sitkin, Ann Tenbrunsel, Linda Treviño, Scott Sonenshein and Gary Weaver). The facilitator will discuss and help develop your research. There are two tracks you can apply to:

a) Early Stage Roundtables: These roundtables are meant to help develop nascent work. Participants will be asked to submit an abstract of a maximum of two pages that summarizes an idea, question or puzzle about behavioral ethics that accounts for organizational context. They will be paired with a scholar who has a similar theoretical and/or methodological orientation. Participants will be required to also include three concrete questions they would like help on, including about theory development, research design, or methodological choices. Participants applying for this track will likely have formulated a research question and some preliminary aspects of a theory, but have most likely not yet collected data or developed large portions of their design. Selection criteria for this track will be based on the potential impact of the research question and the potential for our roundtable facilitators to help develop the participant's ideas.

b) Middle Stage Roundtables: These roundtables are meant to move middle stage research towards a finished research paper suitable for submission to a top management journal. Participants will be asked to submit an abstract of five pages that summarizes the research, including its theoretical framework (which should be predominately finished in draft form) and preliminary data (if collected). In the case of a theory paper, we expect more than general ideas and some specific propositions or core theoretical claims the participant is interested in developing. Participants will be asked to submit three concrete questions to help advance their research project, such as how to empirically examine their ideas, how to refine their theory, and ways to motivate their paper. Selection criteria for this track will be based on the quality of the research conducted so far (as indicated by the initial framework) and the potential for the facilitator to take what has been done to date and provide meaningful suggestions to help develop it into a submission for a top-tier management journal.

We seek to maintain a low participant-facilitator ratio to provide helpful guidance to develop work suitable for top management journals. As a result, we cannot ensure that we have space for all submissions but our hope is to accommodate everyone who applies by the deadline. You will be notified in advance whether we can accommodate your work. Please send your materials to Scotts@rice.edu<http://us.mc834.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Scotts@rice.edu> with the subject line "Behavioral Ethics PDW" by June 15th. We will notify you by July 1st if we can accommodate you in Part II.

Thanks in advance for your submission. Feel free to send questions to either Scott Sonenshein at Scotts@rice.edu<http://us.mc834.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Scotts@rice.edu> or to Linda Treviño at ltrevino@psu.edu<http://us.mc834.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ltrevino@psu.edu>.

We look forward to your submissions and participation!

Linda K. Treviño

Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior and Ethics

Smeal College of Business

402 Business Building

Smeal College of Business

The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA  16802

Phone: 814-865-2194  Fax: 814-863-7261

Email: ltrevino@psu.edu