First CR3 Conference
April 8-9, 2011, at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
The CR3 conference results from cooperation between three business schools who have been among the first to adopt the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (UNPRME): Audencia Nantes School of Management (France), Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki (Finland) and ISAE/FGV in Curitiba (Brazil). The three schools have been working together on issues related to Corporate Responsibility / Global Responsibility (notably through joint participation in conferences, organization of joint seminars, and teacher exchange) since 2008. The first CR3 conference will take place at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, on April 8 and 9, 2011. Its theme is ‘the power of responsibility’.
CR3+ Conference 2012
The CR3+ Conference will this year be arranged in conjunction with the 7th RIODD Conference, 22-23 May 2012 at Audencia Nantes.
For more information see http://www.riodd2012.com/
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 should lead the actions of managers and employees, there is no doubt that CR has also 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, such 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 big companies. 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: again, 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:
- Articulating the political role of business through CR: Paradigm shift or business as usual? [pdf] 281k (convenors: Martin Fougčre and Jukka Mäkinen)
- Responsible Management Education: Beyond complacency and contestation [pdf] 257k (convenors: Nikodemus Solitander and Ligia Coelho Martins)
- Business-NGO relations: Power, challenges and opportunities [pdf] 140k (convenors: Heidi Herlin and Arno Kourula)
- CR and the Base of the Pyramid: Empowering the poor while exploiting new markets? [pdf] 225k (convenors: Pia Polsa, Minna Halme and Sara Lindeman)
- CSR in the Supply Chain [pdf] 181k (convenors: Gyöngyi Kovács and Joe Miemczyk)
- Differences within and/or outside organisations: Diversity as Corporate Social Responsibility [pdf] 201k (convenors: Jonna Louvrier and Christine Naschberger)
- Great expectations: Stakeholder Engagement for Global Responsibility [pdf] 211k (convenors: André Sobczak and Ariane Berthoin-Antal)
- Social Responsibility Investors: How Do They Use Their Power? How Can Corporations Respond to SRI Power? [pdf] 248k (convenors: Stephen Gates and Suzanne Young)
Additional information on registration and accomodation, submissions and calendar, plenary sessions, the conference program, the streams, the abstracts, the papers, a special issue related to the conference, and the conference organizers.