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[ecrea] Call for Papers: Special Issue of Business & Society

Thu Nov 24 17:30:22 GMT 2016




REMINDER: Call for Papers: Special Issue of Business & Society – DEADLINE: DECEMBER 12 2016

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Business & Society

CSR and Communication: Examining how CSR Shapes, and is Shaped by, Talk and Text

Guest editors: Andrew Crane, Schulich School of Business, Mette Morsing, Copenhagen Business School, Dennis Schoeneborn, Copenhagen Business School

This Special Issue of Business & Society seeks to expand and enrich the body of research on CSR and communication. Specifically, it aims to examine the role of talk and text (including verbal, visual and written communication) in shaping the nature and meaning of CSR – and how CSR meanings in turn shape such communication. This may include scholarly contributions that will extend our understanding of how rhetoric, narrative, discourse, sensemaking, and other frameworks of meaning are involved in CSR communication.

The existing literature on CSR tends to be – at least implicitly – permeated with a normative or prescriptive stance on CSR communication: either as optimism about how communication of CSR can be used by corporations to foster their reputation and legitimacy (e.g., Sen, Bhattacharaya & Korschun, 2006; Ferrell, Gonzalez-¬‐Padron, Hult & Maignan, 2010) – or with a rather skeptical stance. These latter works suspect that communication tends to be used by corporations as a powerful means to ward off criticism and give false impressions of ‘green-¬‐washing’ or ‘window-¬‐dressing’ (e.g., Roberts, 2003; Banerjee, 2008). Across these perspectives, communication tends to be primarily seen as an instrument that is employed by corporations to disseminate information about CSR practices (that have already been implemented to a greater or lesser degree).

However, the prospective, anticipatory, and formative role of communication for CSR has, thus far, tended to remain implicit or under-¬‐theorized. More specifically, communicative practices can play an important and formative role, for instance, in constituting networked relationships between business firms and larger society (Castello, Morsing & Schultz, 2013; Schoeneborn & Trittin, 2013), in driving organizational and social change (Christensen, Morsing & Thyssen, 2013; Haack, Schoeneborn & Wickert, 2012), in constituting new subject relations in the field of CSR (Caruana & Crane, 2008), and enabling sensemaking about what CSR can and cannot be (Basu & Palazzo, 2008). In other words, there is a need to understand better what communication does to CSR and what CSR does to communication.

If CSR is a “moving target” (Christensen et al., 2013; Haack & Schoeneborn, 2015), “in constant flux” (Carroll, 1979) and “in a continuing state of emergence” (Lockett, Moon & Visser, 2006) as scholars and practitioners tend to agree, then a static and tool-¬‐like understanding of CSR communication seems to be insufficient. New information and communication technologies (e.g., social media) appear to further push and transform the communicative dynamics within and between organizations and their environment (Castello et al., 2013; Whelan, Moon & Grant, 2013). These new challenges suggest the need for communication-¬‐centered works that can help understand how CSR is a continuous activity through which individuals and organizations “explore, construct, negotiate and modify what it means to be a socially responsible organization” (Christensen & Cheney, 2011, p. 491).

We therefore suggest bringing a formative view of communication to the forefront of CSR research in this Business & Society special issue. We invite contributions that take stock of our existing knowledge and advance CSR communication theory through new conceptual considerations, empirical insights, and critical reflections. We particularly encourage papers that approach CSR communication through talk and text by drawing on concepts like rhetoric, narratives, discourse, sensemaking, as well as other frameworks that help inform the formative role of communication in CSR. This also may involve papers grounded in more general constructionist perspectives, including works that follow emergent ideas of “communicative institutionalism” (Cornelissen, Durand, Fiss, Lammers & Vaara, 2015) or the “communicative constitution of organizations” (CCO) perspective (Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen & Clarke, 2011). In this way, we hope to be able to compile a rich set of articles that help enhance our understanding of what communication does to CSR and what CSR does to communication.

We welcome a broad range of questions and topic areas within the broad theme – some indicative questions include:

How do different forms of communication shape stakeholder interpretations of the meaning and scope of CSR? In what ways is CSR communication performative with material impacts (see also the idea of “aspirational talk” by Christensen et al., 2013)?

How do different actors respond to, resist, and engage with specific rhetorical strategies and figures (e.g., allusion, analogy, hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, or humor), employed by corporations in their CSR communication?

What narrative structures and components are used to give meaning to the process of CSR design and implementation?

How do actors in organizational settings differ in their sensemaking of CSR, including productive forms of misunderstanding?

In what ways does intensified “CSR talk” influence the formation and change of individual, professional and organizational identities in the workplace (e.g., in terms of improved self-¬‐enhancement and identification as well as cynicism and “CSR fatigue”)?

How is CSR knowledge embedded in micro and macro discourses of organization and what role do governmentality and responsibilization play in discursive formations of CSR?

By whom, and for what purpose is the meaning of CSR (as an “empty signifier”) constituted through signs and symbols? What new semiotic language does CSR bring into economic life?

To what extent does the formative role of communication for CSR become intensified by new information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as social media? For example, in what ways does it influence and change image-¬‐identity relations for individuals and organizations?

To what extent do new ICTs enable the creation of new, fluid, and networked forms of communication structures that, in turn, create new issues of corporate social responsibility (e.g., transparency, privacy, and surveillance) and different forms of accountability and disclosure?

SUBMISSION PROCESS AND DEADLINES

The deadline for submission of full papers is December 12, 2016. Authors should submit their manuscripts through ScholarOne Manuscripts at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bas.

Authors should be sure to specify in the submission system that the manuscript is for the special issue on “CSR and Communication”. Manuscripts should be prepared following the Business & Society author guidelines: http://www.sagepub.com/journals/Journal200878/manuscriptSubmission.

All articles will be subjected to double-¬‐blind peer review and editorial process in accordance with the policies of Business & Society.

Special Issue Workshop

To help authors prepare their manuscripts for submission, a Special Issue Workshop will be held on July 6, 2016, prior to the European Group of Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium 2016 in Naples, Italy. The workshop will be facilitated by the Special Issue editors.

Authors are invited to present and discuss their papers during the workshop and to receive feedback for further improvement of their manuscripts. Acceptance for presentation at the workshop does not guarantee acceptance of the paper for publication in Business & Society.

To be considered for the workshop, authors will need to submit a short paper (max. 10 double-¬‐spaced pages, incl. references and exhibits) via the EGOS website by March 31, 2016. More information about the submission procedure will be made available in January, 2016 on the Business & Society website (http://bas.sagepub.com – see updated call in the “Call for Papers” section). Note that submission of a short paper to the workshop is not a precondition for submission of a full paper to the Special Issue.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Business & Society is one of the leading journals at the intersection of business and society, covering issues of social responsibility, ethics and governance. It is the official journal of the International Association of Business and Society and is published by Sage. Its current two-¬‐ year Citation Impact Factor is 1.468 (2014) and its five-¬‐year Citation Impact Factor is 2.103. It is a 3-¬‐rated journal in the 2015 UK Association of Business Schools Journal Ranking Guide, a B-¬‐journal in the German Academic Association for Business Research, and an A-¬‐journal in the Australian Business School Dean’s list. For further details see http://bas.sagepub.com.

ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS

Andrew Crane is a Co-¬‐editor of Business & Society, and the George R. Gardiner Professor of Business Ethics and Director of the Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business at the Schulich School of Business, York University. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including an award-¬‐winning textbook on Business Ethics and the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility. His latest book is Social Partnerships and Responsible Business: A Research Handbook. He has published in a range of top tier journals including Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, California Management Review, Annals of Tourism Research, Business & Society, Journal of Business Ethics, European Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Theory. He serves on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review and the Journal of Management Studies.

Mette Morsing is Professor of Communication and CSR at the Centre of Corporate Social Responsibility (cbsCSR), Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and the Co-¬‐Director of CBS Sustainability Platform (2011-¬‐2016). Her research focuses on organizational communication, identity-¬‐image theory and media studies in the context of CSR. She is particularly interested in studying the role of

communication for governance of business-¬‐society relations. Her research has been published in Journal of Management Studies, Organization, Human Relations, Harvard-¬‐Deusto Business Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Management Communication Quarterly and Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society among others, and at publishers such as Sage, Routledge, Palgrave MacMillan and Oxford University Press. She is an Associate Editor of Scandinavian Journal of Management (since 2015), serves as Editorial Board Member of Business & Society (since 2015), Business Ethics – A European Review (since 2010), Corporate Communication: an International Journal (since 2009), Corporate Governance: an International Journal of Business in Society, (since 2004) and is a Series Editor of the Cambridge University Press series on "Business, Value Creation and Society" with Edward Freeman and Jeremy Moon. She has edited eight books and two journal special issues

Dennis Schoeneborn is Professor (MSO) of Communication, Organization, and CSR at the Centre of Corporate Social Responsibility (cbsCSR), Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. His research interests include organization theory, organizational communication, CSR communication, and computer-¬‐mediated communication. His current research places a particular emphasis on studying the constitutive and formative role of communication for organizations as responsible social actors. From 2015-¬‐2018, he serves as the head coordinator of the Standing Working Group “Organization as Communication” at the European Group of Organizational Studies (EGOS). His research has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Studies, Management Communication Quarterly, and Organization Studies, among others. He serves on the editorial board member of Management Communication Quarterly (since 2013), Organization Studies (since 2014), and Business & Society (from 2016). He is also co-¬‐editor of the volume “Organization as Communication: Perspectives in Dialogue” (with Steffen Blaschke) that is forthcoming at Taylor & Francis.

REFERENCES

Banerjee S.B. (2008) Corporate social responsibility: The good, the bad and the ugly. Critical Sociology, 34(1), 51-¬‐79.

Basu, K., & Palazzo, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: a process model of sensemaking. Academy of Management Review, 33(1): 122-¬‐136.

Carroll, A.B. (1979). A three-¬‐dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497-¬‐505.

Caruana, R., & Crane, A. (2008). Constructing consumer responsibility: exploring the role of corporate communications. Organization Studies, 29: 1495-¬‐1519.

Castelló, I., Morsing, M., & Schultz, F. (2013). Communicative dynamics and the polyphony of corporate social responsibility in the network society. Journal of Business Ethics, 118(4), 683-¬‐694.

Christensen, L. T. & Cheney, G. (2011). Interrogating the communicative dimensions of corporate social responsibility. In Ø., Ihlen, J. L. Bartlett & S. May (Eds.), The Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 491-¬‐504). Oxford, UK: Wiley ¬‐Blackwell.

Christensen, L.T., Morsing M., & Thyssen, O. (2013). CSR as aspirational talk. Organization 20(3), 372–393.

Cooren, F., Kuhn. T., Cornelissen, J.P. & Clarke, T. (2011). Communication, organizing and organization: An overview and introduction to the special issue. Organization Studies, 32(9), 1149-¬‐1170.

Cornelissen, J. P., Durand, R., Fiss, P. C., Lammers, J. C., & Vaara, E. (2015). Putting Communication Front and Center in Institutional Theory and Analysis. Academy of Management Review, 40(1), 10-¬‐27.

Ferrell, O.C., Gonzalez-¬‐Padron, T. L., Hult, T. M., Maignan, I. (2010). From Market Orientation to Stakeholder Orientation. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 29(1), 93-¬‐96.

Golob, U., Podnar, K., Elving, W. J., Ellerup Nielsen, A., Thomsen, C., & Schultz, F. (2013). CSR communication: quo vadis? Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 18(2), 176-¬‐192.

Haack, P. & Schoeneborn, D. (2015). Is decoupling becoming decoupled from institutional theory? A commentary on Wijen. Academy of Management Review, 40(2), 307-¬‐310.

Haack, P., Schoeneborn, D., & Wickert, C. (2012). Talking the talk, moral entrapment, creeping commitment? Exploring narrative dynamics in corporate responsibility standardization. Organization Studies, 33(5-¬‐6), 815-¬‐845.

Lockett, A., Moon, J., & Visser, W. (2006). Corporate social responsibility in management research: Focus, nature, salience and sources of influence. Journal of Management Studies, 43(1), 115–136.

Roberts J. (2003). The manufacture of corporate social responsibility: Constructing corporate sensibility. Organization 10(2), 249-¬‐265.

Schoeneborn, D., & Trittin, H. (2013). Transcending transmission: Towards a constitutive perspective on CSR communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 18(2), 193-¬‐211.

Sen, S., Bhattacharaya, C. B. & Korschun, D. (2006). The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: A field experiment. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34(2), 158-¬‐166

Whelan, G., Moon, J. & Grant, B. (2013). Corporations and citizenship arenas in the age of social media. Journal of Business Ethics, 118, 777-¬‐790.

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