15th Philosophy of Management annual conference

Friday 2nd to monday 5th june 2023
EM Normandie Oxford campus

International conference

Conference programme

Keynote speakers

Andreas Georg Scherer is a Professor of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). His research focuses on Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Political Role of the Business Firm in a Globalized World. His research is based on critical theory (Habermas), discourse ethics and deliberative theory, constructivism, political economy, and institutional theory. In his most recent empirical projects, he addresses phenomena and topics such as big data and digitalization, media legitimacy, corporate tax avoidance, fighting corruption, and social innovation. He has published nine books and several papers in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Business Ethics Quarterly, Business & Society, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management Studies, Organization, and Organization Studies. He serves as an associate editor of Business Ethics Quarterly and sits on the editorial board of several journals. Currently he co-edits a special issue for Business Ethics Quarterly “Socio-technical conditions of organized immaturity in the 21st century.

Chris Cowton is Emeritus Professor at Huddersfield Business School after having served the University as Dean of the Business School (2008-2016) and Professor of Financial Ethics (2016-2019); he also previously lectured at the University of Oxford (1986-1996). Professor Cowton has a part-time role as Associate Director (Research) at the Institute of Business Ethics and is currently also a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds' Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied (IDEA) Centre and the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain). 

Prof. Cowton has published extensively and is frequently invited to speak to academic and practitioner communities on business ethics, governance and research methods. His scholarly output includes conceptual argumentation, quantitative and qualitative empirical research, mathematical analysis, historical work - and even the poetic. He is internationally recognised for his contributions to business ethics, especially his pioneering work on financial ethics.  In 2013 he was awarded the University of Huddersfield’s first DLitt (Doctor of Letters, a higher doctorate) in recognition of his original and significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in business and financial ethics.

Call for submissions

The 15^th edition of the Philosophy of Management Annual Conference will be held in Oxford, UK at the EM Normandie Oxford Campus, on 2-5 June 2023. As usual, it guarantees a 45-minute slot for each paper, for an unhurried presentation and in-depth discussion. We welcome submissions that explore all angles of management in private or public organizations through a philosophical lens: applied ethics; social, moral and political philosophy, ontology, epistemology, axiology, and aesthetics. In any of these areas, we encourage scholars to propose novel, critical, timely and/or controversial arguments. Submissions can also adopt a 'meta-' standpoint for raising and answering questions such as "What is philosophy of management?" "Is philosophy useful for managers?" "Is management a science or an art?" "Can management be part of the humanities and, if not, what is it?" We are looking forward to receiving your submissions by 21 February 2023.

Special Issue Track Call: "Managing Speech Rights"

The Conference is associated with the journal Philosophy of Management and, in addition to tracks open to all topics above, will host a track for papers aiming to be submitted after the conference to a special issue of this journal, on the theme "Managing Speech Rights". In an era of enhanced public and private surveillance and censorship, debates over secrecy, and truth manipulation, it is timely to approach philosophically our individual and collective speech rights and the role that private firms and governments can and should play in respecting and protecting these rights. In addition to pertinent ethical, political, and social issues at stake, our special track invites papers to address this topic also from non-normative perspectives: epistemology, ontology, esthetics, etc. Speech rights can be studied at an individual, collective or organizational level, and from the point of view of managers and entrepreneurs, employees, consumers, and other stakeholders Submitted papers may also inquire into the conditions of possibility, limitations, harmful effects and contemporary tendencies of speech rights, or they may strive to build meaningful taxonomies, or attempt to redefine and reinterpret the terms through the lens of particular philosophical theories; concrete private and public policies influencing speech rights can be discussed as well. The topic can be studied from a private and public governance perspective, inquiring into private and public surveillance and censorship policies and the related technological capabilities and advances. This should lead scholars to engage with contemporary debates that shape managerial decisions: radical transparency, secrecy, whistleblowing, fake news, employee boycott or disobedience. The adoption of a broad philosophical standpoint for the study of speech rights will also help to build new connections between theories and concepts that are currently developed in parallel literature streams in management, political science, economics, sociology, law, and history.