SPECIAL COLLECTION: Call for Papers

Theme: Uncomfortable issues in management and business ethics: ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’

We call on authors to participate in the 2nd Biennial Critical Management Studies Colloquium by submitting your research manuscripts towards this special collection to be published in Acta Commercii.

About the colloquium theme:

• The colloquium theme is: Uncomfortable issues in management and business ethics: ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’, containing the unmistakable reference to Sergio Leone’s ‘Spaghetti Western’ of the same title. However, in this film, there is no ‘good’ character. Even though Blondie (Clint Eastwood) is seen as ‘the good’, he is essentially a ‘con-man’. In a sense all three the characters leave one feeling uncomfortable… The parallels to management and ethics in the workplace are striking, as the ‘good’, the ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’ are encountered in every organisational setting, and each has its own ethical repercussions. Oftentimes, the actions and behaviours associated with these character types is condoned as ‘that’s the way business works’, ‘organisations functions differently’, or ‘that is what is needed to get the job done’, with very little tolerance of overt criticism thereof.
• What we would therefore like to see with this colloquium is work that deals with topics that are definitely not ‘run-of-the mill’. We want to encourage work that challenges convention, goes against the grain, asks uncomfortable (but necessary) questions, and deals with topics that the mainstream tries to stay clear of (but should actually take heed of). These could include the coercive dominance of capitalism, struggles of voice equity in the workplace, uneven power relations and exploitation in the workplace, the false hope prophecy of entrepreneurship, and the managerialist coercion of professional vocations, to name but a few… Many scholars have that manuscript that has been prepared, but the author is hesitant to submit it anywhere, as he or she knows it will be rejected outright, as the topic is too controversial. These are the papers we are interested in.
• We, therefore, invite submissions of high academic quality on management issues and aspects of business ethics that are deemed to be controversial by nature to this colloquium. Preference will given to conceptual work that provides a dialectic, reasoned argument, as we would like to encourage true dialectical engagement.

Background to the colloquium:

• The initial Critical Management Studies (CMS) colloquium was held in November 2020. This event allowed CMS scholars and interested parties to engage in critical scholarship in management, specifically in the South African context. Following the success of the initial colloquium, the Department of Business Management at the University of Johannesburg announced the 2nd CMS colloquium, themed “Uncomfortable issues in management and business ethics: ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’”, held on 25 and 26 May 2022. Apart from being a platform for CMS scholars to present their work, the colloquium served to introduce CMS to the broader South African scholarly community in the field of management, and to create an awareness for the potential of CMS as a scholarly tradition.

We invite authors to submit manuscripts of no more than 8 000 words,  by 30 June 2022.

Submissions must be done online at actacommercii.co.za. For submission procedure, please visit https://bitly.is/3Gosugx