Sub-theme 19:

Climate Change: Challenging Business, Transforming Politics

Convenors:

Call for papers

Global climate change has become a vital issue for industry, policy and civil society in the 21st century. Increasing awareness of the role of business in global greenhouse gas emissions as well as the impact of climate change on the economy has led to growing contention that business has both moral and commercial obligations to take the lead in the effort to combat climate change.

Elsewhere, there are claims that governments must do more to regulate corporations in a bid to avert the dangers posed by climate change. However, amidst this growing call for a change in philosophy, business is being looked upon to finance economic growth and meet the growing demand of consumer goods and services worldwide. At the same time, the last two decades have witnessed profound transformations in the political economy landscape characterised by deep interconnections between the political and the economic domains as well as a blurring of the traditional divide between the private and the public. As a result, it is difficult to determine how much can be demanded from business actors, who would be best placed to demand such changes given the blurred lines between public and private domains as well as whether business is actually capable of responding to such demands.

Furthermore, whilst in practice there are immense variations in the responsibilities, orientations and abilities of corporate actors to operate within the context of global climate governance, most literatures continue to treat business as a single homogenous entity. This conflation, to a large extent, leads to poor understandings of the roles of individual corporate leaders, organisational culture, alternate organisational forms and socio-political contexts in shaping corporate strategies to address climate change. This subtheme hopes to bring diverse scholarship from international relations, political economy, management studies and organisation theory to consider the pertinent questions relating to the international political economy and business of climate change.

Papers that address one or a combination of the following issues are particularly welcome:

• In-depth accounts of the role of individual or groups of organisations in causing climate change.
• Institutional contexts and organisational strategies that can address climate change. What can we expect from organisations in terms of climate change mitigation action taking into account an assessment of the required institutional context to meet such expectations?
• Assessment of the precise roles of corporations in propelling structural change, global values and approaches to climate change policies as well as related motivations and institutional barriers.
• The relationship between the political and the economic and how this either facilitates or hinders corporate actions on climate change.
• Global governance issues relating to climate change.
• Assessment of the long-term challenges of global warming to corporations and how we may expect this to affect corporate action/power and strategies in the long run. What are the potentials for fundamental structural change, what factors will trigger this and in what directions are such changes most likely to occur?
• Driving forces of increased corporate involvement in climate change governance. What factors and dynamics account for the increasing rise of corporate actors in climate change governance?
• Comparative studies of corporations highlighting the role of organisational culture, individual leadership, socio-cultural and political contexts in shaping corporate strategies and responses to climate change.
• Empirical accounts of initiatives that are neither corporate nor state induced.
• Role of the media in reporting, assessing and promoting climate change mitigation.
• The dynamics of power between different stakeholders in climate change negotiations.

About the convenors

Bettina B.F. Wittneben received an MBA (International Business) from the University of Alberta, Canada and the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Grenoble, France. Her PhD studies were conducted both at McGill University, Canada and the University of Cambridge, UK. During this time, she also worked for the UN climate secretariat. After the completion of her doctoral studies, she was Research Fellow at the Wuppertal Institute of Climate, Environment and Energy in Germany. She is now Assistant Professor for Business-Society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands. Her research interests include institutional change, new ways of organizing and decision-making processes.

Chukwumerije Okereke has gained profound knowledge in the workings of international institutions through his works on ethics and justice in multilateral environmental agreements. His research interest is in the area of global governance structures in relation to sustainable development. At the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, Chuks is currently conducting an analysis of corporate strategies for global climate governance within the context of the international Climate Change regime using theoretical insights from the fields of political science, international relations, and global political economy. He completed his PhD at the School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy of Keele University, UK.

Bobby Banerjee is Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Research at the College of Business, University of Western Sydney, Australia. He received his PhD from the University of Massachusetts and has taught there as well as at the University of Wollongong, RMIT University and the University of South Australia. His research interests include sustainability, corporate social responsibility, postcolonialism and socio-cultural aspects of globalization. He is widely published in the field of sustainable development, corporate environmentalism and globalization and his work has appeared in leading international journals including Human Relations, Organization Studies, Journal of Marketing, Organization and Journal of Management Studies.