16th Corporate Responsibility Research Conference (CRRC)
Theme: Corporate Social Responsibility in Times of Global Crisis
Hosted by the Open University of Israel in association with Kedge Business School (France)
and the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds (UK)
Main conference dates: 12-13 October 2021PhD workshop: 11 October 2021Submission deadline for panel proposals:
1 May 2021Submission deadline for abstracts:
18 June 2021
The theme of the conference, “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Times of Global Crisis” invites participants to explore CSR's contributions to society during the course of global crisis. CSR has been adopted by most corporations to the point that it has become an institutional imperative for business firms. Accordingly, numerous studies have shown that corporations use their CSR in order to improve their legitimacy and reputation and that CSR does, overall, contribute to their financial performance. Having established CSR's value for corporations, the CSR academic literature left open for debate the wider societal contribution of CSR. Therefore, the purpose of this call for papers is to bring forward questions that have not been adequately addressed in the academic literature investigating CSR, such as what is the outcome of CSR? Does CSR contribute to stakeholders and society, especially in times of crisis? How much? To whom and when?
We call for papers that investigate the impact of CSR on society, with a particular focus on contributions to alleviating societal and environmental crisis. Acknowledging a broad range of possible issues, we invite papers that may address, but are not restricted to, the following questions and topics: How can we rethink the impact of CSR from a societal perspective? How do corporations contribute to sustainability challenges? Can we expect corporations to address social crisis or are corporations the source of social crisis? What impact does CSR have on economic development and recovery in emerging and developing countries? How does CSR contribute to efforts directed at alleviating the climate change crisis? How has CSR impacted the Covid-19 pandemic and what role have corporations played in addressing the societal challenges created and exasperated by Covid19? What role did corporations play in the 'race to the vaccine' and the consequential vaccine inequality between nations and within nations? How can corporations improve the societal impact of their CSR activities and what aspects of CSR should they address in times of crisis?
This is a cross-disciplinary conference looking for both conceptual and empirical papers filling the research and knowledge gap in both theory and practice related to the impact of CSR on society. We are interested in contributions from different disciplines and fields of study. CRRC is the ideal place to test new ideas and to experiment with new formats. Therefore, we welcome suggestions for full or partial panels and workshop streams. The tradition of CRRC is to focus on participants and the debate, as well as on social activity. Although, this year due to the ongoing crisis we will be holding the conference in an unconventional online format, we promise to include time for an informal get-together. We aim to create an environment that is welcoming and friendly yet succeeds in challenging the existing knowledge base and assumptions, and hence drives the debate around corporate responsibility forward.