Special Tracks

SPECIAL TRACKS 

The Conference is associated with the journal Philosophy of Management and, in addition to the general track, will host two Special Tracks for papers aiming to be submitted after the conference to one of the incoming special issues of this journal. If submitting for one of these Special Tracks, please mention it in the title of your paper.

1° Special Track. “Politicization of Business”

Convenors:

Paul Dragos Aligica (George Mason University and University of Bucharest)

Marian Eabrasu (EM Normandie Business School, Métis Lab)

Anthony J. Evans (ESCP Business School, London)

In recent decades, the boundaries between business, politics, and society have become increasingly porous. Companies are less able to operate in a “neutral” space where economic considerations stand apart from political debates. Instead, businesses are now deeply implicated in a wide array of contentious issues, ranging from climate change, inequality, and labor rights to immigration, privacy, LGBTQ+ rights, vaccination, and beyond. This trend, alongside the decline of liberal democratic institutions in many regions, rises polarization across societies and heightens expectations of stakeholders who demand corporate engagement on pressing global challenges.

This special track invites scholars to critically examine the emergence of Political CSR and the growing politicization of business. We seek contributions that investigate how and why corporations adopt political roles, when they should or should not adopt such roles, the forms such involvement takes, and the consequences for firms, societies, and global governance. Despite significant advances in the literature, many questions remain unresolved: How do firms navigate the risks of political engagement in polarized contexts? What are the implications of democratic backsliding for multinational corporations operating across diverse political regimes? To what extent can corporate activism substitute for or complement weakened state institutions? How do internal organizational dynamics interact with external stakeholder pressures to shape political positioning? What ethical frameworks and governance models can guide firms in addressing controversial issues without exacerbating divisions?

We welcome both conceptual and empirical contributions not only from philosophy and management but also from a wide range of adjacent disciplines, including political science, economics, law, and sociology. Comparative studies, cross-country analyses, and examinations of specific industries or global corporations are also welcome.

Key and Guiding Research Questions:

• How do external stakeholder demands (consumers, NGOs, governments) shape corporate political engagement?
• What role do employees play in pressuring firms to adopt political positions?
• How do companies manage reputational risks when stakeholder groups hold conflicting expectations?
• Are there identifiable patterns in which industries or sectors are more prone to politicization?
• How do firms balance neutrality against the risks of alienating one side of a polarized public?

• What strategies have corporations developed to engage with polarized issues such as climate change, immigration, or reproductive rights?
• What lessons can be drawn from companies that have chosen either outspoken activism or strict neutrality?
• How does polarization impact the long-term legitimacy and trustworthiness of corporate political engagement?

• How do firms navigate political engagement when operating in authoritarian regimes or environments of democratic backsliding?
• What strategies do multinational corporations adopt to reconcile different political expectations across countries?
• To what extent do corporations influence global governance by filling gaps left by weakened or retreating states?
• What responsibilities do firms have when local governments undermine rights and democratic values?

• What ethical frameworks best guide corporate engagement in political and social issues?
• How should legitimacy be defined and assessed in the context of political CSR?
• To what extent should corporations align with universal human rights principles in their political stances?
• What mechanisms of accountability can ensure that corporate political involvement benefits society rather than exacerbates inequalities?

• How do executives’ personal political beliefs influence corporate political decisions?
• What role do boards of directors and governance structures play in shaping political CSR strategies?
• How do internal corporate cultures enable or constrain political engagement?
• To what extent is political CSR motivated by profit considerations versus genuine commitments to social change?

2° Special Track. "The Virtues of the Manager: Rethinking MacIntyre’s Critique"

Convenors:

Ron Beadle (Northumbria University)

Caleb Bernacchio (Loyola University)

David Bevan (St Martin’s Institute of Higher Education, Malta)

Geoff Moore (Durham University)

Marta Rocchi (DCU Business School)

In After Virtue (1981/2007), Alasdair MacIntyre famously depicted the modern manager as an archetype of emotivist culture: a manipulative technician, concerned with efficiency and effectiveness while detached from substantive moral reasoning. For many, this stark portrayal cemented the image of management as inherently amoral, if not corrupting. Yet, this characterization has been challenged, and MacIntyre’s own later work provides resources for rethinking it.

In Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (2016), MacIntyre revisits the nature of common goods in families, schools, and especially workplaces. He distinguishes between public goods, which individuals enjoy simply as individuals, and common goods, which can only be realized through shared deliberation and cooperative activity. Drawing on examples such as W. Edwards Deming’s transformation of industrial production, Wendell Berry’s vision of farming, and the history of Cummins Engine Company, MacIntyre shows how management can either obstruct or enable the pursuit of excellence in shared work. Where profitability dominates, workplaces become alienating; but where management fosters practices ordered toward the common good, they can become sites for the cultivation of the virtues.

Some scholars have taken up this challenge. Robin Holt (2006) argues that managers can and should cultivate phronesis (practical wisdom), developing moral character through rhetorical engagement within communities of practice, rather than being confined to technical efficiency. Gregory Beabout (2012) reconceives management as a “domain-relative practice,” one that has internal goods of excellence yet is always tied to another practice, thereby requiring virtues like justice and practical wisdom to mediate the tension between internal and external goods. MacIntyre himself, in later reflections, insists that genuine practices are always under threat from institutional pressures, yet also emphasizes the possibility of resistance and the creation of spaces where Aristotelian questions of human flourishing can be raised—even against entrenched economic and political structures.

The focus of the work to date has, as above, tended to be on for-profit corporations, although there have been contributions from other sectors like churches, jazz bands, circuses and community organisations. For the purposes of this call for papers, management in the context of organizations of all types is welcome.

This special track therefore asks: Can managers be understood not as the manipulators of MacIntyre’s early critique, but as practitioners of virtue whose work sustains common goods? Might management itself be reconceived as a practice requiring virtues such as justice, constancy, and practical wisdom? And under what conditions can managers resist the corrupting pressures of institutions and markets to foster organizations that serve both human flourishing and the wider common good? How does the current technological scenario impact the relationship between managers, employees, and organizations? What is the place of these MacIntyrean categories in the future of management?

We invite theoretical, empirical, and interdisciplinary contributions that engage these questions, including but not limited to:

• MacIntyre’s critique of the manager in After Virtue and its continuing influence
• The possibility of managerial virtue within MacIntyre’s practices–institutions framework
• The distinction between public goods and common goods, and its relevance for workplaces and organizations
• The role of constancy, vocation, and acknowledged dependence in managerial life
• Case studies of managers and organizations that exemplify (or fail to exemplify) the pursuit of common goods
• Alternative models of leadership (e.g., servant leadership, stewardship) compatible with MacIntyre’s later ethics
• Critical assessments of MacIntyre’s evolving account of management, virtue, and the common good
• Explorations of management as a domain-relative practice requiring phronesis
• Analyses of the ways managers might enact resistance to compartmentalization, distorted desires, and market-driven inequalities
• The role of technology in the future of management and the connected impact on the virtues of managers
• MacIntyre’s strident critique of Enlightenment individualism and its consequences for ethics rejects or overlooks contingent advances in contemporary thinking and science. Is there a possible ethical path forward from the Enlightenment, or how else do we come to terms with this categorical adiaphoria?
• Whether MacIntyre's conception of the manager was gendered
• Critical assessment of MacIntyre’s account of management when AI-based technologies are heavily used in organizations.
• How might one become a virtuous manager?

A fuller call for a Special Issue of Philosophy of Management (envisaged for 2027) is in the process of gestation and will be published in due course.

References

• Beabout, Gregory R. 2012. “Management as a Domain-Relative Practice that Requires and Develops Practical Wisdom.” Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2): 405–32.
• Holt, Robin. 2006. “Principals and Practice: Rhetoric and the Moral Character of Managers.” Human Relations 59 (12): 1659–80.
• MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1981) 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
• ——. 2016. Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and the Common Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3° Special Track. "Acting in the Unknown: Rationality Across Space and Time"

Convenor:
Pascal Stiefenhofer, Newcastle University, UK

In a world increasingly shaped by complexity, volatility, and accelerated change, questions about what it means to act rationally have never been more urgent—or more contested. From the climate crisis to global health emergencies, from fragile supply chains to algorithmic governance, contemporary decision-making is marked by deep uncertainty, systemic disruption, and profound spatial and temporal disjunctions. Simultaneously, the very norms governing what counts as rational, ethical, or appropriate action are shifting—reshaped by technological mediation, social transformations, and institutional change. How do individuals, institutions, and artificial agents navigate such terrains of unpredictability? What qualifies as rational agency in contexts where information is incomplete, time is constrained, norms are evolving, and outcomes remain unknowable?

In economics and management theory, space and time are often treated as neutral backdrops to rational decision-making—fixed coordinates within which markets function and strategies unfold. Yet philosophically, space and time are far from inert. Space is not only geographical or logistical but also social, institutional, and digital: agents operate within environments structured by inequality, hierarchy, and information asymmetry. Time, too, is more than clock-based chronology—it includes rhythm, duration, memory, delay, and anticipation. Strategic decisions may hinge on what the Greeks called Kairos—the opportune moment for action—where timing, foresight, and judgment must converge. In this light, space and time are not external parameters of reason but constitutive of it, shaping what is thinkable, actionable, and intelligible in economic and organizational life.

This special track invites contributions that reimagine rational agency in light of spatial and temporal complexity. We encourage work that goes beyond idealized or static models of decision-making to engage with the situated, dynamic, and often improvisational nature of action in uncertain conditions. Drawing on insights from bounded rationality, prospect theory, transformative experience, and organizational complexity, we welcome interdisciplinary perspectives which apply philosophy to management studies, economics, ethics and/or decision theory.

We ask: How should rationality be redefined to account for spatiotemporal constraints, ethical ambiguity, and embodied or collective modes of reasoning? What are the implications of delegating judgment to artificial agents? How do decision-makers—whether individual or institutional—act when outcomes are distributed across time and space, and the future resists prediction?

There is growing recognition across disciplines that rational agency under non-ideal conditions must grapple with epistemic uncertainty, institutional limits, and evolving norms. This special track seeks to foster an intellectual forum for rethinking the foundations of rational action in light of urgent contemporary challenges—from climate transitions and AI governance to intergenerational ethics and geopolitical complexity.

Relevant themes for submission may include, though are not limited to:

• How should rational agents make decisions when future outcomes are deeply uncertain or unknowable?
• What does it mean to act rationally when decision-making occurs across spatially distributed systems or institutions?
• How do temporal constraints—urgency, delay, or long-term consequences—reshape our understanding of rational action?
• What ethical responsibilities do agents bear when outcomes unfold across distant geographies or extended timeframes?
• How should we model and evaluate the rationality of artificial or autonomous agents in evolving environments?
• How can institutions design decision-making structures that are resilient to spatial and temporal complexity?
• In what ways do dominant economic or managerial theories of rationality succeed—or fail—under real-world conditions?
• How do cultural, technological, and institutional contexts shape practices and norms of rational agency?
• What roles do affective, embodied, or non-propositional forms of reasoning (e.g., trust, intuition, care, fear) play in navigating complex futures?

We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that reconceptualize rationality across space and time. Submissions may include philosophical analyses, normative arguments, decision models, or case-based studies that explore how agency is exercised, disrupted, and reconstituted under uncertainty. In doing so, this track aims to provoke new conversations about how to act wisely—and justly—in a world that increasingly defies linear prediction.

References 

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Bernacchio, C. (2024). Organizations in the space of reasons. Philosophy of Management, 23, 481–493. 

Buchak, L. (2013). Risk and rationality. Oxford University Press.

Cesaratto, S. (2024). Agency, functionalism, and all that: A Sraffian view. Journal of Philosophical Economics, 17. 

Coeckelbergh, M. (2012). How I learned to love the robot: Capabilities, information technologies, and the social good. Philosophy & Technology, 25(3), 195–207. 

Dietrich, F., & List, C. (2024). Dynamically rational judgment aggregation. Social Choice and Welfare, 63, 531–580. 

Gabriel, I. (2020). Artificial intelligence, values, and alignment. Minds and machines, 30(3), 411-437.

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Grosz, E. (2004). The nick of time: Politics, evolution, and the untimely. Duke University Press.

Hurley, G. F. (2022). The Chronos principle: “Knowing thy time” in communication management. Philosophy of Management, 21, 507–522. 

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Kaplan, S., & Orlikowski, W. J. (2013). Temporal work in strategy making. Organization Science, 24(4), 965–995. 

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Santori, P. (2024). The market in the kingdom of ends. Philosophy of Management, 23, 239–256. 

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Sparks, J., & Wright, A. T. (2025). Models of rational agency in human-centered AI: The realist and constructivist alternatives. AI & Ethics, 5, 3321–3328. 

Stiefenhofer, P. (2025a). The role of ethical consumption in promoting democratic sustainability: Revisiting neoclassical economics through Kantian ethics. The Journal of Philosophical Economics: Reflections on Economic and Social Issues, 18(Annual issue), 74–123.

Stiefenhofer, P. (2025b). Artificial general intelligence and the social contract: A dynamic political economy model. Journal of Economic Analysis, 4(3), 142–183.

Tsoukas, H. (2017). Don't simplify, complexify: From disjunctive to conjunctive theorizing in organization and management studies. Journal of management studies, 54(2), 132-153.

Zafar, M. (2025). Normativity and AI moral agency. AI & Ethics, 5, 2605–2622.