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26-29 Jun 2026 Paris (France)
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Special TracksSPECIAL 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:
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:
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.
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