What is the relationship between inequality, business, and society? What organizational and other theories are helpful to understand this relationship?
What are the normative foundations of an evaluation of inequality? Is inequality fundamentally unjust? Are there acceptable levels of inequality? What criteria can be used in assessing such acceptability?
How is economic inequality related to other forms inequality (gender, racial, and other social inequalities)?
Who are the stakeholders related to inequality? How are they affected and what can they do to address the effects?
What role did business play in creating, sustaining, or ameliorating economic inequality in a historical perspective? Do business research and practice have a moral imperative to address current growing inequalities?
How does business affect economic inequality in different forms of capitalist organization (i.e. the Anglo-Saxon model, the Rhenish model, the Japanese/Korean model, etc.)?
How does income inequality differ between developed and developing countries and what is the role of business in those contexts?
What role do multinational enterprises play in creating economic inequality within the countries they operate and around the globe?
How does economic inequality affect the strategies, structures, and performance of MNEs?
How does economic organization, particularly offshoring (manufacturing, financial services, dispersion of business activities around the globe) affect income inequality?
How does income inequality affect business – market structures, consumption patterns, business strategy, relevant institutions, role of business in society, entrepreneurship, etc.
Can BOP approaches be used to address growing levels of inequality? Do BOP approaches need revisiting based on the level of inequality in a society?
How does inequality affect social innovation? Can the latter be used to manage the former?
Can the state play an effective role in curbing inequality? What are the potential firm-level consequences of state-led interventions in the service of reducing inequality?
Organizational research devoted to examining the firm-inequality relationship is at a very nascent stage and needs to draw on established research in other disciplines, as well as develop new theories by making broad connections between previously unexamined phenomena. Similarly, empirical examinations might have to make use of publicly available data and established methods, as well as creatively generate new data and methods to study this complex phenomenon. Therefore, we invite conceptual and empirical papers that offer substantial potential to result in high quality publications.
SUBMISSION PROCESS AND DEADLINES
Interested authors are encouraged to submit a 6-page proposal (excluding references and exhibits) to Hari Bapuji (inequalitysi.2014@gmail.com) through email by November 30, 2014. The guest editors will provide developmental feedback and invite authors of suitable proposals to submit a full paper to the special issue. In addition, potential authors may contact any of the guest editors to discuss initial ideas for papers. While interested authors are encouraged to make use of the guidance of the guest editors before submitting full papers, full papers may be submitted (and will be equally welcomed) even without prior consultation with guest editors.
The deadline for submission of all full papers (including papers that received feedback on their proposals) will be June 30, 2015.Authors should submit their manuscripts through ScholarOne Manuscripts at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bas. Manuscripts should be prepared following the Business and Society author guidelines: http://www.sagepub.com/journals/Journal200878/manuscriptSubmission.
All articles will be subjected to double-blind peer review and editorial process in accordance with the policies of Business & Society.
References
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