18th Philosophy of Management Annual Conference
June 26-29, 2026 (EM Normandie, Paris, France)
Call for Submissions:
Philosophy of Management - Sciencesconf.org
The 18th edition of the Philosophy of Management Annual Conference moves to Paris, France, and will be held at the EM Normandie from 26 to 29 June 2026. As usual, each paper will be guaranteed a 45-minute slot for an unhurried presentation and in-depth discussion. We are looking forward to receiving your submissions by 1 February 2026.
GENERAL TRACK
We welcome submissions that explore the diverse facets of management in private or public organizations through a philosophical lens. Whether it's applied ethics, social, moral, and political philosophy, ontology, epistemology, axiology, or aesthetics, we encourage scholars to propose novel, critical, timely, and/or controversial arguments. Submissions can also adopt a 'meta-' standpoint for raising and answering questions such as: What is philosophy of management? Is philosophy useful for managers? Is management a science or an art? Can management be part of the humanities and, if not, what else should it be part of?
The conference seeks to bring together philosophers, management scholars, social scientists, and practitioners interested in deepening the dialogue between philosophy and the practice of management. We invite contributions that challenge prevailing assumptions, interrogate contemporary practices, or open new directions for thinking about management as a human, social, and institutional endeavor.
Possible themes include (but are not limited to):
Ethics, Responsibility, and Justice
- Ethical dilemmas in organizational life and decision-making
- Philosophical approaches to responsibility, integrity, and justice in business
- Ethical leadership, hubris, and humility in organizational life
- Corruption, wrongdoing, and moral challenges in management practice
- Business ethics in contexts of sustainability, climate change, and human rights
- Theories of distributive justice and fairness in organizations
- Modern slavery, whistleblowing, and the ethics of accountability
Philosophy of Technology Innovation and AI
- Artificial intelligence and its implications for management and leadership
- Human–AI collaboration, responsibility, and dignity at work
- AI, emancipation, and autonomy: opportunities and risks
- Complexity and algorithmic governance in organizational contexts
- Technology, rationality, and the philosophical limits of decision-making
- Digital sustainability, surveillance capitalism, and responsible innovation
Leadership, Identity, and Meaning
- Philosophical perspectives on leadership as practice and responsibility
- Virtue ethics, character, and phronesis in leadership
- Transformational and servant leadership through philosophical lenses
- Self-actualization, authenticity, and personal development in organizational life
- Emotions, humility, and the moral logic of leadership
- Phenomenology of trust, care, and flourishing in leadership and organizations
Ontology, Epistemology, and Hermeneutics
- Ontological questions about organizations, institutions, and leadership
- Ontological concepts of value in management theory and practice
- Relational ontology and systems thinking in organizations
- Epistemologies of the South and alternative ways of knowing in management
- Hermeneutics, narrative, and the linguistic turn in organizational analysis
- Temporality, time, and the ontology of organizational change
- The epistemic responsibilities of organizations and managers
Work, Labor, and Human Experience
- The philosophy of work and the human condition under managerial systems
- Performativity, productivity, and the meaning of labor
- Digital estrangement, automation, and the future of work
- Phenomenological perspectives on organizational life
- Embodiment, subjectivity, and lived experience in workplaces
- Education and the moral obligations of business schools
Axiology and Aesthetics in Management
- The role of values (axiology) in organizational purpose and practices
- Aesthetics in management: creativity, imagination, and organizational design
- Philosophy of value creation and its social implications
- Management as art: aesthetics of leadership and organizational culture
Meta-Reflections on Philosophy of Management
- What is philosophy of management?
- The utility of philosophy for managers and organizations
- Is management a science, an art, or a practice in the humanities?
- The boundaries and legitimacy of the philosophy of management as a field
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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE June 27, 2026:
R. EDWARD FREEMAN (Darden School of Business, University of Virginia)
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Philosophy and Stakeholder Theory
Throughout the development of Stakeholder Theory there have been a number of philosophical ideas that have motivated various pieces of the approach. This talk will make those philosophical commitments explicit and suggest how they have informed the development of stakeholder theory. Included are ideas from Freud and Psychoanalysis, Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language , de Beauvoir and Existentialism, Dennett/Tomasello and Evolutionary theory, and James/Dewey/
Rorty/Putnam and Pragmatism.
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KEYNOTE June 28, 2026:
Chandran Kukathas
School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University
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The Naturalness of Capitalism
Deep critics of capitalism either predict its impending collapse or propose its abolition and transformation. Neither prediction nor proposal is plausible. Capitalism is a part of the natural order of things, being the product of human action but not of human design. If capitalism is transformed, it will not be because of its alleged internal contradictions or problems rather than because of unforeseeable changes imposed by exogenous forces. Efforts to transform it by deliberate human action will fail for the same reasons that earlier attempts to abolish it have foundered: the refusal to accept the naturalness of capitalism.
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:
Marian Eabrasu (EM Normandie, Business School)
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.
● --. 2008. "How Aristotelianism Can Become Revolutionary: Ethics, Resistance, and Utopia." Philosophy of Management 7 (1): 3–28.
● --. 2016. Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and the Common Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Submission process
The submission should be a short paper (approximately 1,500 words) setting out the research question, gap, approach, and main lines of argument.
Ø The short paper should be anonymized and submitted online at https://phom26.sciencesconf.org/
Ø Submissions to one of the Special Tracks should mention the respective special track name in the paper title.
Ø If you encounter difficulties in uploading your paper or if you have any queries about the call, the submission process, the venue, or the conference, please get in touch with Marian Eabrasu at < meabrasu@em-normandie.fr >
Key dates:
Ø Deadline for short paper/extended abstract submission: 1 February 2026
Ø Notification of acceptance: 16 March 2026
Ø Conference: 26-29 June 2026
Additional information about the conference:
Ø The venue is the EM Normandie Campus, Paris France. (30-32 Rue Henri Barbusse, 92110 Clichy)
Ø The programs of the last three conferences can be found here PHOM 2023, PHOM 2024 and PHOM25
Conference Committee:
Marian Eabrasu (Chair) (EM Normandie, Business School, France) < meabrasu@em-normandie.fr >
David C. Bauman (Regis University, USA)
David Bevan, (St Martin's Institute of Higher Education, Malta)
Alicia Hennig (Technical University Dresden, Germany)
Nigel Laurie (former London Facilitators, UK; Royal Holloway, University of London)
Cristina Neesham (Newcastle University, UK; Swinburne University, Australia)
Robert Phillips (Darden School of Business, University of Virginia)
Grant Rozeboom, (St Mary's College of California, USA)
Wim Vandekerckhove (EDHEC Business School, France)
Pat Werhane (De Paul University and University of Virginia, USA)
David Carl Wilson (Webster University, USA)
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Cristina Neesham
Newcastle University Business School /
Swinburne School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship
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