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7^th International Conference on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion – Call for Papers

Stream Title:

DIVERSITY, EQUALITY AND INCLUSION IN SOCIAL ENTERPRISES

Stream Organizers

Dr Olivia Kyriakidou, Assistant Professor in Management and Organizational Behavior, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece, email: okyriakidou@aueb.gr Dr Helen Salavou, Assistant Professor in Management, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece, email: esalav@aueb.gr

Stream Outline

Social enterprises have attracted wide academic and policy interest recently as they are meant to play a crucial role in providing services, employment and social capital in local economies (Nicholls and Huybrechts, 2013). Social enterprises are also claimed that can tackle inequality through social inclusion programs and promoting diversity. However, little is known about whether they achieve these claims in practice and the ways and mechanisms they use in order to materialize and institutionalize such claims. The present stream therefore examines the extent to which social enterprises are tackling equality, inclusion and diversity issues or whether they are reinforcing existing patterns of inequality.

Social enterprises are thought to encompass a wide range of business activities that aim to generate profit to further their social and environmental goals. A wide range of business activities could be recognized as social enterprises including enterprising individuals devoted to making a difference, social purpose business ventures dedicated to adding for-profit motivations to the nonprofit sector, new types of philanthropists supporting venture capital 'investment' portfolios, and nonprofit organizations that are reinventing themselves by drawing on lessons learned from the business world (Mair et al., 2006). Accordingly, social enterprises can be conceptualized as hybrid forms, occupying different positions along a continuum from the more philanthropic to the more commercial (Mair et al., 2012).

The increased policy interest in social enterprise and the encouragement given to these organizations to provide public services, has also raised a number of questions over their accountability and their actual impact in terms of equality and inclusion (Bridgstock et al., 2010). It is therefore necessary to consider whether social enterprises are representative of all parts of the communities they are seeking to serve.

We invite theoretical and theoretically informed studies, as well as analyses of gender and equality issues in social enterprises and hybrid organizations. Papers may include micro-level organizational studies as well as societal and cultural analyses on a larger scale. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following fields:

•             Theorizing diversity management and inclusion in hybrid organizations and social enterprises – How marginal identities are constructed in social enterprise work settings? What type of managerial behaviors in social enterprises might institutionalize discriminatory or inclusionary practices in social enterprises? Are there gender differences in the role of social entrepreneurship within society?

•             Gendered divisions of labor in social enterprises – Is there a gendered division of labor in social enterprises? How is "competence" understood in social enterprises and how does this affect gendered divisions of work? Are there gender differences in pay in social enterprises? How do gendered divisions of work affect women's and men's career possibilities in social enterprises? Are there different sectors of activities involving women and men within different localities?

•             Gender and leadership in social enterprises – What is the gender structuring of social enterprises? Are there gendered discourses of management and leadership in social enterprises? Are there specific biases and gender-role stereotypes in leadership in social enterprises? What is the representation of women in the organizational governance of social enterprises? What are the reasons and motivations of becoming a social entrepreneur and are there any noticeable gender differences?

•             Diversity management in social enterprises - How do social enterprises formulate and administer diversity policies? How is diversity addressed not only in terms of gender norms, but also ethnic or religious composition? In the case of global social enterprises, how do they formulate and administer diversity policies in locations which differ substantially from those of their home country?

•             Masculinities and femininities in social enterprises and their relations – What are the personal characteristics of women and men involved, including gender differences and specificities, but also commonalities? Is business masculinity contested in social enterprises? Are there variations in "doing" masculinities and femininities in social enterprises? How do such variations in "doing" masculinities and femininities affect interaction and cooperation both within and between social enterprises?

•             Work-life balance in social enterprise work at both national and global scale – How is work-life balance conceptualized in social enterprises? How do professionals in social enterprises address the issues of work-life balance? How do they solve work-life problems? What are the disruptions of work-life balance that are different from those of employees employed by business corporations?

•             Gender and local social enterprise cultures in different parts of the world – How do national cultures regarding gender differ around the globe and how these feed into social enterprises culture? How do intersections with gender, such as education, ethnicity, race, age, married status, religion etc., affect work in social enterprises in different settings?

•             Gendered patterns of mobility in social enterprises - When and for whom is mobility – both moving "out" and moving "back home" – an option in social enterprises? What restrictions on mobility are faced by women and men? How does moving between locations affect career progress, work satisfaction, work-life balance and family relations of women and men in social enterprises? What do women and men gain from being mobile and what do they lose?

Keywords

Social enterprises, equality, diversity, inclusion Abstracts/papers

EDI Conference welcomes three forms of paper submissions to regular streams:

•             Extended abstract: Customarily an extended abstract should be approximately 300-500 words including references. This is suitable for policy, intervention or research in its early stages of development.

•             Developmental papers: These should be approximately 3000-5000 words, including references.

•             Full papers: These are longer contributions approximately 5000 words including references.

Abstracts and papers s should be submitted electronically at:

http://www.edi-conference.org/index.php

All submissions to the EDI conference should be original pieces which are not published elsewhere in any other form. Stream chairs may organize the sessions in different ways. However, in general, paper presentations at the conference will be a maximum of 20 minutes long, with 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Data projectors will be available in each conference room.

Important dates

•             Abstract/Developmental/full paper submission: January 15th, 2014.

•             Response to authors (acceptance, acceptance with revisions following developmental feedback, rejection): February 28th, 2014.

•             Deadline for revised papers: April 15th, 2014

•             Final acceptance decision, best paper nominations and submission of best papers to the relevant associated journal (as agreed by submitter): May 1st, 2014

Full conference schedule will be available thereafter.

Publication partnerships of EDI 2014 Munich conference Associated to this conference are: The British Journal of Management; Cross-Cultural Management: an International Journal; Equality, Diversity, Inclusion: an International Journal, and the European Journal of Industrial Relations. Pre-selected best papers of the conference will be submitted to these journals, which will process them according to their usual standards.

We also advise stream organizers that the book series Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Work (Book series by Emerald) edited by Professor Mustafa Özbilgin is associated to the conference. Relevant stream proposals will be eligible for this book series subject to acceptance by Professor Özbilgin, who will attend the conference.

References

Bridgstock, R.R., Lettice F., Ozbilgin, M. and Tatli, A. (2010). Diversity management for innovation in social enterprises in the UK. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 22, 6, 557-574.

Mair, J., Robinson, J., and Hockerts, K. (2006). Social Entrepreneurship. Palgrave Macmillan.

Mair, J., Battilana, J. and Cardenas, J. (2012). Organizing for society: A typology of social entrepreneuring models. Journal of Business Ethics, 111, 3, 353-373.

Nicholls, A. and Huybrechts, B. (2013). The role of legitimacy in social enterprise-corporate collaboration. Social Enterprise Journal, 9, 2, 130-146.