Conference: Organisations and Social Sustainability.

Description

Conference Organisers & Guest Editors:
Simon Jebsen, Klarissa Lueg, Mustafa Khalil Mahmood, & Najmeh Shaghaei
University of Southern Denmark, Center for Organizing Social Sustainability
Conference "Empirical Personnel and Organizational Research" on 9 and 10 November 2023 at the University of Southern Denmark Sønderborg & Special Issue
With the thematic focus, this year's annual meeting addresses the megatrends of social sustainability and new understandings of quality work for employees. Social sustainability means offering processes for creating successful places that promote well-being by understanding what people need from the places they live and work. Social sustainability supports social and cultural life, social amenities, citizen and employee engagement opportunities, and space for people and places to evolve as belonging and identity. Social sustainability can be reached by aligning formal and informal processes; systems, structures, and relationships must allow current and future generations to create healthy and durable living. Socially sustainable communities are equitable, diverse, connected, and democratic and provide a good quality of life. The annual meeting organisers are interested in how organisations of all types can contribute to a social sustainability culture and how these cultures can be organised.
Examples of problems, challenges, work practices and initiatives of interest to the conference and social sustainability paradigm are, among other things:
• The reproduction and production of social closure and exclusion in organisations: starting from cultural and social bias in recruiting, over-performance and promotion management (meritocracy, the seniority principle) to self-exclusion of particular demographic groups, workplaces have the power to divide social groups further – or potentially mend this gap.
• Private companies are increasingly interested in alternative work standards concerning technological progression: changes include agile, low-hierarchy digitalised workflows, and liberal group and project management, especially in IT and high-tech, but also in other domains.
• Organisations are increasingly encouraging issues of employee identity, belonging, (mental) health and psychological safety, cultural struggles, and empowerment: such momentum can be explored and evaluated from different perspectives. While ethical considerations (e.g., overcoming racial discrimination) matter, managing employee demands resulting from their identity and belonging and integrating resulting practices in the business and management model (e.g., rewarding employee engagement appropriately) must be equally thought through.
• The megatrends towards sustainability and new standards of good work have increased the "talk" about such issues: Organisations have professionalised their public verbiage, installed public corporate persona and otherwise improved their image regarding corporate consciousness and engagement. Team building measures and a focus on good and friendly work milieus are ubiquitous – however, whether or not such measures benefit employees or merely the "new spirit of capitalism" (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007) is to be explored.
revue Socio-Economic Studies
management
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG Waldseestraße 3-5, 76530 Baden-Baden, Germany
www.mrev.nomos.de
In addition, contributions that deal with other empirical personnel and organisational research topics beyond the conference topic are also welcome.
We look forward to exciting and inspiring contributions and discussions!
Conference & Submission
The research group "Empirical Personnel and Organizational Research" (Arbeitskreis Empirische Personal und Organisationsforschung - AKempor) aims to promote empirical research into the behaviour of organisations and their members. The founding of the research group was motivated by the observation that the literature on personnel and organisational theory is primarily based on ephemeral "practical knowledge" rather than well-founded empirical studies. So far, empirical research has not enjoyed the reputation it deserves. The research group wants to promote empirical personnel and organisational research, among other things, through regular conferences (see https://akempor.org/), cooperation in the form of the joint use of data sets, and cooperation in further developing survey instruments and evaluation methods.
The conference takes place on 9 & 10 November 2023 at the University of Southern Denmark in Sønderborg, Denmark. Further information about the workshop fee, registration, and accommodation will be published on the AKempor website at the end of September 2023.
Contributions to the conference can be submitted in two formats:
1. Full papers: Presenters of competitive papers can submit an extended abstract of max. five pages. The extended abstract should include the research question, theoretical background, method, data (if applicable), findings summary, and key contributions.
2. Work in progress: Presenters of work-in-progress can submit an abstract of max. two pages. Work-in-progress summarises ongoing projects or open problems, ideas, and preliminary studies that are not ready for a regular full-length paper.
Please submit your full paper or work-in-progress abstract via management revue's online submission system using 'SI AKempor 2023' as the article section.

Period	9. Nov 2023 → 10. Nov 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	Sønderborg, DenmarkShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International