Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

This sub-theme interrogates how changing geopolitics, government regulation, and societal and corporate norms are reconfiguring the governance of corporate sustainability (CS). These dynamics have unsettled expectations of an expansion and growth in CS. Echoing the EGOS Colloquium theme, it asks, “Who governs the rules of the CS game, how, and to what effect?”

Corporate Sustainability describes how corporations address societal and environmental issues, such as environmental degradation and gender inequality, often referred to as corporate sustainability and corporate responsibility. Historically, the governance of this field has been characterized by self-regulation, unilateral or collaborative, albeit underpinned by government institutions (Bartosch & Lohmeyer, 2026; Matten & Moon, 2020). Over the last 20 years, scholars have analyzed a growth of public policies, soft and hard, shaping CS policies and practices (e.g., national, EU reporting and due diligence regulation, U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, India’s mandatory CSR spending requirement, and UN Global Compact principles). They appeared to herald a turn to more comprehensive and sometimes binding requirements for corporations (Knudsen et al., 2015; Kourula et al., 2019), often in consensual style (Cashore et al., 2021).

However, amid a broader “anti-woke” backlash—including critiques of climate action and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies—there has been both an unwinding of recent sustainability policy initiatives and political commitments (e.g., the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and aspects of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act), and even a counter-movement that requires corporations to reverse existing CS policies (e.g., U.S. state-level executive orders banning DEI). Other key actors, notably some investors such as BlackRock, are also stepping back from earlier requirements for corporations to operate according to sustainability norms.

So, will the CS game change and, if so, how? Are these institutional dynamics merely ephemeral and unlikely to impede CS progress (OECD, 2025), a means of rebalancing sustainability and other corporate goals, or harbingers of a backlash “to get corporations out of societal and planetary governance game” and “back to business”? The sub-theme will consider their relative significance and impact. More generally, it will consider whether these developments constitute the beginnings of a broader renegotiation of the scope, nature, and legitimacy of CS in contemporary capitalist economies.

The sub-theme will focus on the significance of, and relationships between, three key potentially game-changing themes for CS: geopolitical changes, regulatory reforms, and their implications for corporate governance and strategy. 

Geopolitical changes

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reconfigured the meaning and practice of CS as it becomes entailed in compliance with state policies for sanctions, political risk, and strategic state–corporate coordination. Thus, CS environmental policies are more closely aligned with the politics of energy security and national resilience. Dependence on Russian fossil fuels exposed the fragility of EU decarbonization strategies, prompting a rebalancing between climate goals and security imperatives. These factors slowing the progress toward greening have only been compounded by the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran. The war in Gaza has created uncertainty about the nature and commitment of CS human rights policies. U.S. tariff policies may usher in more dirigiste and statist trade and industry policies in countries affected, which may reshape conceptions of corporations’ communities and stakeholders. Thus, it can be asked whether CS is evolving from a largely normative and technocratic project into a more contested, geo-economic instrument shaped by new power and security games.

Regulatory reforms

The apparent 20-year sustainability policy agenda has left corporations and scholars ill-prepared for the politicization and polarization of CS objectives and programs, which are now subject to divergent regulatory paths. CS has become more openly contested, not only by corporate interests threatened by the sustainability agendas, but also in the media, political debates, and public opinion. The advent of the U.S. Trump presidencies in 2017 and 2025 catalyzed polarization in society at large, among opinion formers, regulators, publics, and corporations themselves. This raises uncertainty about the regulatory environment in which CS is, could be, and should be positioned, particularly for corporations trading across borders (e.g., the U.S. rollback of DEI policies and wind and solar initiatives, whereas the EU maintains policies for DEI and renewables). The changing regulatory context therefore calls for new theorization of how CS reflects, engages with, or resists new institutional games (Marques & Eberlein, 2021; Leeds et al., 2025).

Corporate responses

So, what are the roles of corporations in contributing to progress, balance, or backlash on CS, whether as victims of a new institutional game or as active participants therein (Katic & Hillman, 2023)? Some corporations use the new context as an opportunity to return to previous less sustainable practices (e.g., BP slowing or reversing transitions from “black” to “green” technologies). Others seek ways to maintain their progress without being exposed to political repercussions (e.g., Lego and Mattel taking down CS-related websites while continuing “sustainable business directions as usual”). How will narratives about CS governance emerge and diverge? This focus allows consideration and theorization of the more general questions of why many corporations initially embraced greater public regulation for the game of CS, as well as how and why their strategies, commitments, and narratives are shifting as the game changes today (Sydow et al., 2022).

We invite theoretical and empirical papers using qualitative and/or quantitative research methods that analyze the changing context and definition of corporate sustainability by focusing on the following or related topics: the nature and significance of the new institutions for CS; the roles of such dynamics as geopolitical and regulatory changes in prompting institutional change, and their implications for sustainability agendas; and the range and implications of emergent CS strategies. This is an interdisciplinary sub-theme seeking to bring together economists, organizational theorists, sociologists, political scientists, and management scholars, among others.

We are interested in a broad range of questions, such as:

• How does geopolitical conflict impact the relationship between sustainability and security?

• Do supply chain disruptions (e.g., critical minerals, energy) affect firms’ willingness to engage in due diligence?

• Is the EU shifting from “normative power” to a “competitiveness logic”?

• Are there changes in the central actors involved in the CS field, both in the political sphere (e.g., ministries) and within companies (e.g., CS managers, legal departments)?

• What are the (new) roles and narratives of corporate stakeholders, such as unions, NGOs, and investors?

• Are we seeing a transition from hard law to softer, risk-based governance?

• How does uncertainty about the regulatory environment in which CS operates differ across institutional settings and why?

• What are the new coalitions for CS development in both progressive and regressive directions?

• What are the overlaps between CS contestation and other societal debates (e.g., “petro-masculinity”; Daggett, 2018) that may explain both the forces of resistance and the potential for change in CS (regulatory) development?

• How does regulatory uncertainty affect firms’ long-term sustainability investments?

• What are the (new) political roles and strategies of firms in this changing setting?

• How do firms navigate conflicting regulatory regimes (e.g., U.S. rollback vs. EU expansion)?
   

• Bartosch, J., & Lohmeyer, N. (2026). Explicitization of corporate social responsibilities at the national institutional level. Business & Society, 65(1), 149–190.
• Cashore, B., Knudsen, J. S., Moon, J., & van der Ven, H. (2021). Private authority and public policy interactions in global context: Governance spheres for problem solving. Regulation & Governance, 15(4), 1166–1182. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12395
• Daggett, C. (2018). Petro-masculinity: Fossil fuels and authoritarian desire. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 47(1), 25–44.
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2025). Government at a glance 2025. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/0efd0bcd-en
• Hamann, R. (2019). Dynamic de-responsibilization in business–government interactions. Organization Studies, 40(8), 1193–1215.
• Katic, I. V., & Hillman, A. (2023). Corporate political activity, reimagined: Revisiting the political marketplace. Journal of Management, 49(6), 1911–1938.
• Knudsen, J. S., Moon, J., & Slager, R. (2015). Government policies for corporate social responsibility in Europe: A comparative analysis of institutionalisation. Policy & Politics, 43(1), 81–99.
• Kourula, A., Moon, J., Salles-Djelic, M.-L., & Wickert, C. (2019). New roles of government in the governance of business conduct: Implications for management and organizational research. Organization Studies, 40(8), 1101–1123.
• Leeds, B. A., Mosley, L., Rosendorff, B. P., & Zarakol, A. (2025). The future of global governance and world order. International Organization, 79(1), 1–11.
• Matten, D., & Moon, J. (2020). Reflections on the 2018 Decade Award: The meaning and dynamics of corporate social responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 45(1), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0348
• Marques, J. C., & Eberlein, B. (2021). Grounding transnational business governance: A political-strategic perspective on government responses in the Global South. Regulation & Governance, 15(4), 1209–1229. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12356
• Sydow, J., Schüßler, E., & Helfen, M. (2022). Managing global production networks: Towards social responsibility via inter-organizational reliability? In L. Biggiero, D. de Jongh, B. P. Priddat, J. Wieland, A. Zicari, & D. Fischer (Eds.), The relational view of economics: A new research agenda for the study of relational transactions (pp. 133–158). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86526-9_8