We are living in an era of intersecting crises (ecological, social, political, and economic) that increasingly reinforce one another. Societies face accelerating climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, geopolitical tension, social inequalities, polarization, and rapid technological disruption. These crises reshape the expectations placed on organizations and intensify debates about their broader societal responsibilities. 

In this turbulent context, organizational commitments to sustainability, inclusion, and societal impact come under pressure. What was long viewed as a moral and collective imperative is increasingly reframed in instrumental or strategic terms. As public scepticism rises and polarization deepens, efforts related to sustainability and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) risk being deprioritized, diluted, or contested. This creates a pressing paradox: the need for responsible and inclusive organizational action has never been greater, yet its moral legitimacy appears increasingly fragile. 

This seminar invites participants to explore how organizations, and the people within them, can continue to create meaningful societal value despite growing resistance, ambiguity, and competing demands. We aim to understand how responsibility is interpreted, practiced, challenged, or defended across different levels of analysis: from individual motivation and identity work, to organizational strategies and leadership, to shifting institutional norms and societal expectations. 

By bringing together emerging and established scholars, the seminar seeks to foster dialogue on how sustainability and inclusion can remain credible, resilient, and transformative in an age of crisis, and what this means for research, practice, and the evolving relationship between business and society. 

We welcome contributions from various organization-related research fields (e.g., business ethics and philosophy, management and organization studies, strategy, marketing, accounting, finance, entrepreneurship, and sociology) and research methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, mixed, and conceptual). Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:  

Keynotes 

Sankar Sen is the Lawrence and Carol Zicklin Chair in Corporate Integrity and Governance, and professor of Marketing at Baruch College/City University of New York. Sen received his PhD from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and has held full time or visiting positions at Temple University, New York University, Boston University, and the Sasin School of Management at Chulalongkorn University. Sen’s primary research interest lie at the intersection of CSR/sustainability and consumer behavior. In particular, he investigates when, how and why consumers and employees respond to companies’ sustainability/ corporate social responsibility endeavors. Sen is also interested, more generally, in prosocial behaviors, social marketing, and moral perspectives on consumption behavior. Sen is an associate editor at the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, and Academy of Marketing Science Review.

Patrizia Zanoni is a Full Professor of Organization Studies at the School of Social Sciences of Hasselt University (Belgium), of which she is one of the founders. Drawing on critical theories including contemporary strands of Marxism, her research investigates difference, work and value under capitalism and beyond. She has written extensively on the unequal fragmentation of labour (i.e. ‘diversity’), social reproduction, how (ideologies of) digital technologies reshape work, categories of workers, and capital-labour relations as a whole. She has also published on organizing the economy and society more equally. She is currently Principal Investigator in two European projects (LabourFlows and INSPIRE). In 2022, she received an Emma Goldman award from the Flax Foundation for her work on inequality.

Then we encourage you to submit your work and join us in Ghent!