• CO-ORGANIZED WITH
• CHAIRPERSONS
• KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
• BACKGROUND
• SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
• PROGRAMME
• CALL FOR PAPERS
• REFERENCES
• DEADLINES
• SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
• PRACTICALITIES
• LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
• DOWNLOAD ACCEPTED PAPERS

Jatinder Sidhu (Leeds University Business School, UK)

Dimitrios Georgakakis (University of York, UK)

Henk Volberda University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Joanna Campbell University of Cincinnati, USA

Jan Stolker Director Erasmus Governance Institute and boardroom advisor

Top executives are among the most important decision-makers influencing the strategy and performance of their organizations. The series of EIASM Workshops on Top Management Teams and Business Strategy was initiated as a specialized and focused forum where researchers can engage in constructive discussions about the relationship among Top Management Teams and the ability of firms to strategically respond to the challenges they face, as well as finding new opportunities for research collaborations.

To date, eleven editions of the EIASM workshop on Top Management Teams and Business Strategy have been organized, nine regular editions and one ‘special edition’. The regular editions of the workshop took place at HEC Paris, France (April 2022, co-organised by Georg Wernicke), in Passau (June 2019, co-chaired by Lorenz Graf-Vlachy and Andreas Koenig), Geneva, Switzerland (March 2018, co-chaired by Markus Menz and Sven Kunisch), Seville, Spain (March 2017, co-chaired by Carmen Barroso, Tine Buyl, Alejandro Escribá and Marko Reimer), Groningen, the Netherlands (April, 2016, co-chaired by Kees van Veen, Niels Hermes, Reggy Hooghiemstra and Dennis Veltrop), Antwerp, Belgium (March 2015, co-chaired by Tine Buyl and Christophe Boone), Copenhagen, Denmark (October 2013, co-chaired by Sabina Nielsen, Sibel Yamak and Bo Nielsen), Milan, Italy (June 2012, co-chaired by Alessandro Minichilli and Alejandro Escribá-Esteve), Istanbul, Turkey (March-April 2011, co-chaired by Sibel Yamak and Sabina Nielsen) and Valencia, Spain (March 2010, co-chaired by Alejandro Escribá-Esteve and Alessandro Minichilli). The fifth workshop was a ‘special edition’, specifically focused on the creation of research collaborations, and was also hosted in Valencia, Spain (June 2014, co-chaired by Tine Buyl and Alejandro Escribá-Esteve).

The workshops have been great successes. In fact, over the last decades, this workshop has developed into perhaps the most important platform for strategic leadership research in Europe and an excellent opportunity to strengthen the international research networks among scholars interested in this topic.

Tine Buyl  (Department of Organization Studies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands)

Alejandro Escribá  (Department of Management, University of Valencia, Spain)

Marko Reimer  (Institute of Management Accounting and Control, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany)

Jatinder Sidhu (Leeds University Business School, UK)

Dimitrios Georgakakis (University of York, UK)

Detailed programme. 

(Please note that this program is tentative and potentially subject to change.)

CEOs, top management teams, and boards of directors are facing ever-growing public and political pressure to channel the attention and resources of the enterprises they lead towards tackling complex social problems and grand challenges. In relation to issues ranging from the global climate emergency to local racial injustices, from diversity, equality, and inclusion in the workplace to responsible consumption, production, and innovation across nations, corporate leaders are expected to get their firms to step up to the plate and participate in addressing the problem. In response, numerous companies in different lines of business, including BlackRock, Cisco Systems, Starbucks, and Unilever, to name some, have committed or started to commit vigorously to CSR and ESG investments and pursuing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda articulated by the United Nations.

In the wake of real-world dynamics, business and management scholarship has started to invoke the concept of purpose to circumscribe the idea of concurrent attention to pursuing corporate financial goals and collective social goals by for-profit companies accountable to shareholders (Gartenberg et al., 2019; George et al., 2021; Gulati, 2022; Mayer, 2021; Morrison & Mota, 2021). This emerging literature recognizes that becoming a dual-purpose company, one that has both a profit and a prosocial orientation, is anything but straightforward – it necessarily entails the managing of intricate tensions and trade-offs between the wishes of different internal and external constituencies (Battilana et al., 2022; Volberda et al., 2022). Inasmuch as corporate leaders set their companies’ aspirations and course in the light of the demands of different constituencies (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), researchers who study CEOs, top management teams, and corporate boards, and the dynamics among them (Boone et al., 2020; Fu et al., 2020; Georgakakis et al., 2022; Reimer et al., 2018; Scherer & Voegtlin, 2020; Wernicke et al., 2022), have potentially much to contribute to the understanding of why, how, and when companies succeed or fail in profitably pursuing social goals. In view of the high stakes the purpose endeavor entails for companies as well as for society, corporate leaders and the pursuit of purpose is the showcased theme of the 12th edition of this EIASM Workshop.

We encourage the submission of conceptual as well as empirical papers related to the theme – the following list of questions the papers may address is meant to be illustrative only:
  • How do CEO personality and values influence the purpose orientation of firms? For example, what impact do CEO narcissism and CEO espousal of economic liberalism versus conservatism have on the simultaneous pursuit of financial and social goals?
  • What is the effect of TMT composition and dynamics on the purpose orientation of firms? When do demographic, cognitive, and ideological diversity help or hinder balanced attention to financial and social goals? Do TMT interdependencies and faultlines matter?
  • Is the purpose orientation of firms dependent on internal and external corporate governance mechanisms? What role, if any, do factors such as board independence and structure, institutional ownership, government regulations, and media attention play?

Besides theme-oriented papers, as usual, the TMT workshop also invites papers focused on any topic connected to individual top executives and TMTs as a collective. We particularly encourage papers falling into one of the following domains:
  • State-of-the-art literature reviews that encourage debate about, for example, the role and efficacy of corporate leaders; theoretical and empirical challenges for future TMT research.
  • Conceptual papers that combine different or novel theoretical perspectives to explain the antecedents, nature, and consequences of TMT composition in different forms of organization.
  • Empirical papers focusing on topics such as, TMT structure and dynamics, the boundaries of the TMT, interactions and power relations within TMTs and/or between the TMT and other influential internal and external actors (ranging from the board of directors and middle managers to other firms, regulators, politicians, and investors), executive succession and turnover, and executive performance and compensation.

SUBMISSION CLOSED

• Battilana, J., Obloj, T., Pache, A. C., & Sengul, M. (2022). Beyond shareholder value maximization: Accounting for financial/social trade-offs in dual-purpose companies. Academy of Management Review, 47: 237-258.
• Boone, C., Buyl, T., Declerck, C. H., & Sajko, M. (2020). A neuroscience-based model of why and when CEO social values affect investments in corporate social responsibility. The Leadership Quarterly,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101386.
• Fu, R., Tang, Y., & Chen, G. (2020). Chief sustainability officers and corporate social (Ir) responsibility. Strategic Management Journal, 41: 656-680.
• Gartenberg, C., Prat, A., & Serafeim, G. (2019). Corporate purpose and financial performance. Organization Science, 30: 1-18.
• Georgakakis, D., Heyden, M. L., Oehmichen, J. D., & Ekanayake, U. I. (2022). Four decades of CEO–TMT interface research: A review inspired by role theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 33(3): 101354.
• George, G., Haas, M. R., McGahan, A. M., Schillebeeckx, S. J., & Tracey, P. (2021). Purpose in the for-profit firm: A review and framework for management research. Journal of Management, https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063211006450.
• Gulati, R. (2022). Deep purpose: The heart and soul of high-performance companies. London, UK: Penguin Books.
• Hahn, T., Pinkse, J., Preuss, L., & Figge, F. (2015). Tensions in corporate sustainability: Towards an integrative framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 127: 297–316.
• Hambrick, D. C., & Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management Review, 9: 193-206.
• Mayer, C. (2021). The Future of the Corporation and the Economics of Purpose. Journal of Management Studies, 58(3): 887–901.
• Morrison, A. D., & Mota, R. (2021). A Theory of Organizational Purpose. Academy of Management Review, https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0307.
• Reimer, M., Van Doorn, S., & Heyden, M. L. (2018). Unpacking functional experience complementarities in senior leaders’ influences on CSR strategy: A CEO–Top management team approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 151: 977-995.
• Scherer, A. G., & Voegtlin, C. (2020). Corporate governance for responsible innovation: Approaches to corporate governance and their implications for sustainable development. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34: 182-208.
• Volberda, H.W., Sidhu J.S., Vishwanathan, P., Heij, K., & Kashanizadeh, Z. (2022). De Winst van Purpose: Hoe ondernemingen het verschil kunnen maken. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Mediawerf Uitgevers.
• Wernicke, G., Sajko, M., & Boone, C. (2022). How much influence do CEOs have on company actions and outcomes? The example of corporate social responsibility. Academy of Management Discoveries, 8: 36-55.

Deadline for research proposals: January 15, 2023
Notification: as of January 31, 2023 - Notifications have been sent by email on January 31st. If you have not received one contact setyar@eiasm.be 
Registration of authors: February 26, 2023
Deadline for full paper submission: March 26, 2023

VENUE
Leeds University Business School
Esther Simpson Building,
Lyddon Terrace,
Leeds LS2 9 LA
UK

ACCOMMODATION OPTIONS

Crowne Plaza - £139 per night for bed and breakfast on the 26th and 27th April. Rooms at this price are available until end of March based on availbility. 
In order to obtain a room at this rate delegates will need to contact the hotel via phone at +44 (0)113 261 6802 (the hotel cannot book this offer online). They will need to state the dates they want to stay and mention this is for Leeds University Business School. The hotel will then know they’re wanting one of the blocked out rooms. 

Storm Jameson Court - Using code UOLstaff - rate of £40 pppn ( only 9 rooms available, book fast).

Radisson Blu Hotel - Leeds, City Centre

TRAVEL TO LEEDS

Fly to Leeds Airport - https://www.leedsbradfordairport.co.uk/

Fly to Manchester Airport - https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/ + Manchester Airport to Leeds - https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/getting-to-and-from/leeds/

Trains in the UK - https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

ONLINE REGISTRATION

The fees include: participation to the workshop, lunches, coffee breaks, one group dinner, a welcome reception and the necessary workshop documents. 

Cancellations made before April 1, 2023 will be reimbursed minus 20% of the total fee. No reimbursement will be possible after that date.

Payments should be made by :

• The following credit cards: Visa or Eurocard/Mastercard/Access

ADMINISTRATION