CALL FOR PAPERS

“Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity: Histories, Principles, Practices”
Cape Town, South Africa
June 27-30, 2003

Papers are sought for a conference that will explore the linkages between two signal contemporary concerns, corporate social responsibility and diversity, by bringing together representatives and stakeholders from across the academy, the corporate sector, trade unions, civil society, and government in the United States, South Africa, and elsewhere. A wide-ranging event, the conference will examine the historical, conceptual, cross-cultural, and comparative issues involved in discussions of corporate ethics, obligations, and engagement with multiple forms of difference in society (such as race, gender, sexuality, religion, language, economic class, ethnicity, and health status). It will serve as an opportunity to examine how corporations reconcile often competing obligations to its investors, customers, employees, local communities, greater society, and the environment. Some of the most pressing topics to be addressed – from environmental standards and scarce natural resources to responsibilities to people with HIV/AIDS and human rights – necessitate interrogation of the fundamental legal and political premises of historical and contemporary social and economic relations. The organizers also invite assessment of how corporate actions and policies engage questions of risk, profit, accountability, and models for success. The goal of the event will be to further understanding of how these dual concerns are crucially intertwined in public discourse, academic research, government policy, and corporate practice in local settings and globally.

Proposals for presentation of papers, case studies, policy statements, and research reports are invited on such topics as:

• Defining Ethics, Values, and Standards for Corporate Conduct
• Corporate Social Responsibility in Africa (both historically and today)
• Negotiating Corporate Responsibility across National, Cultural, and Other Boundaries of Difference
• Human Rights
• Engaging Diversity in Corporate Practice and Success Models
• Corporate Citizenship
• The Environment
• The Corporation as a Social Institution
• HIV/AIDS
• Workers and Trade Unions
• Competing Obligations: Shareholders/Investors versus Communities/Society
• NGOs and Global Organizations
• Corporations and Colonialism
• Media Industries
• Sustainable Development

Organized by the Institute for Intercultural and Diversity Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Cape Town & Diversity Studies Program, Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University

This event is made possible by the major support from the NYU Office of Global Education and the Social Science Research Council’s Program on the Corporation as a Social Institution.

The deadline for receipt of 500-word abstracts is Friday, January 31, 2003. Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail only to the address listed.

Additional details about the event and sponsoring program will be available at our website.