LIST OF PANELS

Call for Papers   We invite papers that address the extent, causes and consequences of policies aimed at changing business. These policies can be aimed at specific aspects of corporate behavior such as potential pollution or structural aspects of business with important policy consequences such as the pressures to give stockholders short-term rewards rather than incentivizing long-term investment. We particularly seek papers that explore the extent and efficacy of attempts by NGOs to change corporate behavior without seeking new laws or regulations but by acting directly on corporations utilizing publicity, social media activity and threats of boycotts. We invite papers using any methodology that address policy changes in a single country or comparatively so long as there are clear analytical conclusions.  

Business Policy   This panel explores how, when and why policies are developed that change business.   Particularly since the Global Financial Crisis, reformers have sort to change business. Some of these efforts have focused on changing specific behaviors by corporations such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other reforms have attempted to change the structure of businesses with the hope of producing longer term thinking on strategies such as investment or greater engagement with stakeholders in the community as well as in companies themselves. The various attempts to change the financial sector such as limitations on bonuses or trading on their own account by major banks provide important examples.  The attempts by NGOs to engage and change corporations directly through meetings, boycotts and adverse publicity rather than through seeking new laws or regulations have brought a new dimension to business policy that political scientists have only recently started to analyze. In response, corporations have entered into new policy structures embodying self-regulation, third party certification and engagement with stakeholders that constitute new forms of governance. The panel explores the causes, extent and consequences of innovations n these different types of policy in changing business.