“ESG as the latest entrant to the alphabet soup: The challenges and dynamics of Business & Society research”
by Dirk Matten
York University
Place: MA-330
Abstract
ESG (‘Environment, Social, Governance’) has recently joined the many labels in the ‘Business & Society’ field. I will critically assess the emergence of ESG, the reasons for such new language, and the challenges it poses. In doing so, I will relate my ongoing research work to three core questions that have been defining for the ‘Business & Society’ field for the last 40 years. (1) What is the status of the business case versus the moral case for business responsibility to society? (2) What are the dynamics of business responsibility, temporarily and comparatively? (3) What are the implications of Business & Society research for ongoing work in the field, and for the notion of business in mainstream business/management research?
Bio
Dirk Matten holds the Hewlett-Packard Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the Schulich School of Business, York University in Toronto, Canada. He is also the founding director of Schulich’s Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business and was instrumental in making his school one of the world’s top ranked institutions in sustainable business research and education. He has a doctoral degree and the habilitation from Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf in Germany.
Prof. Matten has published 30 books and edited volumes as well some 100 journal articles and book chapters which are cited widely and received numerous international awards. For instance, his 2008 paper on ‘Implicit and Explicit CSR’ (with J. Moon) has won the “Academy of Management Review Paper of the Decade” Award, for. He also received the Max Weber-Award for Business Ethics from the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft, Berlin, for his textbook “Business Ethics” (with A. Crane, OUP). In 2023, he was ranked in the top five scholars in Political Science in Canada by research.com
He has a truly global focus in his approach on CSR, having taught and done research at academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Turkey, and the USA. In 2018/19 he held the prestigious Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business at Trinity College of the University of Melbourne. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of London, the University of Nottingham, and Copenhagen Business School.
