Income Inequality Research Workshop

Income inequality has become the most notable challenge of our times and business has a clear role to play in it. However, organizational research has been relatively silent on the role of the firm in income equality. Typically economics and policy researchers have examined the role of the state in placing limits on income and redistributing income through taxation as ways to reduce excessive income inequality (Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty & Saez, 2013). Management research has explored decisions about compensation and training (Huselid, 1995), vertical integration (Nickerson & Zenger, 2008), outsourcing, and offshoring (Oshri, Kotlarsky & Willcocks, 2009) – all of which have an effect on income inequality, but has rarely viewed them through the lens of their distributional and social welfare consequences. The human resource management and organizational behavior literatures have been concerned about wage dispersion and its consequences within the firm, but have generally failed to look at its broader social consequences beyond the firm (Greenberg, 2010; Pfeffer, 2010). Similarly, the corporate social responsibility literature has, at best, offered only marginal treatments of income distribution (Utting, 2007). Issues related to living wages, fair trade, and the base of the pyramid have occasionally been explored, but questions about the broader corporate role in fostering inequality remain unanswered (Utting, 2007).

Bringing the firm into research on income inequality is necessary in order to understand the broad range of its social, public health, and environmental consequences (Wilkinson, 2006; Bourguignon, 2000; Coondoo and Dinda, 2008), as well as to understand how such consequences affect firms (Bapuji & Riaz, 2012; Davis & Cobb, 2010). Numerous ways exist to explore the firm-inequality relationship, but a few potential avenues are: the role of unions in wage-setting and in resisting offshoring (Lommerud, Meland, & Straume, 2009), the role of technology and structure (Barley, 1990; Gupta, Chen, & Chiang, 1997), corporate governance and executive compensation (Bebchuk and Fried, 2004) as well as income inequality within and between countries (Freeman, 2011). In addition, organizational research on socio-economic status, gender and racial inequality, and pay dispersion are all clear avenues to extend previous research to examine inequality at the societal level.

We believe that additional high-quality research is needed on topics related to the firm and income inequality and that ongoing collaboration among an enthusiastic group of business and society researchers will help to generate it. This workshop builds on two previous workshops successfully organized and well-received at the annual meetings of Academy of Management (in 2012 and 2013 by one of the co-organizers of this workshop). In this workshop proposal we explain how we propose to accomplish this goal at the IABS 2014 annual meeting in Sydney, Australia.

Workshop Procedures and Format

 At the beginning of February, everyone attending the IABS conference will be invited by e-mail to participate in our workshop by submitting an abstract or overview of an income inequality or related project, study or research.  Workshop participants will submit a 2-3 page, double-spaced abstract or overview of her or his income inequality research project. The research can be an existing paper, a work-in-progress, or a proposed research project. Submissions will be sent to Bryan Husted, one of the workshop organizers, by March 28 who will in turn distribute them to all workshop participants.

 In Sydney, “pre-registered” workshop participants—those who submit their abstracts by the deadline—will work in small groups (we expect 3-5 per group), created by matching up the research interests of the participants. Each table will be led by a facilitator (we are currently contacting and selecting additional workshop facilitators). The facilitator will ensure that the group allocates a reasonable amount of time to each of the submitted projects and that participants provide useful feedback and ideas to each author. Authors will be encouraged to identify key questions or issues they would like to see addressed (e.g., concerns raised by reviewers, difficulties associated with trying to operationalize key variables, or problems accessing particular data). We also want to encourage groups to spend a portion of their time developing and designing new income inequality research projects and collaborations.

 We propose an “open” workshop format. All registrants of the IABS conference are welcome to participate in the workshop with or without pre-registering. We envisage that “drop-in” participants will form a stand-alone group separate from the pre- registered members. They will be free to discuss income inequality research topics independently, without having previously distributed their abstracts to workshop participants. This structure allows the organizers and pre-registered workshop participants to focus their attention on those participants who have prepared in advance of the workshop.

 The goal of the workshop is to bring IABS income inequality researchers and others doing related work on social innovation and poverty reduction together, so that they can improve the quality of their research, develop new ideas and projects, strengthen and enlarge their networks, and increase collaboration. We believe that this effort will result in a body of income inequality research that adds to our understanding of business and society. The workshop should help each participant to move her or his research forward and establish a stronger network of researchers in the field of income inequality.

Workshop Organizers (in alphabetical order)

The workshop will be organized by two IABS members: Andrew Crane of the Schulich School of Business, York University and Bryan Husted, also of the Schulich School of Business, York University, joint with the Tecnologico de Monterrey, and one newcomer to IABS, Hari Bapuji, founding coordinator of the Business and Economic Inequality Forum, University of Manitoba. All organizers conduct income inequality research and contribute complementary areas of expertise. They are well connected with other scholars in the area of income inequality and envisage drawing additional people to the workshop. Andrew Crane is the George R. Gardiner professor of business ethics at the Schulich School of Business of York University. His research and teaching explore new ways of thinking about the social, ethical and environmental dimensions of business. Andy is particularly known for his work on the changing role of the corporation in the global economy, where he has been influential in developing a new view of corporate citizenship that addresses the political roles and responsibilities of business. He has also focused on how ideas of ethics, freedom, and responsibility are communicated and made meaningful by corporations, consumers and other stakeholders through talk and text. Finally, his work has also addressed specific application areas of corporate responsibility, such as forced labour and slavery, competitive intelligence, responsible marketing, nonprofit partnerships, and responsibilities to children. His work has appeared in such journals as the Academy of Management Review, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, and Business Ethics Quarterly.

Hari Bapuji is an Associate Professor at the Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Canada and founding coordinator of the Business and Economic Inequality Forum (www.beif.net). His research and teaching cover strategic management and international business. Hari researches organizational problems that have an effect on society and vice versa. Particularly, his research covers economic inequality, global product safety, and organizational learning. Hari has published numerous scholarly articles that appeared in leading management journals, including Harvard Business Review, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Management Studies, Management and Organization Review, Management Learning, Organization, and Journal of Engineering and Technology Management.

Bryan Husted is currently the Erivan K. Haub Chair in Business and Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto. Among other things, his research has included the examination of income inequality and its effects on different kinds of unethical behavior at the country level of analysis such as corruption and software piracy. His work has appeared in such journals as Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Business Ethics Quarterly, among others. Bryan also holds a joint appointment as a professor of management at the EGADE Business School of the Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico.

Participants

In addition to the three organizers/facilitators, we envisage attracting at least 10 - 15 participants in our workshop. At the end of January we will invite all IABS participants to our workshop. In addition, we will contact several experts in the field of income inequality to help lead discussions:

Shawn Berman, University of New Mexico, [email protected] Robbin Derry, University of Lethbridge, [email protected] Ed Freeman, Darden School, University of Virginia, [email protected] Michael Hadani, St. Mary’s University of California, [email protected] Tony Fang, Monash University, [email protected] Ana Maria Peredo, University of Victoria, [email protected] (facilitator at a similar PDW at AOM in 2012) Srinivas Sridharan, Monash University, Australia (facilitator at a similar PDW at AOM in 2012) Harry van Buren, University of New Mexico, [email protected]

We view our workshop as a first initiative at IABS to provide a platform to discuss new and existing research and to develop an expert network in the field of income inequality. Given the mandate of IABS, we expect this workshop will be well-received. Accordingly, if our workshop is successful, we anticipate repeating our initiative at future IABS annual meetings.

Contribution of Workshop to IABS

This workshop contributes to the objectives of IABS in several ways. First, the IABS conference has a tradition of providing an outlet for work-in-progress, allowing researchers to “float” ideas or research projects at a fairly early stage. Our workshop provides a forum for income inequality researchers to present, discuss, and explore these issues. This format allows researchers to draw on others’ expertise, diverse backgrounds, and knowledge of different research streams (e.g., finance, economics, and management) to address problems or challenges, resulting in higher quality studies.

Second, IABS encourages innovative formats for sessions. The success of the corporate governance workshop at IABS inspired and encouraged us to develop this workshop proposal. Replicating this session format in additional workshops for other research topics fits perfectly with the objectives of IABS.

Finally, supporting a multi-disciplinary network of researchers in the field of income inequality contributes to a larger volume of high-quality, published research by business and society scholars.

References

Alvaredo, F., Atkinson, A. B., Piketty, T., & Saez, E. 2013. The top 1 percent in international and historical perspective. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(3): 3-20. Bapuji. H. & Riaz, S. 2012. Special issue call for papers: Economic inequality and management. Human Relations, 66(4): 613-617. Barley, S. R. 1990. The alignment of technology and structure through roles and networks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1): 61-103. Bebchuk, L. A., & Fried, J. M. 2004. Pay without performance: The unfulfilled promise of executive compensation. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Bourguignon, F. 2000. Crime, violence, and inequitable development, in Pleskovic, B. and Stiglitz, J. (Eds.), Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 1999 (199-220). Washington, DC: The International Bank of Reconstruction and Development /The World Bank. Coondoo, D., & Dinda, S. 2008. Carbon dioxide emissions and income: A temporal analysis of cross-country distribution patterns. Ecological Economics, 65: 375-385. Davis, G.F., & Cobb, J.A. 2010. Corporations and economic inequality around the world: The paradox of hierarchy. Research in Organizational Behavior, 30: 35–53. Freeman, R. 2011. Speech at the OECD Policy Forum on Tackling Inequality, Paris, May 2, 2011. Gupta, A., Chen, I. J., & Chiang, D. 1997. Determining organizational structure choices in advanced manufacturing technology management. Omega, 25(5): 511-521. Huselid, M. A. 1995. The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3): 635-672. Lommerud, K. E., Meland, F., & Straume, O. R. 2009. Can deunionization lead to international outsourcing? Journal of International Economics, 77(1): 109-119. Nickerson, J. A., & Zenger, T. R. 2008. Envy, comparison costs, and the economic theory of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 29: 1429-1449. Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J., & Willcocks, L. P. 2009. The handbook of global outsourcing and offshoring. Palgrave Macmillan: New York. Greenberg, J. 2010. Organizational Injustice as an Occupational Health Risk. Academy of Management Annals, 4(1): 205-243. Pfeffer, J., & Langton, N. 1993. The effect of wage dispersion on satisfaction, productivity, and working collaboratively: Evidence from college and university faculty. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38: 382-407. Utting, P. 2007. csr and inequality. Third World Quarterly, 28(4): 697-712. Wilkinson, R. G. 2006. The impact of inequality. Social Research, 73(2), 711-732.