Conference Paper Submissions are due JANUARY 31st 2009 for the April 24-26 FERC Conference  

Date: April 24-26, 2009
Location: Hotel Fort Garry, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Information: Reg Litz, rlitz@cc.umanitoba.ca  

The Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba is pleased to invite you to the: 5TH ANNUAL FAMILY ENTERPRISE RESEARCH CONFERENCE (FERC)  

Co-Hosts:
Reg Litz, University of Manitoba (Conference Chair)
Allison Pearson, Mississippi State University (Program Chair)  

Conference Theme:
“Rethinking Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Sustainability and Stakeholder Management: Does Family Make a Difference?”  

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Kenneth Goodpaster, St. Thomas University
Sanjay Sharma, Concordia University  

Submission Information:
While submissions on all topics relevant to family business are encouraged, submissions focusing on the 2009 theme and the Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ) Special Issue (see attached) are especially welcome. Submissions may include extended abstracts (one to five pages) and full-length papers (maximum 12,000 words including references, tables, figures, and appendices). However, only full-length papers will be considered for the special issue.   

The medium for presentation at the conference for all accepted submissions is the scholarly poster with a ‘Best Poster Award’ ($2000) sponsored by LNTyee.  

All submissions are due JANUARY 31st 2009 (acceptances will be sent by 15 March 2009).  

FOBI Research Scholars:
Winning entries from the 2009 Grand Valley State University’s Family Owned Business Institute (FOBI) Research Scholars Program will be announced at the conference (please see http://www.gvsu.edu/fobi/ for more information on the 2009 competition).  

Introducing FERC Publication Boot Camp:
Articles rated highly by the FERC reviewers will invited to present their manuscripts at a special FERC Publication ‘Boot Camp’ where authors will have an opportunity to gain in-depth feedback from senior scholars.  

Contact Information:
FERC 2009 General Inquires: Reg Litz, rlitz@cc.umanitoba.ca
FERC 2009 Submissions Inquiries: Allison Pearson, apearson@cobilan.msstate.edu
BEQ Special Issue Inquiries: Ron Mitchell, ronald.mitchell@ttu.edu

CALL FOR PAPERS: STAKEHOLDER THEORY, ETHICS, CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY & FAMILY ENTERPRISE 

Call for Manuscripts – Special Issue of Business Ethics Quarterly 

Due June 1, 2009 (see instructions below) 

Special Isuue Guest Editors:
Bradley R. Agle, University of Pittsburgh
James J. Chrisman, Mississippi State University
Ronald K. Mitchell, Texas Tech University
Laura J. Spence, Brunel University  

Family enterprises i.e., firms in which members of a family exert significant influence through controlling ownership and/or management, are the most common and pervasive form of business organization throughout the world (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, 1999, Journal of Finance). While most of the small and medium firms are family controlled, founding family members are active in some of the largest firms in the world such as Cargill, Ford, IKEA,  and Wal-Mart. In the S&P 500 firms, family enterprises have been found to out-perform their non-family counterparts (Andersen & Reeb, 2003, Journal of Finance). Research indicates the long term orientation of family enterprises as these firms endure through multiple generations of leaders and industry life cycles (Miller & Le-Breton Miller, 2005, Long Range Planning).  

Two distinct sub-systems of family and business co-exist in family enterprises, sometimes peacefully, and sometimes not so peacefully (e.g., Mitchell, Morse, & Sharma, 2003; Journal of Business Venturing). The differences between the family and business systems are fundamental in nature, and as such cause problems in the ongoing social interface within these organizations and among their stakeholders.  The incidence of misunderstandings, miscommunications, working at cross-purposes, increased politicization of the work roles, misuse of the natural environment, and other social misalignments (Mitchell & O'Neil, 1998, Small Business and Enterprise Development) increase the incidence of social friction (Williamson, 1981, American Journal of Sociology) providing a fertile field for ethical dilemmas, theory-of-the-firm-based problems, and environmental impact.   

Does family involvement in the firm influence how a firm responds to its stakeholder, ethical, and environmental demands?  Although important advances have been made in each of these research arenas generally, limited attention has been devoted to exploring stakeholder/ ethics/ environment issues within family-enterprise research.   

For this conference, and special edition of BEQ (Business Ethics Quarterly), we therefore seek to encourage research that explores one or more points of intersection, that is, how family businesses, and their business families, deal with stakeholder and ethics challenges, some of  which may also include implications for the natural environment. Although not exhaustive, questions of special interest center on the following:  

• What can stakeholder theory contribute to explaining the impact of family involvement in the firm?  
• How might stakeholder theory develop to clarify the diverse and often unpredictable demands of family involvement?  
• To what extent can stakeholder research illuminate the role of gender, family mix, differences among generations, in-law relationships, and different forms of family in family firms? For example, where all groups may consider themselves to be legitimate stakeholders - with high power and urgent needs, how does such added complexity among a so-called “definitive” stakeholder mix invoke new stakeholder theory development?  
• To what extent are there similar or different family- and non-family-enterprise- theories of duty to stakeholders?  
• What are the unique moral challenges that families in business face and what does extant research have to say about how these challenges are met?  
• How do existing theories and frameworks of business ethics or corporate social responsibility apply to firms where family members are involved?  
• What is the role of virtue in the public and private morality found in family enterprise?  
• How is the ethical blue-print of the founder replicated and evolved through succession in family firms? To what extent is leaving an ethical legacy a motivator for founding members of family firms?  
• Do the ethical issues in family firms in developing country contexts differ from those in developed countries? What are the reasons for the difference or lack thereof?  
• Are family firms more or less ethical than non-family firms and if so in what ways? What are the reasons for the difference or lack thereof?  
• How do stakeholder, ethical theories and CSR frameworks relate to the environment and sustainable development in firms where family members are involved?  
• To what extent does being a family-intensive entity influence how environmental sustainability is addressed?  

To address these questions, we seek a broad range of submissions, and encourage conceptual and empirical (quantitative or qualitative) contributions that make use of the various perspectives emerging within the stakeholder, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, environmental, and other literatures in relevant fields of inquiry.  We welcome normative/ philosophical/ critical and conventional social scientific manuscripts.  Both quantitative and qualitative empirical research is encouraged. Manuscripts should ideally make a contribution that justifies their length, but in any event should not exceed 12,000 words including references, tables, figures, and appendices.  

All manuscripts (including submissions via the Family Enterprise Research Conference) should be prepared according to the BEQ guidelines for contributions, because it is expected that submission to the Conference is a valuable opportunity to fine-tune papers before submission to the journal.   

The tentative schedule for both the Conference and the Special Issue is:  

Please contact the following for:
FERC 2009 General Inquires: Reg Litz, rlitz@cc.umanitoba.ca
FERC 2009 Submissions Inquiries: Allison Pearson, apearson@cobilan.msstate.edu
BEQ Special Issue Inquiries: Ron Mitchell, ronald.mitchell@ttu.edu