Time to check out of the researchers’ chambers
I remember when I as a fresh PhD student took part to my first international business ethics conference. Everything was exciting; the program was full of topics I was interested in hearing more, the conference attendees included people whose papers I had been reading and the program further featured number of topics I had never heard of. During the next years, I continued to take part in several international conferences.
When taking retrospective look to those days, I find that the most important thing for me was to develop connections not only with renowned, experienced scholars, but with other junior scholars from my field. We noticed how we struggled over similar issues and topics.
Nowadays our ’PhD bunch’ is scattered around the world in different universities and public and private organizations. What it means is that Iam a part of an international network based on friendship and collegiality. Without participation to PhD workshops and conferences I doubt I would be in this extremely lucky position of knowing so many intelligent and interesting scholars and practitioners.
Some of my colleagues in business schools who do not work in the field of ethics sometimes perceive that business ethics discussion is only about ancient Greece, embedded in time that would hold little relevance in the current era. However, the discussion about what is good and what is bad never grows out of importance or fashion. More importantly, business ethics as a field of research has not only grown in importance during the global era but has further become much more diverse. Yet much remains to be developed, researched and discussed. It is crucial to remember that such development depends on new members coming into the field and finding and developing their viewpoints within and across their “own bunches”. In EBEN AC 2019, we seek to offer a platform for junior scholars to become members of our diverse group, engage with scholars and share their viewpoints and challenges that take the field forward.
On behalf of the EBEN Executive committee, therefore warmly welcome you to submit your proposals to PhD workshop.
See you in Valencia!
Marjo Siltaoja is Senior Researcher in Corporate Environmental Management (CEM) at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics (JSBE)