Turning Irresponsibility into Responsibility - How Communities can Leverage Collective Memories of Corporate Irresponsibility to Produce Responsible Actors

This project is now closed. The details below are for information purposes only. View our current projects here.

Applications are invited for a self-funded, 3 year full-time or 6 year part-time PhD project, to commence in October or February.

This PhD will be based in the Faculty of Business and Law, and will be supervised by Dr Hamid Foroughi and Professor Diego Vazquez-Brust.

Corporate irresponsibility is understood as intentionally irresponsible strategies, decisions, or actions, which negatively affect an identifiable stakeholder or the environment (Keig et al. 2015, Strike et al. 2006). Some scholars argue that a growing international emphasis on sustainability will force businesses to abandon irresponsible practices and adopt social responsibility in their core strategy (Aguilera 2007, Othman et al. 2011).

Critical scholarship on the topic, however, argues that companies either lack the skills or motivation to effectively address sustainability challenges (Crilly et al, 2012). Their responses to isomorphic forces are often reduced to window-dressing (Lin, 2010, Shevchenko et al, 2016). They suggest that corporations change course only if they are subject to a stronger set of regulatory controls.

On the contrary, research on stakeholder engagement argues that community’s active involvement can compel organizations to react and transform their patterns of thought, behaviour and social relationships to pursue a more sustainable development model (Stephan et al. 2016).

These studies encourage investigations into how communities can hold companies accountable by demanding a concrete change in corporate responsible behaviour. They highlight the role of reputational actors, who can leverage organizational concern for reputation to bring about a change in how organisations think about their responsibility (see Fine 2012) and engage in truly sustainable activities to rectify their reputation (Jackson et al. 2014) and neutralise public hostility (Lange & Washburn 2012).

One major challenge faced by reputational actors is that events of corporate irresponsibility are often forgotten soon after the immediate visible effects of the events are dissipated. Mena et al. (2016) argue that this is partly because corporations are actively involved in ‘forgetting work’; that is, attempts to erase or diffuse memories of corporate irresponsibility by attempting to discredit ‘mnemonic actors’, eliminate ‘mnemonic traces’ or to dissociate with the events.

Their research highlights the need for future research to explore ‘memory work’- symbolic activities in order to maintain and propagate a public memory - in order to promote corporate responsibility. This project sits within this context, and aims to explore it.

References

1. Crilly, D., Zollo, M., & Hansen, M. T. (2012). Faking it or muddling through? Understanding decoupling in response to stakeholder pressures. Academy of Management Journal, 55(6), 1429-1448.
2. Jackson, G., Brammer, S., Karpoff, J. M., & Lange, D., Zavyalova, A., Harrington, B. (2014). Grey areas: Irresponsible corporations and reputational dynamics. Socio-Economic Review, 12(1), 153-218.
3. Lange, D., & Washburn, N. T. (2012). Understanding attributions of corporate social irresponsibility. Academy of management review, 37(2), 300-326.
4. Mena, S., Rintamäki, J., Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2016). On the forgetting of corporate irresponsibility. Academy of management review, 41(4), 720-738.
5. Shevchenko, A., Lévesque, M., & Pagell, M. (2016). Why firms delay reaching true sustainability. Journal of Management Studies, 53(5), 911-935.

Fees and funding

Funding availability: Self-funded PhD students only. 

PhD full-time and part-time courses are eligible for the UK Government Doctoral Loan (UK and EU students only – eligibility criteria apply).

2022/2023 fees (applicable for October 2022, February and April 2023 start) 

PhD and MPhil

UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man students 

• Full-time: £4,596 (may be subject to annual increase)
• Part-time and part-time distance learning: £2,298 (may be subject to annual increase)

EU students
(including Transition Scholarship)

• Full-time: £4,596 (may be subject to annual increase)
• Part-time and part-time distance learning: £2,298 (may be subject to annual increase)

International students

• Full-time: £17,000 per year (may be subject to annual increase)
• Part-time and part-time distance learning: £8,500 per year (may be subject to annual increase)

All fees are subject to annual increase. If you are an EU student starting a programme in 2022/23 please visit this page.

Bench fees

Some PhD projects may include additional fees – known as bench fees – for equipment and other consumables, and these will be added to your standard tuition fee. Speak to the supervisory team during your interview about any additional fees you may have to pay. Please note, bench fees are not eligible for discounts and are non-refundable.

Enquiries

If you have project specific enquiries, please contact Dr Hamid Foroughi (hamid.foroughi@port.ac.uk) to discuss your interest before you apply, quoting the project code.

How to apply

When you are ready to apply, you can use our online application form and select ‘Business and Management’ as the subject area. Make sure you submit a personal statement, proof of your degrees and grades, details of two referees, proof of your English language proficiency and an up-to-date CV.

Please also include a research proposal of 1,000 words outlining the main features of your proposed research design – including how it meets the stated objectives, the challenges this project may present, and how the work will build on or challenge existing research in the above field.

Our ‘How to Apply’ page offers further guidance on the PhD application process.

To be considered for this self-funded PhD opportunity quote project code BUSM4500219 when applying.