Are refugee crises a grand challenge? How do these impact the relationship between business and society? What can businesses do in addressing these crises? In this e-conversation, I (Sarah Stephen) posed these questions to the Editors of a Special Issue at Business & Society on “Conceptualizing, Theorizing, and Measuring the Contributions of Business to Refugee Crises”.
Read on to get deeper insights from the Special Issue Editors, Alexander Newman (Deakin University), Harry Van Buren III (University of St. Thomas), Charlotte Karam (American University of Beirut), & Colin Higgins (Deakin University) on the refugee crises, how these motivated them to draft this Call for Proposals, the need for academic scholarship on this topic, and their pointers if you are interested in submitting a proposal!
Sarah: What motivated this Call for Papers?
Alex: In undertaking research on the refugee crisis, we saw the positive role that business could play in supporting refugee integration. This motivated the call for papers to unpack the role of business in refugee crises.
Charlotte: The growing numbers of individuals, families and communities forced to flee their homes has been front page news for over a decade. The impact of the global refugee crises has been seen and felt around the world, with images depicting refugees seeking to escape war torn countries such as Syria and Somalia, the internally displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the more recent “human caravan” seeking to escape violence and poverty in Central America. Fed by socio-political and economic instability and war in disparate geographic locations, the crisis continues to deepen and expand with broadening geopolitical strife and rising levels of environmental disasters. As of June 2020, there were more than 26 million refugees and 4.2 million people seeking asylum in the world (UNHCR, 2020). The humanitarian response has been widespread, with international intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies, as well as independent groups mobilizing relief. Much research has emerged examining such efforts; less, however, have focused on similar relief and response efforts by businesses. Our aim for this special issue is to turn our attention to examining the “controversial” roles played by business in responding to the refugee crisis.
My personal motivation is to explore the political nature of this role, and to better understand the significant challenges—institutional, political, ideological, gendered and discursive— created through a business response to the refugee crises. For me, the ways in which business responds to refugee crises is an important question imbued with turbulent geopolitical dynamics and animated by power inequalities of which transnational market flows and business processes is often a central driver. I am interested in problematizing the response to see both the positive humanitarian potential as well as the dangerous risks of co-optation and of deepening the plight of these disadvantaged individuals and communities.
Harry: What motivated me to work on this special issue is witnessing the effects of the Syrian and Palestinian refugee crises in Beirut, where I was a visiting professor for a year. We often think of refugee issues as geopolitical or economic in nature, and they certainly are. But flows and influxes of refugees also have implications for businesses, and businesses in turn can have positive effects on outcomes for both refugees and the societies that are hosting them. To me, this topic is at the frontier of work in the area of business & society.
Colin: Unlike climate change and modern slavery, refugee issues have not yet touched business organisations in a large way. The challenges of the increasing displacement around the world will, however, become one of the defining issues of the 21st century. We don’t yet know how and in what ways business can best respond. What are the implications for business policy and business responsibilities? How do refugee issues and refugee challenges confront our extant knowledge about business (e.g. stakeholders, corporate political activity, legitimacy)? These questions motivate my interest in this special issue topic.
Sarah: Are refugee crises considered as a grand challenge?
Alex: Given the size of the refugee population globally, I would consider refugee crises as a grand challenge that we need to tackle on a global basis. At present there are around 26 million refugees registered with the UN and 4.2 million people seeking asylum.
Harry: Refugee crises are representative of grand challenges for a number of reasons. First, refugee crises involve interlocking causes that are difficult for any one actor to address. Second, refugee crises require innovative thinking across multiple domains of knowledge to address. Third, refugee crises implicate important questions about the roles and responsibilities of different social actors.
To me, refugee crises involve so many issues of concern to those interested in the relationship between business and society—including environmental issues, peace, and economic inequality to name but three—that they are truly a grand challenge for which more scholarly work is urgently needed.
Colin: The refugee crisis is undoubtably a ‘grand challenge’, but it is also largely an invisible one. While it is on the radar, it is somewhat abstract for most people not directly affected. This makes the challenge even more significant – as it presses us to think beyond the immediate instrumental approaches by business and to consider the deeper more fundamental aspects of principles, responsibilities and obligations.
Sarah: How do such exogenous crises impact the relationship between business and society?
Alex: I think exogenous crises may have both a positive and negative impact on the relationship. As can be seen with the recent pandemic, whilst some business organizations have worked closely with governments and the community sector to support disadvantaged groups in society, others have been exposed as looking to benefit from the crisis and/or ignoring the impact of the crisis on the wider society.
Charlotte: From my perspective, refugee crises present a composite and dynamic problematic for the relationship between business and society. From the outset, we are faced with the complexities of defining the parameters of business’s responsibilities to respond to the crises, as well as in terms of being held accountable for perpetuating such challenges. There is much controversy in simply asking this question because on the one hand some would argue that business does not necessarily bear direct responsibility for the refugee crises, while others would argue that business is in fact complicit in fuelling the crises. Both arguments are important to unpack and are promising avenues to think through and raise important questions about the relationship between business and society as well as the content of business responsibilities for the crises. Both arguments also raise questions about how we conceptualize and theorize the relationship between business and society in contexts where there is a large outward and/or inward flow of refugees. In fragile states, where refugees are often hosted, what is the role of business when the government lacks the resources and efficient structures to support refugee needs? In such contexts, are the boundaries of the business-society relationship different from when compared to other states with more efficient and stable government structures?
Colin: In many ways exogenous crises expose the vulnerabilities in the business and society relationship. Business uses a variety of tools to manage issues that fall comfortably within established areas of concern (e.g., strategy). Over the past fifty years considerable work has gone in to understanding stakeholders, lobbying and influence – but less work has gone in to planning for and understanding the unknown.
Sarah: How do businesses intersect with these crises?
Alex: Businesses can play an active role in working with governments to deal with crises through supporting disadvantaged groups. Their actions in relation to crises might have a positive or negative impact on their reputation.
Harry: Businesses also play direct roles in both facilitating immediate relief of refugee suffering, but also as contributors to labour demand and to skill development among refugees resident in their country. They also provide important signals through their activities about inclusion and fair treatment of refugees.
Colin: What is most interesting is how business interacts in this emerging area of concern. Some will be early adopters of several new initiatives – potentially motivated by strategic or legitimacy reasons. Some will be fast followers, and some will be laggards. The speed at which business responds, and which move through the stages will be significant for understanding how business can best respond to these challenges.
Sarah: How can businesses help in addressing these crises?
Alex: I think businesses have a role to play in addressing crises. For example, during the refugee crises, they can play an important role in fostering the economic and cultural integration of people who arrive as refugees. In doing so, they can also benefit from a new diverse labour pool and a new group of consumers for their products.
Charlotte: Many have argued that business can potentially play a transformative role in addressing the crises, citing popular examples of business helping refugees secure shelter and food, access communication technology, attend school and university, or receive training and eventually employment in the formal economy. The longer-term impact of some of these efforts may find that businesses can help to transform the stress that refugees place on socio-economic and political systems into opportunities for positive market growth. This may, in turn, lead to national-level economic development in the long run through, for example, greater integration of refugees in the job market, increasing the likelihood of refugees becoming consumers contributing to potential new “niche” markets that will help boost the economy.
Sarah: Are existing academic scholarship/frameworks addressing the intersection of businesses with the crises? Are there any limitations in current frameworks?
Alex: We have yet to witness much scholarship on the intersection of business with refugee crises. As such we have the opportunity to look at this issue from a variety of theoretical perspectives including stakeholder theory, institutional theory and socio-cultural perspectives.
Harry: One reason to edit a special issue is to foster development of a new and important field of inquiry. We are hoping to attract submissions using a variety of frameworks and research paradigms, and in so doing help to contribute to refugee-related scholarship by inculcating a business-oriented perspective. Existing frameworks in the field of business and society may be limited in addressing refugee crises because the etiology of refugee crises is so complex and varying from crisis to crisis, and the reactions of host countries to refugee crises exhibit similar complexity and contingency.
Colin: There is existing work to draw from – including legitimacy, institutionalisation and resource-dependence theories. Many of these explain how business confronts issues that have past a tipping point and thus demand a response. We’re keen to develop work that brings the refugee issues in to the business sphere. I’m keen to explore some of the discursive work taking place – how does business and others ‘talk’ about refugee issues and what does this ‘perform’ in terms of legitimate actions, roles and identities?
Sarah: To what extent does addressing crises such as this require the insights of multiple disciplines?
Alex: In understanding the effects of refugee crisis we need to integrate insights from different disciplines; cultural, economic and institutional perspectives at the meso level, perspectives from organizational theory, human resource management and strategic management at the macro level, and psychological and sociological perspectives at the micro level.
Harry: Increasingly, business & society research is cross-disciplinary. In understanding the role of business in responding to refugee crises, it will be necessary to develop a body of research that not only crosses multiple disciplines and uses insights from them, but also spans multiple levels of analysis—from micro to meso and macro.
Sarah: What are your hopes for this special issue – for theory and practice?
Alex: We hope to attract a large number of thought provoking theoretical and empirical papers that help us to better understand the role played business in refugee crisis. We hope research will draw on theoretical frameworks to examine how business respond to refugee crises.
Harry: We believe that refugee crises are the kind of grand challenge that requires innovative thinking about the relationship between business & society. We hope that the papers appearing in the special issue are exemplars for scholarship on the role of business in addressing other grand challenges.
Colin: My hope is that this special issue puts refugee issues on the agenda for business and that it stimulates multi-stakeholder and inter-disciplinary work.
Sarah: Any pointers for interested authors who might have good ideas on contributing to this call?
Alex: Please look carefully at the call for papers and consider putting in a proposal by November 20th 2020. We can help you shape that proposal into an article that meets the objectives of the special issue.
Harry: Make sure that your paper addresses a business-related research question. There is a lot of work across multiple domains of inquiry that needs to be done in addressing refugee crises. Our goal is to attract scholarship that addresses what businesses are, can, and should be doing in this domain.
For more instructions, including on the submission process, please refer to the detailed Call here.