Corporate Governance: An International Review
Call for Papers for Special Issue
Stakeholder Theory and Responsible Business:
The Future of Corporate Governance
Guest Editors
Asli M. Colpan, Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Japan
R. Edward Freeman, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, USA
Randall K. Morck, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Canada
Submission Deadline: December 1, 2026
The strategic imperative of stakeholder management has become more nuanced in the context of growing political backlash against sustainability and ESG initiatives. Firms increasingly need to navigate not only heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting stakeholder expectations but also contested interpretations of corporate responsibility. Exploring how firms strategically balance stakeholder responsibilities under these conditions is therefore both theoretically and practically urgent. Importantly, the legitimacy of what constitutes "responsible" corporate behavior can no longer be taken for granted; it is increasingly subject to political, institutional, and societal contestation. Together, these developments challenge foundational assumptions in stakeholder theory and underscore the need for renewed theoretical and empirical inquiry. This Special Issue seeks to address these challenges by advancing scholarship on stakeholder theory, responsible business, and corporate governance. We welcome conceptual, empirical, and theory-building contributions that examine stakeholder governance in contemporary institutional environments. We particularly encourage submissions from corporate governance scholars across a range of disciplines, including management, strategy, ethics, finance, accounting and law. Potential themes include, but are not limited to:
1. Strategic Stakeholder Management. Keywords: stakeholder strategy, value creation, ethics, responsible business, fairness, legitimacy, trust, purpose
2. Corporate Governance and Stakeholder Oversight. Keywords: stakeholder-sensitive governance, ESG oversight, board director roles
3. Sustainability & Societal Impact. Keywords: CSR, green innovation, responsible business, grand challenges
4. Stakeholder Theory Foundations and Extensions. Keywords: normative foundations, critiques, ethical reasoning
5. Stakeholder Theory in Global Contexts. Keywords: cross-cultural expectations, institutions, global value chains
6. Stakeholders, Identity, and Organizational Behavior. Keywords: identity, trust, psychological safety, leadership
7. Board Diversity, Gender, and Stakeholder Outcomes. Keywords: female directors, board diversity, stakeholder orientation, legitimacy
Paper submissions to the special issue are to be made via the CGIR website (https://authors.wiley.com/journal/CORG) and will be subject to the CGIR standard double-blind review process. The Special Issue submission window will open on October 1, 2026, and the deadline for submission is December 1, 2026.
For queries about this special issue, please feel free to contact the CGIR Special Issue Guest Editors: Asli M. Colpan colpan.asli.2e@kyoto-u.ac.jp; R. Edward Freeman freemane@darden.virginia.edu; Randall K. Morck rmorck@ualberta.ca
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Alvaro CUERVO-CAZURRA
CEM Professor of Global Sustainability and Professor of International Business and Strategy
Northeastern University, D'Amore-McKim School of Business
360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
a.cuervocazurra@northeastern.eduwww.cuervo-cazurra.com.------------------------------