ARCS - 17th Annual Research Conference 2025

The S&O Institute is excited to host and celebrate the seventeenth Annual Research Conference of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS), a consortium of universities and individuals that serves as a professional society of scholars studying the interface between business and sustainability. Our Annual Research Conference brings together researchers from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives who seek to advance the state of the field.

Call for Papers

The conference welcomes unpublished working papers focused on business and sustainability (both social and environmental) from all disciplines and research areas. Papers drawn from economics, finance, law, operations, organizational theory, political science, psychology/decision-making, sociology, strategy, and other fields are within the realm of the conference. We are receptive to a wide range of perspectives and methods, including empirical research (quantitative and qualitative), theory development, formal theoretical modeling, and experimental methods. We are particularly interested in papers that have implications for management, organizations, and policy.

Examples of suitable topics for the ARCS Conference include: non-market strategy, climate change management, sustainability reporting and disclosure, green supply chains, green marketing, sustainable finance, renewable energy investments, business/NGO partnerships, sustainable mobility, social dimensions of sustainability such as inequality, fair wages and working conditions, social and environmental justice, ESG investing, cleantech innovation, green entrepreneurship, sustainable natural resource management, and “base of the pyramid” development strategies.

We especially encourage submissions from junior scholars and scholars from the Global South as well as corporate sustainability research on the Global South.  Our expectation is that accepted papers will be presented live at the conference.

The ARCS community has a long tradition of being welcoming and supportive of its most junior scholars. The one-day PhD Development Workshop is a highlight of the ARCS Conference and a unique opportunity for PhD students to obtain valuable, constructive feedback on their work from faculty and peers. In addition, junior scholars also benefit from career advice and networking opportunities with the ARCS Board and Steering Committee members. This year’s workshop will take place on Sunday June 1st, 2025 at HEC Paris Alumni Office, 9 avenue Franklin Roosevelt 75008 Paris, France. 

SUBMISSION INFORMATION: DEADLINE ON JANUARY 20, 2025

The paper submission deadline for both parts of the conference (the PhD Development Workshop and the Conference Presentations) is Monday January 20, 2025; the program will be announced in early March 2025.

Please submit using the paper submission portal

Additional information is available on the ARCS website.

The ARCS Conference features different types of sessions, described below. All authors of submissions accepted will be listed in the program. Submitting a paper implies your commitment to review other submissions if asked by the conference committee.

• Part I – PhD Development Workshop (one day): The one-day PhD Development Workshop is a highlight of the ARCS Conference and a unique opportunity for PhD students to present their work and obtain valuable, constructive feedback on their work from faculty and peers. In addition, they also benefit from career advice and networking opportunities with the ARCS Board and Steering Committee members.
• Part II – Presentation Slots (20-30 minutes): These provide presenters the opportunity to present their research and obtain feedback from a highly engaged audience in one of the two parallel sessions.
• Part III – Research Sketches (5 minutes): These are short presentations that sketch the presenter's research question and approach and present some central findings. These sketches are presented in a plenary session, providing an opportunity for the entire conference audience to engage with your work. 

Submission Guidelines

Submissions must be working papers not yet accepted for publication. Papers should be journal-article length and include an abstract. Supplements can be included. You can submit up to two papers in total. Please submit papers without names of authors or other identifying information as reviews will be double-blind.
If you are a PhD Student submitting your work to the PhD Development Workshop, you will also be requested to submit your CV in the paper submission portal. 

Conference Awards

Two types of awards will be presented at the Conference:

• ARCS Best Paper Award: The Award Committee will select one paper for the Best Paper Award. This award will be based on the research paper's potential impact on management practice and rigor of analysis. All submissions will automatically be considered for this award.
• ARCS Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award: The ARCS Emerging Sustainability Scholar Award recognizes a scholar in the area of corporate sustainability, who is likely to make significant contributions to the advancement of corporate sustainability scholarship. The award is granted in recognition of a scholar’s existing body of research and in anticipation of future work. Recipients provide rigorous and salient contributions that cross disciplinary and national boundaries.

Conference Logistics

• Conference Location: Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, la Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre, 9A Boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris – France
• Airport : Paris-Charles de Gaulle and  Paris-Orly Airports
• Conference Chair: Rodolphe Durand, Professor, Strategy & Business Policy at HEC Paris and co-founder of the hosting S&O Institute
• Conference hotel: A list of hotels near the venue is available here.

Contact Information

For all questions regarding the conference and/or the conference program, please e-mail arcs2025@hec.fr

About ARCS

The Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) aims to advance rigorous academic research on corporate sustainability.

• Individual Members: Faculty members, doctoral students, and researchers from any university, academically oriented institute or think-tank are welcome to become ARCS individual members. ARCS membership includes networking opportunities and access to seminar series.
• Institutional Members: Universities, subunits of universities, and non‐profit organizations that have research as their primary activity and that are determined to advance ARCS’ scholarly mission are welcome to become an ARCS Institutional Member. (View the list of current Institutional Members of the ARCS).

For more information, including individual and institutional membership details, click here.

We look forward to receiving your paper submission for the 2025 ARCS Conference!
- The ARCS Conference Program Committee

Rodolphe Durand, HEC Paris
Magali Delmas, UCLA
Caroline Flammer, Columbia University
Witold Henisz, University of Pennsylvania
Michael Lenox, University of Virginia
Yuxia Zou, Nanyang Technological University