Business, Ethics and Collective Memory
Journal of Business Ethics Special Issue Call for Papers
Submissions open on: 01 July 2025
Submission deadline: 01 September 2025
Guest Editors
Ziyun Fan, University of York, Ziyun Fan
Jeremy Aroles, University of York, Jeremy Aroles
Gabrielle Durepos, Mount Saint Vincent University, Gabrielle Durepos
María Fernández Moya, CUNEF University, María Fernández Moya
John Hassard, University of Manchester, John Hassard
Introduction to this Special Issue
The ‘historic turn’ (Durepos & Mills, 2017; Rowlinson et al., 2014) and ‘historical consciousness’ (Suddaby, 2016) in business and management studies have fuelled a rising interest in why and how the past is socially (re)constructed, and its consequences for individuals, organizations, and societies in general. This interest is accompanied by mounting criticisms levelled against the silencing, inaction, and cover-up of organizational wrongdoings and historic irresponsibility (Phillips et al., 2020; Yapici & Dheer, 2024); and of concerns relating to the omnipresent role that major tech companies play in processes of memory formation (Whelan, 2021). In seeking to reveal the use of the past, collective memory emerges as a pivotal construct and practice of scrutiny (Olick, 2008; Olick & Robbins, 1998). Collective memory influences us through selection and re-creation of our knowledge of the past (Decker et al., 2021; Zerubavel, 2003). It is thus best understood as a contingent choice that captures a series of selected moments that shapes the what, how and why of memory, and that creates different, and differently perceived, historical trajectories for individuals and organizations (e.g., Aroles et al., 2024; Fan & Liu, 2022; Mena & Rintamäki, 2020; Wadhwani et al., 2018).
This special issue invites critical examination of the moral agency and ethical complexity of collective memory. We call for interdisciplinary and philosophical research that spans the boundaries of this field by expanding the theoretical and empirical groundwork surrounding the processes of (re)constructing, preserving, and reproducing the past, and of how such (re)constructed pasts impact on individuals, organizations, and societies, in the present and future (Whelan, 2021). In conceiving of collective memory as a perspective, a practice, and also a process, we recognise that collective memory is not necessarily controlled by one specific set of actors: e.g., historians, curators, museums (Coraiola et al., 2018; Wadhwani et al., 2018). It is not the sole privilege of any set of organizations, and can be developed through the (un)coordinated actions of (otherwise disconnected) individuals and organizations. Reconstructing the past thus involves various mnemonic communities (Zerubavel, 2003), and its performance frames how social actors navigate their world (Wadhwani et al., 2018). Although there has been growing research on the performativity of memory and its materiality, critical facets of these elements constitute a largely unfilled agenda.