AOM Social Issues in Management Division

Hosts: Robbin Derry (Lethbridge) & Sharon Alvarez (Pittsburgh)

Featuring:

Penelope Muzanenhamo (University College Dublin)

Victor Ray (University of Iowa)

Paul T. Harper (University of Pittsburgh)

The panel will examine the role of race in business school curricula and research valuation: what topics matter, which research questions are overlooked, and whose scholarship is cited. Best practices for leading equity and inclusion efforts as well as teaching about racial justice in business schools will also be addressed.

Lead Sponsor: Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh

Call For Papers:

Journal of Business Ethics (Financial Times 50)

Special Issue on “Racial Justice and Business Ethics”

Submission Deadline: October 1, 2021

Guest Editors: Paul T. Harper (Pittsburgh), Robbin Derry (Lethbridge), Gregory Fairchild (Virginia)

https://www.springer.com/journal/10551/updates/18290364

Dr. Penelope Muzanenhamo is an Assistant Professor in Business in Africa specializing in Marketing, and the Africa lead within the Centre for Business and Society (CeBaS) at UCD College of Business. Penelope's research revolves around Vulnerable Market Actors, Sustainable Development and Brand Africa. She is also passionate about integrating Africa in Business curricula, and her efforts have been recognised for instance by Morgan State University, USA, which awarded her a Plaque in 2018.

Penelope holds a PhD from Warwick Business School (WBS), United Kingdom, and two Masters degrees (in Strategic Management and in Business Administration) from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her doctoral thesis investigated the contribution of Brand Africa to Sustainable Development from a diasporan perspective. She has published academic work and opinion pieces, as well as presented at global conferences including the Academy of Marketing, where she won the Best Track Paper Award in 2011. Penelope has also reviewed for several Marketing Conferences, including the Academy of Marketing Science and the Academy of Marketing.

Initially, Penelope joined UCD College of Business in August 2015 as the Proudly Made in Africa (PMIA) Fellow in Business and Development (A position primarily funded by Irish Aid, and co-created by UCD College of Business and the Irish social enterprise, Proudly Made in Africa). As the PMIA Fellow, Penelope's role was to facilitate the integration of Africa in Business curricula. She worked closely with a network of 50 lecturers across Ireland to incorporate content on Africa into 15 Business modules, through designing teaching resources and delivering 90 guest lectures to more than 8200 students over a two-year period. Penelope also co-designed and co-led a number of capacity building workshops for fellow colleagues across Business Schools in Ireland, with the goal to explore and identify approaches for promoting the deeper integration of Africa in Business education. During her term, she also acted as the principal organiser for the Irish Academy of Management Symposium on Shared Value at UCD College of Business in 2016, and 2 national student workshops on Business in Africa in 2015 and 2016 also hosted by UCD College of Business.

Before pursuing an academic career, Penelope worked in the areas of International Project Management, Consultancy and Marketing within both commercial and non-governmental sectors in Zimbabwe, Austria, South Africa and Germany. While working as a Marketing consultant for a boutique Brand Strategy Firm in Germany, Penelope engaged with companies like Redbull, Yahoo, Google, Innocent, Siemens, Swarovski, GE and several banks. Penelope also served as a member of the PragueSummerSchools from 2013 to 2018, where she taught a course on Sustainable Development and Africa to students from across the globe.

Victor Ray’s research applies critical race theory to classic sociological questions. He is currently working on two book manuscripts: a project focused on race and organizational theory and an edited volume (co-edited with Jennifer Mueller) on race and sociological theory writ large. His work has been published in the American Sociological Review, American Behavioral Scientist, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Contexts, Ethnic and Racial Studies, The Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity and Sociological Theory. In addition to this research, Victor is also an active public scholar, publishing commentary in outlets such as The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Boston Review. Victor’s work has been funded by the Ford Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, among others.

Dr. Paul T. Harper is Clinical Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business, where he is a member of the Organizations and Entrepreneurship faculty group. Harper’s principal activities at Katz include research, course development, and program development in the areas of business ethics, entrepreneurship, and strategic management. In addition to earning his PhD and MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, Paul received a BA from Fisk University and a MA from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Harper has developed a research agenda around racial justice where he is interested in understanding the social policies and economic forces that continue to challenge the flourishing of US domestic minority professionals and entrepreneurs. His most recent research publication, “The symbolic imagination: Plato and contemporary business ethics,” explored the connection between the moral imagination and abuses of power by political and economic elites. His current research concerns the value of corporate symbolic speech in response to demands of the Black Lives Matter social movement. Harper is the Lead Guest Editor of a special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics devoted to “Racial Justice and Business Ethics.” He is also the co-chair of the Racial Justice Committee in the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management.

In addition to his work on race, Dr. Harper has become widely known throughout the US and abroad for his work in building partnerships with burgeoning Israeli businesses and other technologically progressive countries through academic and professional engagement. Harper’s Israel programming, for example, includes an MBA-level course, case development, and MBA consulting projects. Professor Harper’s Israel program has received recognition by the Consulate General of Israel in New York and has been covered by regional and national news outlets, such as Bloomberg Businessweek.