Crossing boundaries: The 2023 Business and Modern Slavery Research conference

Modern slavery is a prominent and troubling feature of contemporary business practice yet research on the business of modern slavery has to date remained under-developed, especially in the business and management field (Caruana et al., 2021). In recent years, though, there has been a rapid rise in the quantity and scope of such research, giving rise to significant opportunities to contribute to modern slavery scholarship across disciplinary boundaries and to positively impact policy and practice beyond the boundaries of academia. This conference seeks to provide an opportunity for researchers of business and modern slavery to come together to share the progress they have made, to help one another to enhance the quality of their work, and to forge relationships that will enable them to cross boundaries between academic disciplines and between research and practice.

The conference will include keynote presentations from leading international scholars, and plenary sessions with panels comprising policy makers and practitioners, funders, editors, and scholars from different disciplines. Those whose abstracts are accepted for presentation will be able to present in parallel paper sessions to get feedback on their research. There will be mentoring sessions for PhD students and early career researchers where they will be paired with experienced senior scholars and there will also be a post-conference workshop dedicated to providing in-depth feedback on working papers by senior scholars.

Costs and prices for the conference are to be announced at a later date.

Submissions of abstracts are invited on any aspect of business and modern slavery, including supply chain responsibility, accountability and reporting, strategy, ethics and social responsibility, marketing and consumer behaviour, technology and operations, innovation and entrepreneurship, finance and investment, and legal and public policy issues governing business and modern slavery. Abstracts can be summaries of completed papers, works in progress, or proposals for future projects. Abstracts for consideration should be submitted by emailing CBconference@bath.ac.uk by 1 May 2023.

Submission guidelines

• Abstracts should be approximately 500-1000 words in length, excluding title, authors, figures, tables, and references.
• All abstracts and full papers should be submitted as a Word document using 12pt Calibri or Times New Roman font.
• Please use double spacing and normal (2.54 cm) margins throughout and include page numbers.
• Please include the abstract/paper title and all author names and the email address of the corresponding author on page 1 of the abstract or paper (they will NOT be reviewed anonymously).
• Please name the submitted file using the family name of the corresponding author followed by CB2023, i.e. “FamilynameCB2023.docx” and send by email to CBconference@bath.ac.uk.
• You may submit more than one abstract. If so, simply use the convention Familyname1, Familyname2 in the file name.

For those seeking more in-depth feedback on their work, we will be hosting a post-conference workshop on September 22, 2023 where senior scholars will provide “friendly reviews” of draft papers on a one-to-one basis with authors. These papers can be the same or different to those submitted as abstracts to the main conference. To apply for the post-conference workshop, you need to submit a full draft paper (approximately 5,000-10,000 words) by July 17, 2023 to CBconference@bath.ac.uk. Acceptance of papers will be competitive based on our evaluation of the quality and potential of the manuscript. Papers outside the suggested length are also less likely to be accepted for the workshop.

Workshop attendees must be registered for the main conference. There will be no additional charge for attending the workshop

Professor Andrew Crane

Michael Rogerson

• May 1: Deadline for submission of abstracts (500 - 1000 words).
• June 30: Early bird registration deadline .
• July 17: Deadline for submission of full papers for post-conference workshop (approx. 5,000 - 10,000 words).
• Aug 31: Conference registration deadline.
• Sep 20-22: Conference and post-conference workshop. Conference will run 09.00-17.00 on Sep 20 and 21.
• Post conference workshop will run 09.00-13.00 on Sep 22.