Editorial

Citation

Pesqueux, Y. (2014), "Editorial", Society and Business Review, Vol. 9 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBR-09-2013-0066

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Society and Business Review, Volume 9, Issue 1

This issue is built with six papers.

In “Streamlining humanitarian and peacekeeping supply chains: anticipation capability for higher responsiveness”, Nathalie Merminod, Jean Nollet and Gilles Pache explain that temporary supply chains (TSCs) are extensively used in peacekeeping missions and humanitarian operations, while they have been widely accepted in contexts such as pop up stores and sport events. In fact, TSCs systems could be assembled or disassembled, before being assembled differently according to the planning for each resource, as well as how resources will be integrated. In this case, it is necessary to plan properly so as to best fulfill a need, since what is required is some type of “temporary stability”; the key challenge is to determine how to make the logistical, human and technical resources available. This paper shows that TSCs require an advanced level of time, despite the fact that the circumstances present in this context are both a lack of time and stability. In the humanitarian and peacekeeping supply chains, TSCs are by definition “temporary”. They nevertheless require a very sound structure for the time they last. This paper contributes to discuss this issue.

In “The ongoing monitoring of societal responsibility in management research activities: a secondary analysis and a heuristic instrumentation”, Benjamin Dreveton and Valérie-Inés De La Ville highlight the need to explore the concept of social responsibility at the very heart of research activity. Questioning the social responsibility of research activities in management provides the opportunity to take a fresh look at the criteria used to assess its usefulness. This paper proposes an initial exploration of the following question: how can we characterize the societal responsibility of researchers in management sciences? If each research project is specific (according to its epistemological, methodological and theoretical affiliation), work carried out in management sciences cannot avoid the responsibility for the changes that their models and experiments bring about, not only within companies and organizations, but also beyond the company boundaries. Therefore, the researcher must be aware of the consequences that his work is likely to have for the company to specify its characteristics, particularly when described as “societal”.

In “It takes (more than) two to tango: informal tango market dynamics in Barcelona”, Wafa Khlif and Joanna Pousset study the tango market as a social institution by building on the notion of “globalization from below” as well as social capital theory to understand the market’s dynamics as a part of the Barcelona grey economy and as one that supports immigration settlement and integration. They demonstrate how the resulting social exclusion is the raison d’être of globalization from below, through a cross-cultural symbiotic relationship. They also examine the causes of informal market relations and their impact on the nature of interactions among market participants.

In “What can the corporate world learn from the cellarer? Examining the role of a Benedictine abbey’s CFO”, Martin R.W. Hiebl and Birgit Feldbauer-Durstmüller begin their demonstration according to the fact that Benedictine abbeys are highly stable organizations that have existed for almost 1,500 years. The extant literature ascribes this stability in part to the notion of Benedictine governance, which centers on the rule of St Benedict. An integral part of Benedictine governance is the cellarer, who plays a role comparable to that of a chief financial officer (CFO) in a traditional corporation. Unlike corporations, however, in which the CFO has emerged into a more important role over the past few decades, the cellarer has been an official position in Benedictine abbeys since the introduction of the rule of St Benedict in the sixth century. The present paper explores the cellarer’s role and assesses which parts of it could be reasonably transferred to the corporate world.

In “Sexuality in organizations: an approach based on Georges Bataille’s theory of eroticism”, François De March examines the theme of “sexuality in organizations” according to the theory of eroticism of Georges Bataille (1897-1962). The author reviewed Bataille’s essays in order to identify the salient points of his analysis of eroticism, before applying them to the organizations. The anthropologic notions of prohibition and transgression (antagonistic yet complementary) facilitate a different view of the opposition formulated in critical management studies as between desexualization and resexualization. These notions also open up quite a number of lines of research in the analysis of the sexuality of organizations.

In “Changes in organizational patterns of the Eurobond market: an historical analysis”, Flora Sfez is arguing that at first glance, associating history, organizations and financial markets in the same research may sound a real challenge. The purpose of this paper is to mobilize both historical analysis and organizational theories to show what history can bring to organizational theories using a specific financial market as a case study. What is the Eurobond market over the course of time: an organization-as-a-market or an organization-as-a-firm?

Yvon Pesqueux