Track Description
Over the past decade, the role of business in addressing human rights and broader societal challenges has significantly increased (Raimo et al., 2025; Rogerson et al., 2024; Torelli et al., 2025). Businesses are progressively responding to global sustainability challenges by striving to enhance collective well-being (Torelli, 2021) and integrate sustainability principles into their strategic and managerial decision-making (Fiandrino, 2023). When addressing human rights issues, corporate behaviour is expected to align with internationally recognised standards, particularly the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The UNGPs explicitly connect human rights and business by introducing the principle of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) as a central process through which companies identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for their adverse human rights impacts (Hubers & Thijssens, 2023; Torelli et al., 2025). However, empirical evidence indicates that the extent of practical implementation of HRDD varies considerably across businesses highlighting a weak engagement with HRDD for many firms (Rogerson et al., 2024).

Therefore, it is increasingly important for businesses to approach human rights and societal challenges as strategic opportunities to create sustainable value, enhance stakeholder trust, and support long-term societal resilience. In this regard Brown et al. (2019) highlight that other grand challenges (like e.g. resource scarcity driven by climate change) intensify labour exploitation in vulnerable regions. LeBaron et al. (2021) demonstrate that exploitative labour practices are central to maintaining cost structures in highly polluting industries. Businesses, particularly in industrialised economies, exploit regulatory loopholes and supply chain opacity to outsource unethical and environmentally destructive activities, often escaping scrutiny. For instance, industries such as mining and fast fashion rely heavily on hidden labour forces to achieve unsustainable production targets (Allain et al., 2013). These hidden mechanisms reveal how modern slavery not only sustains but actively enables unsustainability. Building on these insights, Sassen (2016) uses dependency theory to analyse global inequalities, arguing that the perpetuation of exploitative labour practices is structurally embedded in global economic systems. This perspective offers a critical lens for understanding how modern slavery and other societal grand challenges are interconnected at a systemic level. The reliance on vulnerable labour enables companies to externalise both social and environmental costs, thereby perpetuating cycles of exploitation and degradation. Recent contributions to critical management studies have expanded on this intersection. LeBaron et al. (2021) emphasise the role of corporate governance in perpetuating forced labour practices within global supply chains. They argue that businesses often prioritise short-term economic gains over ethical and sustainable operations. Additionally, Allain et al. (2013) explore how the opacity of supply chains facilitates the integration of forced labour into industries that generate significant environmental harm, such as agribusiness and fossil fuel extraction. These findings align with the broader literature calling for enhanced transparency and accountability mechanisms in corporate practices. Sparks et al. (2021) offer an innovative perspective on this nexus by discussing the role of systemic change in addressing both modern slavery and climate change. They contended that piecemeal reforms, such as voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, are insufficient. Instead, systemic approaches that integrate human rights and environmental frameworks are necessary to disrupt the entrenched dynamics of exploitation and degradation. Furthermore, the environmental economics literature highlights the economic mechanisms underlying these dynamics. Resource-intensive industries depend on low-cost labour to offset the high expenses associated with environmental compliance. Brown et al. (2019) argue that this economic logic perpetuates a race to the bottom, where environmental and labour standards are sacrificed to maintain profitability. Such practices are particularly prevalent in industrialised nations, where regulatory frameworks are often inadequate to address the complexities of global supply chains. Recent works have further illuminated the scale of these issues. Crane et al. (2019) explore how corporate complicity enables exploitative practices in global markets. Caruana et al. (2024) argue that modern slavery is embedded in corporate strategies, reflecting broader structural inequalities. Moreover, Strand et al. (2024) stress the need for supply chain transparency, noting how hidden labour fuels unsustainability in resource-intensive industries.

The proposed special track “The evolving role of business in addressing human rights and societal challenges” aims to foster scholarly discussion on how businesses can drive systemic change to address societal challenges. It invites contributions that critically examine how firms operationalize due diligence, manage social risks in complex supply chains, disclose their impacts through sustainability reporting, and measure outcomes aligned with societal and human rights objectives. By integrating insights from business ethics, accountability, and business management research, this track seeks to advance the understanding of how businesses can meaningfully contribute to address fundamental human rights and foster social inclusion and equity.

This track welcomes contributions exploring how businesses integrate, manage, and report on human rights responsibilities across their operations and value chains. Furthermore, this track encourages academics to critically examine the effectiveness of corporate human rights policies, due diligence processes, and reporting practices in promoting responsible and sustainable business conduct. The track aims to foster dialogue between scholars investigating the interplay between corporate governance, ethics, and human rights from multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives. Hereafter there is a non-exhaustive list of potential topics that can be explored within this track, reflecting key human rights, social inclusion, and equity issues relevant to contemporary business practice and research.

We invite contributions employing quantitative analyses, qualitative approaches, or mixed-method designs on the following topics, among others:

• Human rights in the workplace (e.g., diversity, equality, and labor rights)
• Human rights in the value chain (e.g., supply chain due diligence, modern slavery, child labor)
• Due diligence for human rights (e.g., implementation challenges, effectiveness, and regulatory compliance)
• Impacts of the CSRD and ESRS on human rights transparency and disclosure
• Measurement and assessment of corporate human rights performance
• Stakeholder engagement and accountability in human rights practice