Our annual workshops provide a forum for open, intimate and inspiring discussions with workshop participants selected based on a highly competitive call for papers. Meeting in the harmonious location of Cavo Perlevos on the island of Kea, Greece, is the heart of Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars. Postponing the 2020 workshop to 2021 due to the pandemic and then changing the June 2021 workshop from physical to virtual, was therefore a tough call. Yet, it turned out to be a very successful event – managing even to create some of the magic of previous workshops by the Aegean Sea!
Not the same as being in Greece but pretty amazing, still!
As articulated by long-term member Professor Tineke Lambooy, Nyenrode University: - During the workshop, I really felt like being in Greece, sitting at the Kea Daughters of Themis workshop table and enjoying the thoughtful and constructive feedback from all participants on our draft papers.
New member of Daughters of Themis, Anne-Marie Weber-Elżanowska, Assistant Professor at the University of Warsaw, reflects on the high academic quality, highlighting the academic excellence of all the participants' contributions: - their papers, their comments to papers by others and the thoughtful, encouraging and constructive way the comments were formulated. I learned such a lot, also about how to develop my own research further. I am so grateful to have been included in this network and can hardly wait for the next Daughters of Themis event!
- There were lots of things that stood out for me about the workshop, says Lilian Moncrieff, Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, - such as the warm and friendly atmosphere and the innovative structure that was used to organise the workshop, including handing our own papers over to others for the presentation – I have never done this before and found it really refreshing, like it was allowing me to step aside and think about whether the paper was saying what I wanted it to. Thanks so much for introducing me to this collective technique – a good representation of the spirit of the workshop, but also just massively helpful for progressing better research!
The global corporate landscape is changing…
The backdrop for the workshop is the way the global corporate landscape has changed in the wake of financial crises, geopolitical risks, and environmental emergencies. Public calls for greater corporate accountability across a wide range of powerful stakeholders – world leaders, institutional investors, bankers, and even our children – emphasise the need for new and sustaining relationships to secure the social foundation for humanity within planetary boundaries. Traditional corporate law and corporate governance theories underlying scholarship, policy, and industry may have lost their significance.
… and theories of corporate law and corporate governance must change, too
The international group of participants of the workshop were selected through a very competitive call for papers. The rich array of topics covered by the papers included in the workshop programme, challenges dominant theories of the modern corporation. Clearly a crucial issue, as current unsustainable corporate behaviour continues to be informed by deeply entrenched norms in corporate law and corporate governance.
Anne-Christin Mittwoch, Assistant Professor at the University of Marburg: - The Daughters of Themis workshop was absolutely inspiring and stimulating. It is more than motivating to know that there are many great scholars working on corporate sustainability in the different jurisdictions of the world. Connecting and comparing our work means a lot for the development of my own research
Critical analyses as a basis for further work
As was highlighted in the discussion, the dominant theories form the basis of some of the most contentious historical debates in corporate legal theory, and inform much of the teachings in law and business schools. The workshop discussion included critical analysis of these still pervasive theories including also alternative or new theories.
Professor Nina Boeger, University of London: - The Themis workshop and network offer a hugely supportive environment for developing critical and innovative thinking around the corporate form – creating the academic frame we need so urgently to make change happen.
Greece workshops in 2022!
The organisers, Dr Carol Liao, University of British Columbia, and Professor Beate Sjåfjell, University of Oslo, warmly thank all the contributors, concluding that the virtual June workshop forms a good basis for further work on the theme of contemporary theories in corporate law and corporate governance. They will follow up by organising another virtual workshop later on in 2021, and then the plan is that the participants of this year’s virtual workshop will meet – finally – in Kea, Greece, in May and June 2022.
An expanded workshop period, 30 May to 8 June, will give room for two workshops in 2022: first the follow-up one on contemporary theories, and second the seventh international Daughters of Themis workshop, on a new topic. A call for papers will be disseminated later on in 2021!
Daughters of Themis remains open to new members from around the world.