SMS Special Conference Hong Kong 2026 - Stakeholder Governance: New Implications for Organizations and Society

The SMS Special Conference 2026 will be held in Hong Kong from June 28-30 (sponsored by PolyU Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University).

The conference will feature three academic keynote speakers: Professors R. Edward Freeman, Anita McGahan, and Witold Henisz, and a series of prominent academic panelists. It will also engage with distinguished practitioners across various industries to share their experiences on stakeholder governance.

CONFERENCE THEME

The firm is a nexus of relationships among its primary stakeholders. How should firms manage those relationships to create value, and how can stakeholders shape the way the firm evolves? These questions form the core of the growing stakeholder governance research stream. Over the last decade, it has involved scholars from diverse management fields (strategy, finance, organization theory, ethics) and has been fueled by massive interest from the business community.

Stakeholder governance generally focuses on core issues that are involved in the allocation of (formal and informal) rights – including ownership rights, rights to manage, and decision rights – in organizational life. At the most specific level, this topic describes how to weigh and consider the input from various stakeholders as organizations act. At the broadest level, it describes how the form of the organization itself (e.g., as a corporation chartered in a particular place, or as an entrepreneurial start-up seeking funding from venture investors) sets the terms by which stakeholder engagement must occur. Under this conceptual framework, stakeholders may include investors, community members, employees, customers, distributors, suppliers, and contract workers, among others. The stakeholder governance perspective focuses on how the organization’s core operations—including its central mission and purpose—are influenced by the enfranchisement of these diverse stakeholders.

Despite progress in this area, significant gaps remain that limit both its empirical relevance and managerial usefulness. Some of these challenges are rooted in microfoundations. Investigating the microfoundations of stakeholder governance requires attention to individual-level motivations, cognitions, behaviors, and interactions, all of which are shaped by broader organizational governance structures and processes. At the same time, critical questions arise at the macro level. We still know little about how stakeholder conflicts and governance arrangements influence firm behavior and performance. Moreover, connections between micro- and macro-level analyses remain underdeveloped. Against this backdrop, the primary purpose of the conference is to provide a platform for cutting-edge research on stakeholder governance and to foster an explicitly interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars representing diverse perspectives.

The SMS submission system is now open. Please consider submitting your work to the conference by January 6, 2026!

For details, please visit our website.

We look forward to welcoming you to the beautiful Hong Kong next June!