Speaking Across Silences: The Structural and Material Intersections of Business, Violence, and Ethical Responsibility

Steffen Böhm, Premilla D’cruz, Ernesto Noronha, Konan A. Seny Kan () and Baniyelme Zoogah
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Steffen Böhm: University of Exeter
Premilla D’cruz: IIM Ahmedabad - Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
Ernesto Noronha: IIM Ahmedabad - Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
Konan A. Seny Kan: EM - EMLyon Business School
Baniyelme Zoogah: McMaster University [Hamilton, Ontario]

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Abstract: This curated essay collection examines the structural and material intersections between business, violence, and ethical responsibility. Bringing together diverse perspectives, the essays collated here challenge the tendency within business ethics to treat violence as external to economic activity or as a purely political phenomenon. Instead, the contributions reveal how firms, markets, and organizational practices are deeply entangled in systems of structural violence. The essays address corporate reporting and infrastructural injustice in water governance, the political economy of conflict and resource extraction in Africa, the ethical dimensions of food-related violence, from starvation to food waste, and the moral responsibilities of business ethics scholars confronting violence within postcolonial contexts. This essay collection is an intervention; it calls for an expansion of business ethics scholarship to confront silences surrounding structural and material violence and to engage more directly with questions of power, complicity, and ethical responsibility in contemporary global systems marked by severe injustices.

Keywords: Business of violence; Ehtical responsibility; Complicity; Food-related violence; Conflict economies; Corporate reporting; Structural violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04-01
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Published in Journal of Business Ethics, 2026, 205 (1), pp.19 - 33. ⟨10.1007/s10551-026-06298-5⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05603060

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-026-06298-5

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