Charlotte M. Karam | University of Ottawa | Université d'Ottawa (original) (raw)
Papers by Charlotte M. Karam
PLOS ONE
Introduction Gendered differences in career paths of medical graduates persist globally. We aim t... more Introduction Gendered differences in career paths of medical graduates persist globally. We aim to explore the impact of domestic tethers on the career paths of physicians by studying gendered differences in domestic burdens of physicians as well as differences in perceptions around the impact of domestic work on professional advancement. Methods A web-based survey including 38 questions was sent to all 3866 physician alumni of the top academic medical school in Lebanon. Data was collected between November 2018 and January 2019, with up to three invite reminders. Overall, 382 were included in the final analysis, 124 women (32%), 258 men (68%). Results The study had a response rate of 10.4%. Findings show that a greater percentage of men were married and had children (77.5% vs 62.1%, p = 0.004, 77.9% vs 51.6%, <0.001, respectively). Majority of both women and men held full-time positions (82.1% and 87.1%), having children however reduced the odds significantly [OR = 0.2, 95% CI: (...
Business Ethics Quarterly, 2013
ABSTRACT:This paper explores how corporations, through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR... more ABSTRACT:This paper explores how corporations, through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, can help to effect positive developmental change. We use research on institutional change, deinstitutionalization, and institutional work to develop our central theoretical framework. This framework allows us to suggest more explicitly how CSR can potentially be mobilized as a purposive form of institutional work aimed at disrupting existing institutions in favor of positive change. We take the gender institution in the Arab Middle East as a case in point. Our suggestion is that the current context of the Arab Spring, which combined with increasingly obvious endogenous institutional contradictions, has created a fertile ground for shaping change processes within the gender institution. Finally, we provide concrete examples of CSR initiatives that regional corporate actors can engage in for positive developmental change supporting women.
Journal of Business Ethics
To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chie... more To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greate...
Introduction. Corporate social responsibility in developing countries: a development-oriented app... more Introduction. Corporate social responsibility in developing countries: a development-oriented approach Dima Jamali, Charlotte Karam and Michael Blowfield 1. A corporate social responsibility calculus: Global dialogue and local discourses Duane Windsor 2. Bridging the governance gap with political CSR Ismail Adelopo, Kemi Yekini and Lukman Raimi 3. Operational intent and development impact in mining Deanna Kemp, John Owen and Vimala Dejvongsa 4. The headquartering effect in international CSR Ralph Barkemeyer, Frank Figge and Lutz Preuss 5. Indigenous communities and mega-projects: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consultation-consent principles Jacobo Ramirez 6. Migrants' engagement in CSR: The case of a Ghanaian migrants' transnational social enterprise Daniela Bolzani and Selenia Marabello 7. CSR, mining and development in Namibia David Littlewood and Jo-Anna Russon 8. CSR and the development deficit: Part of the solution or part of the problem? Nonita Yap 9. Socia...
Journal of Business Ethics
In this article, we conceptualize the under investigated and under theorized relationship between... more In this article, we conceptualize the under investigated and under theorized relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and business responsibility. As an urgent social issue, IPV—understood as abuse of power within the context of an intimate partner relationship, mainly perpetrated by men and involving a pattern of behavior—has been studied for decades in many disciplines. A less common yet vital research perspective is to examine IPV as it relates to the business and to ask how organizations should engage with IPV. In response to this question, we contribute a framework drawing from two distinctions in the business responsibility scholarship: the assumed role of the organization (responsibility to the firm/market; responsibility to the broader socio-political-economic environment); and the second focused on the approach to conceptualizing ethics (justice/fairness; ethics of care). Thus, we explicate four approaches to business responsibility and IPV, which serve the purp...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018
In recent years, there have been visible increases in gender balanced corporate governance struct... more In recent years, there have been visible increases in gender balanced corporate governance structures globally following the introduction in many countries of mandatory quotas for women’s participation on corporate boards (MSCI survey, 2014). The implementation of gender quotas begins to address longstanding issues related to gender-biases and underrepresentation, both issues that are of increasing interest to practitioners and researchers alike. In this proposed symposium, we adopt a multi- country perspective and discuss the parameters of implementation for mandatory quotas in different context. We explore the perceptions of various stakeholders about how and why women are appointed to boards, who are the women being appointed, what are some of the perceived multi-level challenges to serving on boards, and what are the measures of successful performance. This symposium brings together five papers authored by 15 scholars from 5 different countries and 11 different institutions glob...
Research Handbook on New Frontiers of Equality and Diversity at Work, 2022
The relationship between dimensions of individual level culture-related variables (social axioms)... more The relationship between dimensions of individual level culture-related variables (social axioms) and the categorization of organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) as in-role versus extra-role was explored within a Canadian sample. In order to appropriately address levels-of-analysis issues, this study focused on the relationship between two variables at the same level of analysis: individual social beliefs and individual perceptions of what constitutes OCB. Results indicate that the extent to which each of the OCB dimensions were viewed as in-role versus extra-role varied considerably among participants and that this variation could in part be predicted by social beliefs. The implications of understanding culture\u27s effect on employee work behaviours and attitudes are discussed
Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) refers to using the best available evidence when making manager... more Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) refers to using the best available evidence when making managerial decisions. There is limited knowledge about the EBMgt process in different contexts. As such, the aim of the study is to build a grounded model that can help us better understand the evidence-based decision-making process and its contextual nuances within hospital settings. We explored the following three research questions among managers in hospital settings: (1) How is the EBMgt process manifested in practice? (2) What are the sources of evidence in EBMgt? (3) What contextual factors influence the process of EBMgt? To answer these questions, we collected qualitative data from executive managers working in multiple hospitals across Lebanon and used it to develop a grounded model of the EBMgt process. We collected data through interviews and the critical incident technique.
SAIS Review of International Affairs, 2021
Some feminist scholars have asserted that nominal representation does not secure substantive repr... more Some feminist scholars have asserted that nominal representation does not secure substantive representation for gender equality and that the mere presence of more women in politics does not necessary lead to inclusive policies. This assertion makes sense because advancing gender equality and equitable opportunities requires a strategy to address intersectional forms of oppression, a systemic requirement that was historically lacking across much of the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. More recently, on the eve of the twenty-sixth anniversary of the 1995 Beijing Conference, governments across the region are laying claim to substantive advances in gender mainstreaming and to increasing the presence of women in political institutions, particularly in the resource-rich gulf. Despite the rush to support gender-inclusive policies, MENA governments did not bring the level or kind of gender equality and inclusion envisioned. This article explores the ways in which state femin...
Development-Oriented Corporate Social Responsibility Volume 2: Locally Led Initiatives in Developing Economies
Comparative and International Education, 2017
In this chapter, and stemming from our position as academic researchers and as women living and w... more In this chapter, and stemming from our position as academic researchers and as women living and working in the Arab Region, we engage in a critical reflexive exercise that echoes our feminist standpoint. We aim to tackle and debunk some of the assumptions that often underpin research on women’s careers in our region. Such assumptions may find strong support in a Western context, but they do not necessarily hold in a different socio-cultural and political context.
Organization Studies
In this editorial for our Special Issue, we focus on ways to better understand the role of organi... more In this editorial for our Special Issue, we focus on ways to better understand the role of organizations, organizing, and the organized during social and institutional change in response to disruption, division, and displacement. The papers in this Special Issue provide important insights into the hardships and heartache arising from social disruption, division, and displacement; in addition, they provide glimpses into potential ways of moving forward. To set the stage, we develop a framework building on extant literature that highlights several analytic approaches to understanding the consequences of eroding, or inadequate, institutions, the challenges of building anew when the status quo is destroyed, and what such novel and complex realities entail for organizational analysis. We offer a temporal view of responses to disruption, division, and displacement that draws on the papers in this Special Issue to identify and explain potential risks and challenges that arise at different ...
In this symposium, we aim to capture the cultural systems and power dynamics underlying discussio... more In this symposium, we aim to capture the cultural systems and power dynamics underlying discussions around sexual harassment in various societal contexts. We adopt a feminist standpoint situating s...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2016
Patriarchy is an omnipresent institution that limits the paid work opportunities of women and leg... more Patriarchy is an omnipresent institution that limits the paid work opportunities of women and legitimizes women’s unpaid work within the home. Using notions of institutional logics and legitimacy j...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012
Women tend to make up the largest portion of the informal labor force and women in the Arab regio... more Women tend to make up the largest portion of the informal labor force and women in the Arab region are no different (Carr & Chen, 2004). Indeed, women remain concentrated in hidden areas of the inf...
PLOS ONE
Introduction Gendered differences in career paths of medical graduates persist globally. We aim t... more Introduction Gendered differences in career paths of medical graduates persist globally. We aim to explore the impact of domestic tethers on the career paths of physicians by studying gendered differences in domestic burdens of physicians as well as differences in perceptions around the impact of domestic work on professional advancement. Methods A web-based survey including 38 questions was sent to all 3866 physician alumni of the top academic medical school in Lebanon. Data was collected between November 2018 and January 2019, with up to three invite reminders. Overall, 382 were included in the final analysis, 124 women (32%), 258 men (68%). Results The study had a response rate of 10.4%. Findings show that a greater percentage of men were married and had children (77.5% vs 62.1%, p = 0.004, 77.9% vs 51.6%, <0.001, respectively). Majority of both women and men held full-time positions (82.1% and 87.1%), having children however reduced the odds significantly [OR = 0.2, 95% CI: (...
Business Ethics Quarterly, 2013
ABSTRACT:This paper explores how corporations, through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR... more ABSTRACT:This paper explores how corporations, through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, can help to effect positive developmental change. We use research on institutional change, deinstitutionalization, and institutional work to develop our central theoretical framework. This framework allows us to suggest more explicitly how CSR can potentially be mobilized as a purposive form of institutional work aimed at disrupting existing institutions in favor of positive change. We take the gender institution in the Arab Middle East as a case in point. Our suggestion is that the current context of the Arab Spring, which combined with increasingly obvious endogenous institutional contradictions, has created a fertile ground for shaping change processes within the gender institution. Finally, we provide concrete examples of CSR initiatives that regional corporate actors can engage in for positive developmental change supporting women.
Journal of Business Ethics
To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chie... more To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greate...
Introduction. Corporate social responsibility in developing countries: a development-oriented app... more Introduction. Corporate social responsibility in developing countries: a development-oriented approach Dima Jamali, Charlotte Karam and Michael Blowfield 1. A corporate social responsibility calculus: Global dialogue and local discourses Duane Windsor 2. Bridging the governance gap with political CSR Ismail Adelopo, Kemi Yekini and Lukman Raimi 3. Operational intent and development impact in mining Deanna Kemp, John Owen and Vimala Dejvongsa 4. The headquartering effect in international CSR Ralph Barkemeyer, Frank Figge and Lutz Preuss 5. Indigenous communities and mega-projects: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consultation-consent principles Jacobo Ramirez 6. Migrants' engagement in CSR: The case of a Ghanaian migrants' transnational social enterprise Daniela Bolzani and Selenia Marabello 7. CSR, mining and development in Namibia David Littlewood and Jo-Anna Russon 8. CSR and the development deficit: Part of the solution or part of the problem? Nonita Yap 9. Socia...
Journal of Business Ethics
In this article, we conceptualize the under investigated and under theorized relationship between... more In this article, we conceptualize the under investigated and under theorized relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and business responsibility. As an urgent social issue, IPV—understood as abuse of power within the context of an intimate partner relationship, mainly perpetrated by men and involving a pattern of behavior—has been studied for decades in many disciplines. A less common yet vital research perspective is to examine IPV as it relates to the business and to ask how organizations should engage with IPV. In response to this question, we contribute a framework drawing from two distinctions in the business responsibility scholarship: the assumed role of the organization (responsibility to the firm/market; responsibility to the broader socio-political-economic environment); and the second focused on the approach to conceptualizing ethics (justice/fairness; ethics of care). Thus, we explicate four approaches to business responsibility and IPV, which serve the purp...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018
In recent years, there have been visible increases in gender balanced corporate governance struct... more In recent years, there have been visible increases in gender balanced corporate governance structures globally following the introduction in many countries of mandatory quotas for women’s participation on corporate boards (MSCI survey, 2014). The implementation of gender quotas begins to address longstanding issues related to gender-biases and underrepresentation, both issues that are of increasing interest to practitioners and researchers alike. In this proposed symposium, we adopt a multi- country perspective and discuss the parameters of implementation for mandatory quotas in different context. We explore the perceptions of various stakeholders about how and why women are appointed to boards, who are the women being appointed, what are some of the perceived multi-level challenges to serving on boards, and what are the measures of successful performance. This symposium brings together five papers authored by 15 scholars from 5 different countries and 11 different institutions glob...
Research Handbook on New Frontiers of Equality and Diversity at Work, 2022
The relationship between dimensions of individual level culture-related variables (social axioms)... more The relationship between dimensions of individual level culture-related variables (social axioms) and the categorization of organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) as in-role versus extra-role was explored within a Canadian sample. In order to appropriately address levels-of-analysis issues, this study focused on the relationship between two variables at the same level of analysis: individual social beliefs and individual perceptions of what constitutes OCB. Results indicate that the extent to which each of the OCB dimensions were viewed as in-role versus extra-role varied considerably among participants and that this variation could in part be predicted by social beliefs. The implications of understanding culture\u27s effect on employee work behaviours and attitudes are discussed
Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) refers to using the best available evidence when making manager... more Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) refers to using the best available evidence when making managerial decisions. There is limited knowledge about the EBMgt process in different contexts. As such, the aim of the study is to build a grounded model that can help us better understand the evidence-based decision-making process and its contextual nuances within hospital settings. We explored the following three research questions among managers in hospital settings: (1) How is the EBMgt process manifested in practice? (2) What are the sources of evidence in EBMgt? (3) What contextual factors influence the process of EBMgt? To answer these questions, we collected qualitative data from executive managers working in multiple hospitals across Lebanon and used it to develop a grounded model of the EBMgt process. We collected data through interviews and the critical incident technique.
SAIS Review of International Affairs, 2021
Some feminist scholars have asserted that nominal representation does not secure substantive repr... more Some feminist scholars have asserted that nominal representation does not secure substantive representation for gender equality and that the mere presence of more women in politics does not necessary lead to inclusive policies. This assertion makes sense because advancing gender equality and equitable opportunities requires a strategy to address intersectional forms of oppression, a systemic requirement that was historically lacking across much of the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. More recently, on the eve of the twenty-sixth anniversary of the 1995 Beijing Conference, governments across the region are laying claim to substantive advances in gender mainstreaming and to increasing the presence of women in political institutions, particularly in the resource-rich gulf. Despite the rush to support gender-inclusive policies, MENA governments did not bring the level or kind of gender equality and inclusion envisioned. This article explores the ways in which state femin...
Development-Oriented Corporate Social Responsibility Volume 2: Locally Led Initiatives in Developing Economies
Comparative and International Education, 2017
In this chapter, and stemming from our position as academic researchers and as women living and w... more In this chapter, and stemming from our position as academic researchers and as women living and working in the Arab Region, we engage in a critical reflexive exercise that echoes our feminist standpoint. We aim to tackle and debunk some of the assumptions that often underpin research on women’s careers in our region. Such assumptions may find strong support in a Western context, but they do not necessarily hold in a different socio-cultural and political context.
Organization Studies
In this editorial for our Special Issue, we focus on ways to better understand the role of organi... more In this editorial for our Special Issue, we focus on ways to better understand the role of organizations, organizing, and the organized during social and institutional change in response to disruption, division, and displacement. The papers in this Special Issue provide important insights into the hardships and heartache arising from social disruption, division, and displacement; in addition, they provide glimpses into potential ways of moving forward. To set the stage, we develop a framework building on extant literature that highlights several analytic approaches to understanding the consequences of eroding, or inadequate, institutions, the challenges of building anew when the status quo is destroyed, and what such novel and complex realities entail for organizational analysis. We offer a temporal view of responses to disruption, division, and displacement that draws on the papers in this Special Issue to identify and explain potential risks and challenges that arise at different ...
In this symposium, we aim to capture the cultural systems and power dynamics underlying discussio... more In this symposium, we aim to capture the cultural systems and power dynamics underlying discussions around sexual harassment in various societal contexts. We adopt a feminist standpoint situating s...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2016
Patriarchy is an omnipresent institution that limits the paid work opportunities of women and leg... more Patriarchy is an omnipresent institution that limits the paid work opportunities of women and legitimizes women’s unpaid work within the home. Using notions of institutional logics and legitimacy j...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012
Women tend to make up the largest portion of the informal labor force and women in the Arab regio... more Women tend to make up the largest portion of the informal labor force and women in the Arab region are no different (Carr & Chen, 2004). Indeed, women remain concentrated in hidden areas of the inf...
There has been a growing level of interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with an incre... more There has been a growing level of interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with an increasing number of articles, books, and chapters written on the topic. The content and breadth of coverage is far-reaching with CSR being used as an umbrella term to account for the complex and multi-faceted relationships between business and society and the economic, social and environmental impacts of business activity. Much of the research advancing our understanding of CSR has concentrated on business-society relationships and dynamics in the developed economies of Europe and North America (Egri and Ralston 2008). More recently there has been a burgeoning interest in understanding the dynamics and peculiarities of CSR in developing economies, and in uncovering the interplay of specific antecedents and consequences of CSR that are relevant across these contexts (Blowfield and Frynas 2005; Newell and Frynas 2007; Idemudia 2011; Jamali and Neville 2011; Jamali and Sidani 2012).
Indeed, recent work seems to suggest that CSR in developing countries is shaped by the institutional constellations of these specific contexts. The research on the context-dependence of CSR has indeed been accentuated in recent years (Jamali and Neville 2011) with increasing attention to the potential salience of a distinctive set of CSR agenda challenges in the developing world (Visser 2008). Hence, we set out in this book chapter to juxtapose insights derived from CSR research in developed versus developing economies, with the aim of exploring whether there are key distinctive themes that emerge from CSR research focused on developing economies that are not commonly or centrally explored in CSR research on the
developed world.
As a baseline, we use the work of Aguinis and Glavas (2012) in which these authors review and highlight key trends pertaining to research on CSR largely in the developed world. Their recent meta-analysis included a review of 588 journal articles of which only 88 (14.97 percent) focused on developing countries. We present, in contrast, the key findings from our own meta-analysis of 285 articles focusing on CSR in developing countries (Jamali and Karam under review). We believe that comparing the two sets of articles critically and analytically will be helpful in organizing and advancing our understanding of the peculiar themes and elements of CSR in the developing world.