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�JOHN E. KATSOS

Professor of Management, Entrepreneurship, and Strategy at American University of Sharjah (UAE)
Editor-in-Chief at Society and Business Review (Emerald)
Juris Doctorate and MBA, George Washington University (USA)
Research Affiliate at Queen’s University in Belfast (UK)
Chair of the UN PRME Business and Peace Working Group
Fieldwork/research in: Ukraine, Syria, Palestine, China, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Cyprus, Ireland and Lebanon
Publications in: Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Business and Society, and Associated Press
Cited by/Interviewed for: Financial Times, Washington Post, UN General Assembly Reports, International Labour Organisation investigations

Ethical Leadership in Conflict and Crisis (2024). Cambridge University Press with Jason Miklian.

Today, we delve into the role of businesses in peacebuilding, exploring the evolution of this field, addressing critiques, and presenting a systematic review that clarifies the organization's impact on peace and conflict.��Original Content:�Introduction�Over the past 20 years, business and management scholarship has increasingly addressed questions about whether and how companies can contribute to ‘peacebuilding’—which examines the role of businesses in transforming societies towards peace (Anderson, 2004). Such examinations are informed by research across a range of scholarly disciplines, all working within the field of ‘business and peace’ (also called ‘business for peace’ or ‘peace through commerce’). The largely practitioner-driven contributions to business and peace have created a rich, diverse body of knowledge. However, the different analytical and methodological approaches adopted by scholars have also created divergent claims, resulting in limited theoretical consensus about the role of business in peacebuilding (Melin, 2021).�Business for peace has provided both the ethical and business case for why organizations should engage in peacebuilding (e.g., Fort and Schipani, 2007; Nelson, 2000; Oetzel et al., 2010). Early contributions to the field laid important foundations by establishing links between peacebuilding and the economic development created by businesses. Unlike broader debates concerning the private sector, firm-level examinations have offered descriptive catalogs of how businesses exert their agency to address some, though not all, areas of business-based peacebuilding (e.g., Bray, 2009; Forrer, 2009; Fort and Schipani, 2007; Miklian et al., 2016; Oetzel et al., 2010). Such catalogs are aspirational in nature, providing avenues for businesses to engage in peacebuilding if they choose to do so. However, these catalogs fall short of developing comprehensive frameworks or testable hypotheses that seek to explain the role of businesses in conflict settings, such that they have not gained broader consensus. Scholars have criticized the foundational link between economic development and peacebuilding (Ganson et al., 2022a; Joseph and Van Buren III, 2022; Miller et al., 2019), while multiple views have emerged on what defines ‘peace’ and whether businesses create or undermine it, with these discussions often failing to distinguish between an individual business and the private sector at large, meaning that country-level data is often used to draw organizational-level conclusions (Ford, 2015). As a result, the conceptualization of the organization’s role remains limited, leaving management scholars and practitioners with few tools to unpack how organizations impact peace and conflict.�In response, we undertake a systematic review of extant scholarly research, focused on consolidating an understanding of how the organization affects peace and conflict. We begin by providing an overview of business and peace, which includes key assumptions that have emerged (Fort and Schipani, 2004, 2007; Gerson, 2001; Nelson, 2000; Oetzel et al., 2010; Williams, 2008), distinct interdisciplinary views, and key critiques and inconsistencies. We highlight the gap in conceptualizing the organization in peacebuilding and then detail our methodology. The method centers on the organization as the unit of analysis and examines how organizations exert their agency through intended peacebuilding activities and normal operations to effect peace and conflict, providing a systematic review of 215 multidisciplinary contributions. This review consolidates how businesses can engage in peacebuilding and shows how the very same categories of action can generate negative outcomes.�In turn, we offer several scholarly advances. First, we clarify the role of business in peacebuilding, illustrating that firms, intentionally or not, participate in promoting peace or conflict. Second, we decouple a broader private sector analysis of business and peace from our organizational-level analysis, narrowing and clarifying the role of the organization. Third, we conceptualize the peace-positive organization as one that advances positive effects across the range of interactions it has within a conflict environment. In summary, to address the societal challenge of conflict, we offer scholarly advances on business and peace while also providing research-supported recommendations to help organizations create peace-positive outcomes (Wickert et al., 2020).�

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WHY BUSINESS AND ‘PEACE’?

Business and conflict – a story as old as the corporation (at least!)

Can we do better? Can we do “less bad”?

Business as societal actor

Is there anything more critical to society than “peace”?

Empirical Developments about “Peace” and ”Conflict”

Entire research field devoted to the topic
Myriad fields explore the concepts both empirically and theoretically

Companies are already doing it!

Does it work? Can it be done better?

Today, we delve into the pivotal role organizations play in peacebuilding, focusing on their transformative impact on society. We'll explore the unique position of organizations, their agency in conflict environments, and the actual effects they have on peace, beyond mere intentions.��Original Content:�Conceptual basis for the review�In light of these challenges, we undertook several steps to establish a theoretical position centered on the role of the organization in peacebuilding.�To conceptualize peace, we adopt Anderson’s (2004) approach and focus on peacebuilding, as opposed to peacekeeping or peacemaking. A focus on peacebuilding enables us to analyze how businesses affect the transformation of society toward positive peace, rather than focusing on the termination of violence (peacemaking) or measures used to prevent renewed violence (peacekeeping). Although this distinction is only occasionally made explicit in research (Iff and Alluri, 2016), business and peace scholars frequently adopt a peacebuilding approach when describing business activities. A focus on peacebuilding allows for an examination of how individual organizations exert agency to make contributions to systems-oriented issues, these issues being the ones that make the role of business difficult to disentangle from broader societal concerns (Ganson, 2019; Ganson et al., 2022b).�Regarding the unit and level of analysis, we take an organizational-level approach, such that organizations and their members (e.g., leaders, and CEOs) are unique entities that serve as the unit of analysis. This perspective matches a growing trend in business and management studies, which examine the organization and its effects on peace (Fajardo et al., 2019; Ganson et al., 2022a; Joseph and Van Buren III, 2022), rather than using broader definitions that blend organizations within the private sector (Melin, 2021). Because we focus on the organization and how it exerts agency, our analysis pertains to how individual businesses interact with the conflict environment in which they are embedded. This view recognizes that impacts on peace frequently occur within the organization’s sphere of operations (Joseph et al., 2021; Katsos and Alkafaji, 2019; Miller et al., 2019), among networks and social relations (Ganson et al., 2022a), or through political CSR activities (Dunfee and Fort, 2003). Finally, our organizational-level perspective contrasts with the dominant business and peace framework, which identifies economic contributions on the basis of country-level correlations between economic development and peace (Forrer, 2009; Fort and Schipani, 2007; Katsos and Forrer, 2022), as well as with frameworks developed in narrow institutional contexts (Hayward and Magennis, 2014) or applied to limited organizational types such as MNEs (Hanekom and Luiz, 2017) or entrepreneurs (Joseph et al., 2023). Rather, we seek to establish a framework that applies to the various organizational forms that can operate in conflict settings.�Furthermore, our attempt to establish the known effects of business on peacebuilding differs from investigations of business intentions (e.g., Rettberg, 2016), which is an important area of study, but does not address the actual effects that organizations have on conflict and peace. Notably, a business’s intention to engage in peacebuilding can have the opposite effect in practice (Miklian et al., 2016), and peace often is not an intentional CSR priority. Peacebuilding has yet to permeate mainstream corporate philosophy unlike other social endeavors in business (e.g., environmental, social and governance [ESG], or CSR). Accordingly, we focus on effects related to peace as distinct elements of businesses’ social impact on society. To delineate how business affects peace, we consolidate (1) the array of effects that arise when organizations exercise their agency in a conflict environment, with (2) the adoption of conflict-sensitive processes, used as an operational approach to reduce conflict risk and intensity, with (3) peacebuilding, which requires an active goal to promote peace (Ford, 2015; Miller et al., 2019). With this focus, we seek to consolidate existing research on how the activities of organizations affect peacebuilding, which is essential for creating a foundation for business and management scholars to engage in the field, and for organizations, managers, and employees to leverage in operational settings.�

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B4P HISTORY AND STATE OF THE FIELD

2000s – ‘Peace’ hype at the turn of the millennia

UN Global Compact's formation influenced by early scholarship
Journal of Business Ethics Special Issue “Peace through commerce”
Business for Peace Foundation

2010s – Empirical research + Organizing

Limited theoretical advancement but lots of empirical research
Organizing researchers and practitioners

2020s – Interest in conflict research from outside the field accelerates

Journal interest on the rise
Readership and scholarship on the rise

Timeline of Major Events

2000: Nelson’s paper on links business to peace

2007: Fort & Schipani initial assertions

2009: -Journal of Business Ethics SE with Oetzel et al. finalize B4P assertions

-First Business for Peace Honorees Awarded

2014: UN Global Compact Convenes first global Business for Peace Forum

2015: Academy of Management Perspectives SE

2016: -First UN PRME Forum on Business for Peace

-Founding of the Working Group

2019: Conflict, security and development SE

2021: -Ganson et al inequalities/networks in AMJ

-Katsos and Miklian work HBR “Big Idea”

2024: -Business Horizons SE

-Joseph et al Lit Review JMS

2025: Journal of Business Ethics SE

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ISSUES WITH THE ASSERTIONS

‘Aspirational’
Generalized and difficult to apply
Core assumption is that economic development is positive
Fundamentally, not theory
It is still used, but has not been able to gain widespread buy-in

Oetzel et al (2009) Assertions for how Business Promotes Peace
Activity	Description	Peacebuilding Impact
Economic Development	Businesses contribute to economic growth ethically	Promotes stability and prosperity
Corporate Political Activity	Engagement in mediating conflicts	Alleviates violence and fosters dialogue
Community Building	CSR initiatives to gain social license	Supports community development and rights
Rule of Law Promotion	Advocacy for legal developments	Enhances legal frameworks and peace

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CHALLENGES IN BUSINESS AND PEACE RESEARCH

Definitional Disagreements

Negative vs. positive peace and its implications

Varying Units of Analysis

‘Business’ vs. ‘private sector’
Impact of these definitions on research conclusions

Diverse Levels of Analysis

Micro- to macro-level data used incorrectly
Again, impacts research conclusions

Contradictory Views on Business and Peace

Market fundamentalists vs. conflict scholars
Aspirational vs. empirical perspectives on business impact

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POSITIVE VS. NEGATIVE EXAMPLES

Domain	Category	Effects
Institutions	Anti-corruption measures	+ Anti-bribery policies that undermine corruption - The payment of tariffs to belligerents which fuels violence
Markets	Market and infrastructure development	+ Creating infrastructure that enables development - Providing services for staff, excluding the community
Communities	Philanthropy / corporate social responsibility	+ Funding social services to promote development - CSR unintentionally inflaming local resource disputes
Operations	Inclusive economic relationships	+ Distributing profits along the supply chain to reduce poverty - Working with elites who strengthen economic inequality
Employees	Sustainable livelihoods	+ Creating jobs with employment rights to promote livelihoods - Indirectly promoting forced labor through subsidiaries

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