A Research Agenda for Business and Human Rights

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary.

Business and human rights (BHR) research is at a critical juncture, and this prescient Research Agenda illustrates the many nuances of historical, current, and future BHR scholarship. This volume includes chapters about relevant, pressing BHR issues; voices from practitioners; and pithy contributions from leading scholars and policymakers in the field about the future of BHR advocacy, practice, and scholarship. Utilising diverse interdisciplinary lenses, scholars and practitioners assess the many shifts and challenges BHR obligations present to traditional business operations and strategies.

The editors and contributors masterfully engage with the following questions: what is BHR scholarship? How have debates about BHR evolved? What are the cutting-edge areas of research and practice that will inform the next decade and beyond of BHR research? Chapters examine these questions while investigating a wide variety of important, international case studies, from the Rana Plaza collapse to businesses weathering patterns of conflict and peace in Colombia. Ultimately, this timely Research Agenda provides a significant illustration of both the theoretical and empirical dimensions of BHR.

Students and researchers of such disciplines as business ethics, diversity management, business law and human rights will find this book to be incredibly beneficial in understanding where BHR came from and where it might go to accomplish the goal of ending human rights abuses with a nexus to business. It is additionally useful for practitioners seeking to understand pressing BHR issues.