Call for papers – Themed Volume: Business Travel in an Information Age
Research in Transportation Business and Management
Call for Papers
Themed Volume: Business Travel in an Information Age: Management, Planning and Sustainability
Volume Editors: Jonathan V. Beaverstock, University of Nottingham, UK
Lucy Budd, Loughborough University, UK
The complex form, function and geography of business travel, both domestic and international, have been persistently overlooked in existing literatures on international human resource management, international business, the sociology of work and labour, transport demand, transport planning, management and logistics, and organizational studies. At the start of the second decade of the Twenty-First Century, and amid one of the worst economic downturns in recent history, the importance of business travel as a mode of capitalist production which enables organizations to attend in-house meetings or training, visit clients, pitch for new business, provide product support, attend trade fairs/conferences and visit sub-contractors and suppliers to monitor quality control or negotiate new business, has arguably never been higher or more controversial. For many workers, business travel, involving what can be best described as persistent or mundane travel, represents a normal component of the working day, but it is one which can adversely affect family life and individual health and wellbeing. For others, however, business travel constitutes a ‘perk’ and is a welcomed and deliberate lifestyle choice which helps to enhance personal careers, afford much job satisfaction and introduce variety to the working week.
Business travel ‘mobilities’ are increasingly recognised as being an important emerging discourse within business and management studies, sociology and human geography (particularly in transport and economic geography). In economic terms, business travel now appears to be a fundamental process in the production of the global knowledge economy. But, despite intra- and cross-border business travel being a significant feature of the twenty-first century workplace questions about the form, function, geography and carbon intensity of business travel as an economic practice and facet of contemporary transport panning and management have yet to be adequately addressed.
The formative aim of this themed volume is to address this research lacuna and explore some of the important contemporary debates associated with the organizational strategy, management, planning and sustainability of business travel in the twenty first century.
Specific topics of interest may include:
- The organizational strategy and in-house management of business travel
- The management of the business travel industry (logistics, airline operators, international hotels, specialist travel firms, land surface travel)
- Business travel infrastructure (airport design, executive lounges, IT suites, security)
- Aeromobilities and aeromobile elites
- Land passenger transport mobilities and business travel
- Planning for the business traveller
- Business tourism
- The cost-benefit analysis of business travel
- Demand forecasting for business travel
- Information technology and mode substitution for business travel
- Environmental sustainability and business travel
- Work-life-balance and the business traveller
- Alternatives to business travel
Key dates
Submission deadline for abstracts: 1st December 2011
Invitations to submit full paper: 9th January 2012
Deadline for full paper: 1st July 2012
Notification of external reviews: 1st October 2012
Deadline for revisions: 1st December 2012
Publication: Spring/Summer 2013