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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Iain Munro
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The aim of this paper is to show how novelists create new practices of bearing witness and activist organizations to reform business ethics practice. This paper focuses on an historical case study of a group of prominent novelists, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad and Mark Twain, who were instrumental in creating the Congo Reform Association - one of the first organizations dedicated to the promotion of international human rights. This paper makes two contribution to theory, firstly it shows how novelists have created new practices of "bearing witness”, acting as “pseudo witnesses” through their creation of a mixture of fictional, factual and hybrid accounts of corporate crimes. Activist novelists not only represent marginalised and excluded voices in their work, their campaigning extends beyond literary concerns into campaign work for human rights organizations. Secondly, this study reveals the key role that fiction has played in disrupting plausible fictions and creating new practices of ‘counter- hegemonic storytelling’ that are grounded in struggles for business ethics reform.
Author(s): Munro I
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Business Ethics
Year: 2026
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 18/04/2026
Acceptance date: 07/04/2026
Date deposited: 07/04/2026
ISSN (print): 0167-4544
ISSN (electronic): 1573-0697
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-026-06324-6
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-026-06324-6
Data Access Statement: All data for this research is public domain and available on request.
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