Scholars in organization studies are increasingly uneasy with how our discipline is evolving in universities and business schools (Bothello & Roulet, 2019; Contu, 2019; Harley, 2019; Tourish, 2019). Pursuing a return to meaning (Alvesson et al., 2017), many academics are leaving the comfort of their desks to focus on problem driven research (Gehman et al., 2016; George et al., 2016; Schüssler et al., 2014), engaged and participatory action research (Dover & Lawrence, 2010; van de Ven, 2007;), responsible innovation (Voegtlin & Scherer, 2017) or even activist research (Reedy & King, 2019; Whiteman & Cooper, 2016;). The motivation is not only to develop a knowledge base that is relevant for audiences other than academics and to contribute to the solution of pressing societal and wicked problems, but also to be at the forefront of such changes.
Academic movements such as RRBM (2017), or OS4Future (2019) are focusing both on elaborating solutions to grand challenges and on integrating these very research insights in the practices of academia, i.e. in research, teaching, conference travel and local campus practices. This reorientation is also an attempt to take the lead in defining the buzzword third mission of universities (in addition to the primary missions of research and teaching), and to avoid the narrow conceptualization of research impact that is often the product of particular interests in society (Rhodes et al., 2018).
These developments require us to reassess and develop our skills on several fronts. Specifically, we need to:
Reflect on axiology, i.e. the normative underpinning of our discipline, and the ethical entanglements generated by becoming actors in the contested fields we study (Überbacher & Delmestri, 2019);
Create space for those of us that endorse value commitments such as compassion, courage and justice in addition to personal integrity, curiosity and intellectual rigor (Adler & Hansen, 2012; Svejenova, 2019; Whiteman, 2010);
Draw from existing experiences (Flyvbjerg, 2002; Flyvbjerg et al., 2012; Gray & Purdy, 2018) and develop new methods to conduct engaged scholarship at the level of organizational fields or society, the loci where the solutions to grand societal challenges are negotiated or contrasted and leverage existing methods (e.g., collaborative autoethnographies; Glozer et al., 2018) that enable tracing sustainability processes;
Follow recent examples (Mair et al., 2016; Sharma & Bansal, 2020) in understanding how to combine engaged forms of scholarship (such as action research or activist research) with the capacity to publish in theory driven journals that have an exclusively academic audience;
Enlarge the range of identities that are considered legitimate and desirable in our profession.
We are interested in research that addresses the above themes and in particular is generative of new solutions and not only uses past trends to predict the future but are also dares to imagine and design new futures by being able to consider and “integrate values of different kinds” (Monaci & Magatti, 2017: 376). This kind of research stays true to the phenomenon, addresses empirical puzzles and considers theory as a way to better understand and influence the processes observed (Pawlak et al., 2019). We are also interested in papers in essay format and in papers that directly address methodological issues. Accordingly, the format of the sub-theme will sustain dynamic generativity in our own work at EGOS.
The following are non-exhaustive examples of the kind of question we would like to see addressed in the submitted papers:
- How can studies be generative for theory and methods targeted at addressing societal issues (rather than just for the sake of theory or methods themselves)?
- How to package papers in terms of theory and methods to get them published also in theory driven journals?
- What are the pitfalls in engaged scholarship and how to avoid them?
- How to conduct participatory action research at field level?
- How to conduct activist research and avoid its pitfalls?
- How was a specific societal or environmental challenge resolved in a specific context?
- What have we learned from the reactions to the COVID-19 crisis and their aftermath
- How can an autoethnography of a sustainability change process in your own institutions be conducted?
- What other research methods are useful for conducting engaged scholarship?
- What factors impede our scientific societies to address more directly the climate crisis and how could these be overcome?
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