A call for deep engagement for impact: Addressing the planetary emergency

Abstract

In a world facing catastrophic shocks, there are tremendous opportunities for management scholars to engage and make fundamental contributions to the grand challenges that lie ahead. To do so, our focus must move away from a theory-fetish toward a more applied action orientation that contributes to theory-building but does not make that its main or singular aim. In this paper, we argue, that our field’s primary research aim must not be to see how we can build theory out of a crisis, but rather how our organizational and management theories can contribute concretely to helping humanity prepare for and respond to these shocks and build long-term societal resilience. Furthermore, we argue that management scholars need to vigorously embrace a research agenda on sustainability focusing on deep engagement with practitioners to address grand challenges. To do so, we draw on experiences from our deep engagement with practitioners—an ethnographic study and a scientific activism effort. We offer several lessons and identify implications of deep engagement for impact within organization studies such as dedicated space in journals for impact cases.

Partnering for Impact: A Grand Challenge and Design for Co-Creating a Just, Resilient and Flourishing Society

“…This orientation on the common good, I will argue, presents a different governing logic of interorganisational collaborations that extends longstanding commitments to “appreciative inquiry” (Godwin, 2016) and recent accounts of “relational and psychological pathways” (Gibson, 2022) and “mutualism” (Khanagha et al, 2022). The “common good” as a interorganisational collaboration logic and design framework follows the spirit of Ferraro’s et al (2015) multivocal, participatory architectures, Doh’s et al (2018) call for “collective entrepreneurship” and Williams” and Whiteman’s (2021) call for deep “engagement for impact” as imperative in addressing grand societal challenges and restoring balance in the relationship between science and society (Mintzberg, 2015). It extends these perspectives by positioning inclusiveness as integral to the common good, a hitherto absent dimension of cross-boundary collaborations.…”

Catalysing city-company collaborations to operate within Earth System boundaries

“…This is in part because realizing the potential of cities and companies lies in first understanding their impact and collective potential for action. Yet consensus is growing that clear scientific guidance to spur and assist more sustainable decision-making and target setting among these actors is needed [16][17][18][19][20] . Most recently, Bai et al (2022) showed that companies with science-based targets for climate aim for more ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions than companies with climate targets based on other methods, and much higher than national pledges to the Paris Agreement 21 .…”

Strategy and organization scholarship through a radical sustainability lens: A call for 5.0

“…Tett, 2021), and our impact as scholars (Hoffman, 2021;Walls et al, 2021). In particular, in this special forum, Williams and Whiteman (2021) call for academic research into sustainability issues to be less-possessed with developing new theories, and more focused upon impacting practice. While there is a long history of calling for greater relevance in management studies (e.g.…”

“…We consider this So!apbox Forum as something of a call to arms for strategy and organization scholars. The essays in this forum provoke us to open our thinking about the broader, interdependent systems within which organizations operate (Hahn and Tampe, 2021;Howard-Grenville and Lahneman, 2021), the role of managers within those organizations (Walls et al, 2021), and about our own roles as teachers (Hoffman, 2021) and impacting the participants in our research (Williams and Whiteman, 2021). This is a crucial overarching agenda.…”