Sub-Plenary 1-1

Designing and Organizing for a more Desirable, More-than-Human Future


Thursday, July 9, 2026 - 12:30-14:00 CEST
Online


Organizers:
Alice Comi, College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, China
Sabrina Bresciani, Design Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Luigi Mosca, Research Associate, Imperial Business School, UK

Chair:
Alice Comi, College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, China

Panelists:
Diane-Laure Arjaliès, Ivey Business School, Canada
Iohanna Nicenboim, IT:U Linz & Delft University of Technology, Austria & Netherlands
Danielle Wilde, Umeå University & University of Southern Denmark, Sweden & Denmark
Jennifer Whyte, University of Sydney, Australia
 

Organizations are forward-looking. We design and manage products, services, and businesses with a desired future in mind. However, current research has not yet systematically explored how organizational actors can achieve more desirable futures (Comi et al., 2025; Gümüsay & Reinecke, 2024; Whyte et al., 2022), not just for themselves but also for the next generations of humans and nonhumans – including the natural environment and the broader ecosystem to which our present and future activities are inextricably connected (Banerjee & Arjaliès, 2021). As humanity is facing multiple crises and grand challenges that threaten the continuity of life on the planet (Stjerne et al., 2022), the call to imagine and make more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable futures is timely and urgent. This Sub-plenary session will discuss the theories, methods, and practices of designing and organizing for a more desirable, more-than-human future. Specifically, it will discuss questions such as: What futures are desirable, and for whom? How can we sense in the present what will be desirable in the future? How can we democratize future making, for example by giving voice to under-represented humans and nonhumans? What theories and methods are suitable for organizational scholars to research and make more desirable, more-than-human futures?

This Sub-plenary has both theoretical and practical relevance. It will discuss how future makers (academics and practitioners alike) can imagine and realize better futures, not just for humans but also for nonhumans and the wider ecosystem to which they are entwined. The topic is relevant and appealing to the EGOS community, given its connection with emerging research on future making (Comi & Whyte, 2018; Feuls et al., 2024; Thompson & Byrne, 2021; Wenzel et al., 2020), prospective theorizing (Gümüsay and Reinecke, 2022; 2024) and engaged scholarship (Banerjee & Arjaliès, 2021; Sharma et al., 2022).

It is linked to the research topics of the current SWG 10: Organizing Desirable Futures: Sustainable Transformation, Impactful Scholarship & Grand Challenges, SWG 13: Temporary Organizing (2025–2028) and SWG 11: Time and Organization Studies: Navigating Change, Emergence & Complexity (2026–2029). This Sub-plenary will also bring fresh insights to the EGOS community, through the voices of leading scholars in neighbouring disciplines such as design, finance, and project studies. Hence, attendance to this Sub-plenary session will expose EGOS scholars to emerging, engaged interdisciplinary research that advances understanding of how we (academics and practitioners alike) can craft better futures, in the face of grand challenges and multiple crises.

The three most important take-aways that the Sub-plenary wishes to convey are:
 

  1. Theoretical and methodological insights on how to design futures that consider not just human needs and desires, but also nonhuman actors and the natural environment;

  2. A novel focus on democratizing future making, by giving voice to underrepresented groups (both human and nonhuman) to ensure that diverse perspectives are considered in envisioning and crafting futures;

  3. A call for cross-disciplinary research on making desirable futures, by incorporating insights from multiple research communities (e.g., organization, management, design, finance, and project studies).

 
The Sub-plenary directly contributes to the EGOS Colloquium theme, by addressing how organizations can move beyond self-interest and consider their role in fostering sustainable and inclusive futures. By discussing how such futures should benefit both humans and nonhumans, the sub-plenary is clearly aligned with the Colloquium theme of “Reframing Organizations in the More-than-Human Society”.
 

References – will be added soon

Biographies

Alice Comi is Associate Professor in the College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. Her current research explores the intersection of design and organization studies, with a focus on the role of materiality and visuality in future making.

Diane-Laure Arjaliès is Associate Professor in the Sustainability and the Managerial Accounting and Control groups at the Ivey Business School, Canada. She is conducting extensive research on biodiversity finance, aiming to channel capital towards protecting ecosystems. She is also working extensively on regenerative agriculture and economic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada. By so doing, she aims to weave Indigenous and Western knowledge into academic practices, developing innovative approaches to research and teaching.

Iohanna Nicenboim is a design researcher from the Global South, with a career that spans art, design, industry, and academia. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of More-than-Human Design and Regenerative AI at IT:U in Linz, Austria, and a researcher at Delft University of Technology, where she completed her PhD with honors as a Microsoft Research Fellow. Over the past years, she has developed a More-than-Human Design approach to AI (Designing-with-AI), publishing extensively and leading workshops and panels at international venues like CHI, DIS, and DRS. She co-edited a special issue of the HCI Journal on the More-than-Human Turn in Design, organised tracks at DRS 2024 and 2026 on More-than-Human Design in Practice, and is a Chair of the ACM conference “Designing Interactive Systems.”

Danielle Wilde is Chair of Arctic Food Citizenship for the Arctic Six universities in Norway, Sweden, and Finland; and holds Full Professorships at Umeå University, Sweden and the University of Southern Denmark. Her research applies feminist, intersectional methods and participatory Research through Design to co-create futures with diverse human and nonhuman partners, exploring how traditional knowledges, food, and cultural heritage can foster environmental citizenship, by mobilising embodied knowledge to support systemic change.

Jennifer Whyte is Director of the John Grill Institute for Project Leadership and a Professor in the School of Project Management, in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney. She leads research on the leadership of major projects, and on project leadership in a changing world. She is interested in improving project organising practices, for example by exploring how project leadership can support future making, i.e., the pluralistic organisational practices through which desirable futures are imagined and brought into being.