Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

The 2020s have so far been characterized by increasing turmoil, disruptions, and violence – the Covid-19 pandemic highlighting entrenched social inequalities (Peredo et al., 2022), the wars in Darfur, Gaza, and Ukraine, the repression of the Iranian Women’s Life Freedom uprising–- being some of the most chilling examples. Social justice movements like Black Lives Matter gained global momentum, highlighting how anti-black violence is disrupting the lives of Black and Brown people in the USA, showcasing the pernicious and deadly consequences of structural racism in the reproduction of Whiteness (Nkomo et al., 2019; Muzanenhamo & Chowdhuri, 2023). AI is becoming ubiquitous, taking over more and more decisions, raising questions on algorithm justice, responsibility, and equity including countering persisting covert racial and gender biases (Benjamin, 2019; Hoffman et al., 2024). In addition, a growing climate movement (e.g., Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion) calls for massive disruptions of our extraction-based globalized economy and the need for organizing socio-ecological transitions that take climate justice and social justice issues equally into account.
 
In analogy to climate tipping points, scholars are discussing the concept of ‘social tipping dynamics’ (Stadelmann-Steffen et al. 2021) to describe how a momentary instability characterized by countering forces can tip into a new equilibrium. The question of the 2020s seems to be in which direction social relations will tip and what agential dynamics and processes might play a significant role. Many democratic countries witness shifts to populist, far-right, and authoritarian politics, and more and more members of the majority are opting to go back and want to withdraw some of the equalities gained by marginalized groups – a phenomenon that King et al. (2007) conceptualize as ‘White power’. Organizations are both embedded in and co-shaping these complex environments (Amis et al., 2020; Ray, 2019) and see both external activists and internal change agents advocating for – but also against – these causes (DeJordy et al., 2023).
 
First, organizations are arenas where these stances are taken by internal activism, such as LGBTQ+, anti-racism and anti-disablism, that aims to advance more just, equitable and inclusive organizations (Naya et al., 2024). Such activities can generate anxieties (Creary, 2024; Leigh & Melwani, 2019). Indeed, like advocates of DEI, also those who resist changes to exclusionary practices, values and policies act as internal activists and change agents - sometimes without appearing to do so - with the intention of maintaining organizations and societies as inequitable arrangements (King et al., 2007).
 
Second, while business organizations have a long history of lobbying for causes that directly impact their market position (such as taxation, regulation, etc.), ever more are taking public positions to support DEI as a form of ‘corporate sociopolitical activism (CSA)’, but also as gestures that maintain and cover over structural socio-economic inequities (McKean & King, 2024; Pasirayi et al., 2023; Rhodes, 2023). Change agents for social tipping points can, thus, also be ‘traditional’ organizations where management may engage in ‘CEO activism’ or ‘corporate activism’. At the same time, commentators denounce DEI efforts as ‘woke’ propaganda – a debate that also takes place in our academic field (Prasad & Śliwa, 2024) – and major corporations publicly announce the withdrawal of DEI initiatives (Ray & Melaku, 2023).
 
Third, disruption and transformation can also be contained – or at least signaled – in ‘alternative’ forms of organizing, such as cooperatives, social enterprises, feminist or anarchist organizations. We know less about how disruption is organized in such alternative organizations, or what role DEI plays in them – often resting on the assumption that they fight the neoliberal order and thus by definition act successfully for the common good and DEI (Bendl et al., 2025).
 
And, fourth, social movements as organizations also play a crucial role in both contesting and reproducing inequalities. They organize activism in civil society to disrupt prevalent inequality regimes based on exploiting the colonized, feminized, racialized ‘Other’. However, civil society organizing also encompasses organizing for maintaining the status quo or going back to more inequality. When looking at the alt-right, we can think about the racist-nationalist agenda of French or Austrian ‘identitary’ organizations or the Heritage Foundation (a meta-organization of conservative activists), which drafted Project 2025, including a policy overhaul program toward Trump’s reelection. Moreover, also within social movements and activist circles, inequality can be (re)produced along various intersecting lines.
 
This sub-theme aims bringing together scholarship that explores this assemblage of internal and external activists and change agents advocating for and against causes of inclusion, equity, and social, economic, epistemic and environmental justice focusing on organizations as both contested sites and change agents. We want to explore how the disruptions we witness might contribute to social tipping dynamics – in whichever direction – and what role organizing and organizations play in it. We welcome local, regional, cross-cultural and transnational perspectives that focus either on one type of activists/change agent or that explore them in their interaction. We welcome theoretical as well as empirical papers, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods which address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• What is the role of social movements, internal activists and other change agents in shaping organizational agendas around issues of equity, diversity, inclusion and justice?

• What are the internal dynamics of social movements and alternative organizations in deepening and/or countering equity, diversity, inclusion and justice in their practices, values, and policies? What impact does this have on organizing for disruption?

• What kind of organizational work is taking place at the intersection of social and environmental sustainability (inclusion, equity and justice in relation to the climate emergency and developing adaptation and mitigation strategies as well as radical design change)?

• What does disruption and transformation that emerges from within conventional organizations look like? How do cases of corporate socio-political activism evolve over time?

• What are the dynamics at the current ‘tipping point’ in relation to a rising ‘backlash’ against mainstream forms of DEI? How does polarization play out within organizations?

• What impact can alternative forms of organizing have on building better worlds?

• How do different kinds of change agents and organizations collaborate or compete in solving grand challenges? What coalitions can be built, how, and to what ends?

• How do anti-democratic, alt-right or other conservative organizations and movements advance their agendas compared to more progressive ones?

References

• Amis, J.M., Mair, J., & Munir, K.A. (2020): “The Organizational Reproduction of Inequality.” Academy of Management Annals, 14 (1): 195–230.
• Benjamin, R. (2019): Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Bendl, R., Fleischmann, A., & Schmidt, A. (2025): “The (In)Visibility of Diversity in Alternative Organizations.” Journal of Business Ethics, 196 (2), 273–289.
• Creary, S.L. (2024): “Taking a ‘leap’: How workplace allyship initiatives shape leader anxiety, allyship, and power dynamics that contribute to workplace inequality.” Academy of Management Review, 49 (4), 848–878.
• DeJordy, R., Scully, M., Ventresca, M.J., & Creed, W.E.D. (2020): “Inhabited Ecosystems: Propelling Transformative Social Change Between and Through Organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 65 (4), 931–971.
• Hofmann, V., Kalluri, P.R., Jurafsky, D. et al. (2024): “AI generates covertly racist decisions about people based on their dialect.” Nature, 633, 147–154 (2024).
• King, C.R., Leonard, D.J., & Kusz, K.W. (2007): “White power and sport: An introduction.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 31 (1), 3–10.
• Leigh, A., & Melwani, S. (2019): “#BlackEmployeesMatter: Mega-Threats, Identity Fusion, and Enacting Positive Deviance in Organizations.” Academy of Management Review, 44 (3), 564–591.
• McKean, A.E., & King, B.G. (2024): “When ideologies align: Progressive corporate activism and within‐firm ideological alignment.” Strategic Management Journal, 45 (12), 2459–2518.
• Muzanenhamo, P., & Chowdhury, R. (2023): “Epistemic injustice and hegemonic ordeal in management and organization studies: Advancing Black scholarship.” Human Relations, 76 (1), 3–26.
• Naya, P.T., Contu, A., & Poole, J.M. (2024): “Piercing the Veil of Colorblindness with an Anti-Racist Identity: Sensemaking, Power, and the Reproduction of Racialized Socioeconomic Inequality.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, 23 (3), 387–407.
• Nkomo, S., Bell, M.P., Roberts, L.M., Joshi, A., & Thatcher, S.M.B. (2019): “Introduction to special topic forum. Diversity at a critical juncture: New theories for a complex phenomenon.” Academy of Management Review, 44 (3), 498–517.
• Peredo, A.M., Abdelnour, S., Adler, P., Banerjee, B., Bapuji, H., Calas, M., Chertkovskaya, E., Colbourne, R., Contu, A., Crane, A., Evans, M., Hirsch, P., E. Osorio, A., Ozkazanc-Pan, B., Smircich, L., & Weber, G. (2022): “We Are Boiling: Management Scholars Speaking Out on COVID-19 and Social Justice.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 31 (4), 339–357.
• Pasirayi, S., Fennell, P.B., & Follmer, K.B. (2023): “#Activism: Investor Reactions to Corporate Sociopolitical Activism.” Business & Society, 62 (4), 704–744.
• Prasad, A., & Śliwa, M. (2024): “Critiquing the Backlash Against Wokeness: In Defense of DEI Scholarship and Practice.” Academy of Management Perspectives, 38 (2), 245–259.
• Ray, V. (2019): “A Theory of Racialized Organizations.” American Sociological Review, 84 (1), 26–53.
• Ray, V., & Melaku, T.M. (2023): “Countering the Corporate Diversity Backlash.” MIT Sloan Management Review, 65 (1), 15–16.
• Rhodes, C. (2022): Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality Is Sabotaging Democracy. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
• Stadelmann-Steffen, I., Eder, C., Harring, N., Spilker, G., & Katsanidou, A. (2021): “A framework for social tipping in climate change mitigation: What we can learn about social tipping dynamics from the chlorofluorocarbons phase-out.” Energy Research & Social Science, 82, 102307.
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