Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

In today’s society, the loudest voices demanding a system-level response to the environmental crisis do not stem from political leaders and governments but from social and political movements. At the same time, the world is experiencing a rapidly changing political landscape. As a result of governments espoused with neoliberal and socially disruptive policies, we are witnessing the rise of populism and the rise of the far right in various parts of the world. These events are contributing to the polarization of society and the development of less progressive movements including the anti-ESG and anti-woke movements. All these developments contest and significantly put at risk the advancement of collective actions towards climate change.
 
Given the severity of the climate crisis and the need for rapid and decisive action this sub-theme has a twofold goal: (1) to advance our understanding of how social and political movements are responding to the climate crisis, and (2) to collectively share experiences, activities and tools that inspire and equip us, as academics, to take action on climate change.
 
This sub-theme seeks to establish a connection between various kinds of social movements, i.e., collaborative, confrontational, and prefigurative to drive action towards addressing the climate crisis (Etchanchu et al., 2021), and their organization (Skoglund & Böhm, 2022), while adopting a reflective and progressive perspective towards the responsibility we, as academics, hold in the climate crisis (Delmestri, 2023).
 
The climate crisis is disproportionately affecting the poorest and most vulnerable communities (Nyberg et al., 2024). The latter are increasingly prone to become the target of populist and far right governments falsely promising they will act on their behalf thus reinforcing the power of anti-climate world leaders.
 
Climate change amplifies and creates new forms of injustices and stresses, all of which are interlinked and interconnected. The agendas of climate change movements thus overlap with other social issues such as modern slavery (Gutierrez-Huerter O et al., 2023), poverty, migration and inequality. While anchored in climate, this sub-theme aims to bring an intersectional lens to better analyze the new forms of organization, tactics and approaches adopted by climate activists to address various grand challenges.
 
In this sub-theme we also recognize that organizations are becoming platforms for activism (Rheinhardt et al., 2013) to bring attention to climate. Individuals around the world are increasingly demanding that the organizations they belong to or work for become more responsible and “take a stance” on climate change. Various labels have been used to refer to these individuals including insider activists (Briscoe & Gupta, 2016) social intrapreneurs (Alt & Craig, 2016) and tempered radicals (Meyerson & Scully, 1995).To propel action inside their organizations, they engage in various activities ranging from motivating, connecting, resourcing, and implementing, to evaluating and coping (Heucher et al., 2024).
 
We aim to focus on the following topics:

• the role of internal activists within organizations and how organizations themselves become activists (Briscoe & Gupta, 2016) and their interactions with other stakeholders (governments, media, society);

• the impact of the broader socio-economical context on the enactment of activism; and finally,

• the role of academic social movements in steering intellectual criticism, advocacy, and activism (Howard-Grenville, 2021).

 
Example questions to be addressed are, but are not limited to:

• How are climate focused social movements changing their tactics in light of the urgency to respond to the climate crisis?

• What are the newer tactics adopted by social movements in light of the widespread use of social media? How do social movements navigate the challenges of misinformation, nspiracy theories, and hate speech (e.g., Schwoon, 2024)?

• How are climate focused social movements addressing both climate concerns and social agendas? What are dilemmas and trade-offs?

• What organizational forms are emerging among social movements (partial organization, holocracy, Soziokratie, networks, …) and what roles do they have in sustaining or reducing their impact?

• What are the pitfalls of businesses becoming “activist” and initiating social movements focused on climate change?

• What are the pros and cons of academics becoming “activists” and participating/ initiating social movements focused on climate change? How do academics navigate institutional pressures to act “value-neutral”?

• How to avoid preaching to students when acting as academic activists? How can we respect our role not to impose our ideas on students and at the same time respect our (implicit) mission as academics to contribute to the improvement of our world in the face of possible societal collapse?

• How has the recent political landscape (the Trump election, the rise of Europe’s far right) and the decline of democracies shaped climate social movements? How are climate social movements coping with the threats from authoritative regimes and from denialist front groups?

• What are the implications of the anti-ESG movement and anti-woke movement in the advancement of climate movement agendas?

 
The main goal is to connect empirical research on social movements with actionable ideas on how academics can help address the climate and biodiversity crises. Therefore, this sub-theme aims to surpass mere research discussions and thus equip researchers with ideas and provide a reflective toolkit to become agents of change. We encourage both theoretical and empirical contributions, the use of qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods and action research approaches and different styles of manuscripts including essays and opinion pieces. Also papers discussing educational methods for climate crisis awareness are welcome.
 

References

• Briscoe, F., Gupta, A., & Anner, M.S. (2015): “Social activism and practice diffusion: How activist tactics affect non-targeted organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 60 (2), 300–332.
• Davis, G.F., & Kim, E.W. (2021): “Social movements and organizational change.” In: M.S. Poole & A. Van de Ven (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 209–229.
• Delmestri, G. (2023): “Are we all activists?” Organization Studies, 44 (1), 159–162.
• Dentoni, D. (2024): “Heat and Organization Studies: Organizing in a world approaching 50° C.” Organization Studies, 45 (10), 1523–1537.
• Etchanchu, H., de Bakker, F., & Delmestri, G. (2021): “Social movement organizations’ agency for sustainable organizing.” In: S. Teerikangas, T. Onkila, K. Koistinen, & M. Mäkelä (eds.): Research Handbook of Sustainability Agency. London: Edward Elgar, 197–212.
• Gutierrez-Huerter O, G., Gold, S., & Trautrims, A. (2023): „Change in rhetoric but not in action? Framing of the ethical issue of modern slavery in a UK sector at high risk of labor exploitation.” Journal of Business Ethics, 182 (1), 35–58.
• Heucher, K., Alt, E., Soderstrom, S., Scully, M., Glavas, A. (2024): “Catalyzing action on social and environmental challenges: An integrative review of insider social change agents.” Academy of Management Annals, 18 (1), 295–397.
• Meyerson, D.E., & Scully, M.A. (1995): “Crossroads tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change.” Organization Science, 6 (5), 585–600.
• Nyberg, D., Wright, C., & Bowden, V. (2022): Organising Responses to Climate Change. The Politics of Mitigation, Adaptation and Suffering. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Rheinhardt, A., Briscoe, F., & Joshi, A. (2023): “Organization-as-platform activism: Theory and evidence from the National Football League ‘Take a knee’ movement.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 68 (2), 395–428.
• Schwoon, B. (2024): “Navigating Grand Societal Challenges through Meta-Consensus: Combating Online Hate Speech through Collective Action in Multistakeholder Initiatives.” Academy of Management Perspectives, 39 (1), 125–151.
• Skoglund, A., & Böhm, S. (2022): Climate Activism: How Communities Take Renewable Energy Actions Across Business and Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
•