Call for Applications

Approach & Facilitator(s)

Design Science – Alexa Boeckel, Leuphana University Lüneburg & Anna Margolis, University of Hamburg
Futures aligned with Planetary Boundaries – Amanda Williams, Emlyon Business School
Temporal Complexity and Systems Thinking – Blagoy Blagoev, University of St. Gallen
Systems Mapping – Domenico Dentoni, Montpellier Business School
Theorizing more Sustainable Futures – Emilio Marti, Rotterdam School of Management
Temporal Theorizing – Miriam Feuls & Jonathan Feddersen, Copenhagen Business School
Feminist Perspectives and affective Processes – Christina Lüthy, Lund University
Indigenous Futures – Stephanie Daher, King's College London & Ana Maria Peredo, Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa
Action Research – Tobias Fehr Bosshard, University of St. Gallen, Antonia Galvan Luna, Hult International Business School & Freek Sanders, Zestor

Download short bios of all facilitators

Purpose

The overall goal of this PDW—co-hosted by the EGOS Standing Working Groups Organizing Desirable Futures: Sustainable Transformation, Impactful Scholarship & Grand Challenges (SWG 10) and Time and Organization Studies: Navigating Change, Emergence and Complexity (SWG 11)—is to promote research methods and approaches for desirable futures. This PDW will offer the opportunity for scholars at all stages to explore under-discussed research approaches—action research, design, feminist, Indigenous and eco-system perspectives, systems thinking, (temporal) theorizing—that may be suitable for working closely with organizations and management to drive change and create desirable futures such as a fair and just world, both socially and environmentally.

There is a growing scholarly interest in producing research that is also societally relevant and impactful—meaning that the research we produce contributes to solving social and environmental issues we study (Bansal & Sharma, 2022; Harley & Fleming, 2021; Jarzabkowski et al., 2021; Reinecke et al., 2022; Wickert et al., 2020). However, we identify three challenges for researchers in studying and co-creating desirable futures.

First, the dominant research approaches in our field are too researcher-centric—they were designed to help us build theory as silent observers of events that have already occurred, not to (co-)solve societal problems that are still unfolding (Langley & Klag, 2017). Alternative approaches, such as action research (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; Sharma & Bansal, 2020), bring the researcher into closer contact with practitioners and position the researcher as both an observer and active participant in driving change.

Second, to co-create desirable futures, approaches must address the question of desirability—i.e., for whom is this future desirable, and whose voices are included in the process (Comi et al., 2025). Here, drawing inspiration from various disciplines that offer alternative perspectives becomes important, such as thinking in socio-ecological systems that allow for considering multiple actors and their relations (Dentoni et al., 2021), feminist perspectives that embrace vulnerability, plurality, and the flourishing of others as an ethics of care (Friedrich & Lüthy, 2025), or Indigenous perspectives that provide alternative ontologies exploring the interconnectedness with land, community, and more-than-humans while challenging colonial narratives (Daher et al., 2025).
And third, research has shown that desirable futures are inherently temporal. However, studying the temporal requires temporal reflexivity, a sensitivity to how temporal concepts perform methodologically in our empirical research (Feuls et al., 2022). Research methods and approaches need to take an inter-temporal view to understand the interconnectedness between the present, past, and future (Hernes & Feuls, 2024) and to unravel the temporal complexity (Blagoev & Schreyögg, 2024). Yet, these approaches are not widely accepted in management studies and face many barriers that prevent researchers from utilizing them (Williams et al., 2022).

In this PDW, we ask the question: “Are our research approaches suited for helping to achieve societal change? Or do we need to break the boundaries of our current research approaches in order to (co-)create the desirable futures that we would like to see (Gümüsay & Reinecke, 2022, 2024)?” We argue that organization scholars need to ask difficult questions that touch the core of our field’s assumptions and research approaches in order to truly create desirable futures.

This PDW will showcase underutilized research approaches that scholars in our field are currently using and leave space for imagining what new approaches might look like (Williams et al., 2022). The PDW aims to facilitate conversations between experienced scholars, early-career scholars, and PhD candidates to discuss paper proposals and project ideas. Thus, we invite the EGOS community to jointly work on expanding our methodological approaches for addressing grand challenges and co-creating desirable futures, generating new research idea(l)s, and fostering potential research and impact collaborations.

Format

The PDW will run online and it will be structured as follows:

• Welcome & introduction of both SWGs - 20 min.
• Keynote on Futures by Elke Schüßler, Leuphana University Lüneburg - 20 min.
• Q&A with the audience - 10 min.
• Roundtable discussions - 160 min.
• Wrap up & Conclusion - 30 min.

The PDW will start with a brief introduction to the background, aims, and roundtable hosts of the event. It will then welcome our keynote speaker, Elke Schüssler, who bridges research from both SWGs, to share insights from her research on studying desirable futures and addressing grand challenges through a temporal perspective. The second part of the workshop will consist of roundtable discussions, each led by one of our organizers and invited roundtable hosts, focusing on a specific research method. The aim of these roundtables is both educational and exploratory—to (a) deepen knowledge about unconventional research methods for impact, and (b) explore and imagine ways the methods could be applied in future research projects. Participants will also have the chance to discuss their project ideas, with roundtable hosts facilitating the conversations and ensuring participants gain a wide range of ideas and inspiration for their own projects.

Application

We welcome submissions associated with the use of various research approaches that involve the researcher in tackling social and environmental issues. Please submit a single document of application (.doc, .docx, or .pdf file) via the EGOS website AND this Google form that includes the following information:

• A cover page with full details of name, affiliation and email address;
• A summary (max. 1 page) of a proposed or current project explaining the proposed method and the relation to the PDW theme. Please, also indicate the issues you would like to discuss in the roundtables related to the themes listed above.

References

• Bansal, P., & Sharma, G. (2022). Three different approaches to impact: Translating, cocreating, and performing. Business & Society, 61(4), 827–832.
• Blagoev, B., & Schreyögg, G. (2025). Eigenzeit: A new lens on temporal complexity. Academy of Management Review, 50(1), 93–113. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2022.0440
• Comi A., Mosca L., & Whyte J. (2025). Future making as emancipatory inquiry: A value-based exploration of desirable futures. Journal of Management Studies, 62, 2467–2481.
• Daher, S., Stocco, L. C., & Paiter Suruí, G. W. (2025). When sustainability initiatives and indigenous tealities meet: Ontological violence in the case of the “Paiter Suruí Carbon Credit REDD+ Project”. Business & Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00076503251396758
• Dentoni, D., Pinkse, J., & Lubberink, R. (2021). Linking sustainable business models to socio-ecological resilience through cross-sector partnerships: A complex adaptive systems view. Business & Society, 60(5), 1216-1252.
• Feuls, M., Plotnikof, M., & Stjerne, I. (2022). Timely methods: A methodological agenda for researching the temporal in organizing. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 18(1), 102–122.
• Friedrich, J., & Lüthy, C. (2025). Tending to the particular: Navigating tensions around principles of alternativity through an ethics of care.  Journal of Management Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13259
• Gümüşay, A. A., & Reinecke, J. (2022). Researching for desirable futures: From teal utopias to imagining alternatives. Journal of Management Studies, 59(1), 236–242.
• Gümüşay, A.A. & Reinecke, J. (2024). Imagining desirable futures: A call for prospective theorizing with speculative rigor. Organization Theory.
• Harley, B., & Fleming, P. (2021). Not even trying to change the world: Why do elite management journals ignore the major problems facing humanity? The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 57(2), 133–152.
• Hehenberger, L., Mair, J., & Metz, A. (2019). The assembly of a field ideology: An idea-centric perspective on systemic power in impact investing. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1672-1704.
• Hernes, T., & Feuls, M. (2024). Organizing in the folding of time: Shaping organizational change trajectories at turning points. Organization Studies, 45(9): 1325–1348.
• Jarzabkowski P, Dowell GW, & Berchicci L (2021). Strategy and organization scholarship through a radical sustainability lens: A call for 5.0. Strategic Organization 19(3): 449-455.
• Langley, A., & Klag, M. (2019). Being where? Navigating the involvement paradox in qualitative research accounts. Organizational Research Methods, 22(2), 515–538.
• Lüscher, L. S., & Lewis, M. W. (2008). Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51(2), 221–240.
• Reinecke, J., Boxenbaum, E., & Gehman, J. (2022). Impactful theory: Pathways to mattering. Organization Theory, 3(4), 1–20.
• Sharma, G., & Bansal, P. (2020). Cocreating rigorous and relevant knowledge. Academy of Management Journal, 63(2), 386–410.
• Wickert, C., Post, C., Doh, J. P., Prescott, J. E., & Prencipe, A. (2021). Management research that makes a difference: Broadening the meaning of impact. Journal of Management Studies, 58(2), 297–320.
• Williams, A., Whiteman, G., Walls, J., Harley, B., & Dowell, G. (2022). Call for papers: Special issue of strategic organization: Impact driven strategy research for grand challenges. Strategic Organization, 20(1), 225–227.
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