Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

The EGOS Colloquium 2026 highlights the urgent need to reframe organizational theories, practices, and methods to recognize the interdependence of humans and other species. This sub-theme directly supports this vision by addressing the ethical, ontological, and epistemological dimensions of human-animal relationships in organizational contexts. Specifically, it asks: How do animals participate in and shape organizational dynamics? What are the ethical and practical implications of incorporating animals as organizational actors? How can organizations reimagine their structures and practices to create more equitable, multispecies futures?

By foregrounding animals, this sub-theme extends perspectives with other species, highlighting issues like interspecies solidarity, biopolitics, and the environmental impacts of human-centric organizing. In particular, it aligns with calls to “decolonize” methods and narratives. As such, it encourages creative, interdisciplinary approaches that challenge traditional boundaries and amplify the voices of animals and other marginalized actors.
 
Organizing has always been multispecies (Labatut et al., 2016). Humans are intimately interconnected to the non-human world – which includes non-human artificial actors, non-human animals and natural non-animal entities – in ways that shape social systems, values and practices. This is becoming more recognized in the field of organization studies (e.g., Connelly & Cullen, 2018; Coulter & Fitzgerald, 2016; Hamilton & McCabe, 2016; Huopalainen, 2022; Kandel et al., 2023; Labatut et al., 2016; O’Doherty, 2016; Sayers et al., 2023; Tallberg et al., 2022a).
 
Modern societies’ treatment of animals reveals core aspects of human priorities. The detrimental impact of human actions on animals is central to many industries, such as industrial animal agriculture (Christensen & Lamberton, 2022; Köllen & Schneeberger, 2023) and tourism (Rickly & Kline, 2021; Wadham & Dashper, 2024). Likewise, humans also have a negative impact when they destroy wildlife habitats in the pursuit of “growth” and “development” of cities and farmlands. There are increasing wildlife-human conflicts (such as with wolves and rats), while breeding domesticated animals for consumption is growing faster than ever (Statista, n.d.). Such practices raise pressing ethical questions that organization scholars must address if we are to move beyond anthropocentric frameworks.
 
The “animal turn” in organization studies offers a transformative lens through which to reframe multispecies organizations. This sub-theme seeks to take animals seriously as actors in their own right, and explore the impact of human-animal relationships on organizational structures, practices, and policies, and vice versa. By integrating perspectives from animal organization studies (AOS), business ethics and other interdisciplinary fields, we aim to highlight how an interspecies perspective potentially enables us to come together to create more responsible, sustainable and inclusive organizations and practices of organizing for all.
 
In summary, this sub-theme heeds the conference call for a transformative reframing in a way that in turn helps expand the scope of organization studies more broadly. By further incorporating animals into the study of organizations, we challenge anthropocentric biases and open up new possibilities for understanding power, diversity, and inequality in our multispecies societies. In so doing, we aim to inspire innovative research and practical solutions that address pressing global challenges, from biodiversity loss to ethical labour practices. Through this sub-theme, we hope to foster a dynamic, interdisciplinary dialogue that brings together scholars, practitioners, and activists to envision a future where organizations are more inclusive of all beings.
 
The sub-theme considers questions of human power and privilege but also possibilities in our relations to animals and how to create more humane organizing for animals. We especially call for submissions that disrupt and challenge the status quo, and/or take an academic activist stance for animals (Tallberg et al., 2022b). The sub-theme will appeal to a wide variety of EGOSians with interests such as business and organisational ethics, sustainability, multispecies organising, DEI, and strategy.
 
Topics of interest in this sub-theme include (but are not limited to):

• The role of animals in work, and forms of humane/posthuman work

• Advancing organization theories for multispecies inclusivity

• Business ethics and CSR in regard to animals

• Interspecies solidarity in actions, thinking and feeling and impact on organizing

• Onto-epistemological/methodological considerations of multispecies approaches

• Bio-political systems and challenges/potentials, for example, dietary shifts and just transitions in food production systems and alternative food options

• The link to sustainability debates and its limitations/opportunities for animals

• Indigenous and non-Western insights into animal-human organizing efforts

• Intersectional analyses of how speciesism overlaps with other forms of discrimination such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc.

• Multispecies lenses on the impact of wars, climate change disruptions, population and consumption growth in organizing

• Dimensions of local and global organizing impacts on animals (e.g., tourism and leisure activities)

References

• Christensen, M., & Lamberton, G. (2022): “Accounting for animal welfare: Addressing epistemic vices during live sheep export voyages.” Journal of Business Ethics, 180, 35–56.

• Doherty, D. (2016): “Feline politics in organization: The nine lives of Olly the cat.” Organization, 23 (3), 407–433.

• Jammaers, E., & Huopalainen, A. (2023): “‘I prefer working with mares, like women, difficult in character but go the extra mile:’ A study of multiple inequalities in equine (sports) business.” Gender, Work & Organization, 30 (6), 2049–2068.

• Knight, C., & Sang, K. (2020): “‘At home, he’s a pet, at work he’s a colleague and my right arm:’ Police dogs and the emerging posthumanist agenda.” Culture and Organization, 26 (5–6), 355–371.

• Köllen, T., & Schneeberger, D. (2023): “Avoiding unnecessary suffering: Towards a moral minimum standard for humans’ responsibility for animal welfare.” Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, 32 (4), 1139–1149.

• Labatut, J., Munro, I., & Desmond, J. (2016): “Animals and organizations.” Organization, 23 (3), 315–329.

• Rickly, J.M., & Kline, C. (eds.) (2021): Exploring Non-Human Work in Tourism: From Beasts of Burden to Animal Ambassadors. Oldenbourg: de Gruyter.

• Sayers, J., Hamilton, L., & Sang, K. (2019): “Organizing animals: Species, gender and power at work.” Gender, Work & Organization, 26 (3), 239–245.

• Statista (n.d.): Global Meat Production 1990–2024. Statista. Retrieved on November 27, 2024, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/237644/global-meat-production-since-1990/

• Tallberg, L., García-Rosell, J.C., & Haanpää, M. (2022): “Human-animal relations in business and society: Advancing the feminist interpretation of stakeholder theory.” Journal of Business Ethics, 180, 1–16.

• Tallberg, L., Välikangas, L., & Hamilton, L. (2022a): “Animal activism in the business school: Using fierce compassion for teaching critical and positive perspectives.” Management Learning, 53 (1), 55–75.

• Tallberg, L., & Hamilton, L. (eds.) (2022b): The Oxford Handbook of Animal Organization Studies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

• Wadham, H., & Dashper, K. (2024): “The slow road to sustainable tourism: An interspecies perspective on decent work.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism, published online on July 13, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2024.2374361