Hello!
Just a quick reminder that the virtual seminar series of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) will conclude this academic year by hosting Hannah Schupfer (King's College) on May 2. She will present "Limiting Solutions to Grand Challenges – Relational Framing Dynamics in Incumbent Climate Action" co-authored with Birthe Soppe (University of Innsbruck). It is a great opportunity for all to learn about research-in-progress in corporate sustainability (the presentation is 20 mins long and Q&A is another 10 mins) and for all juniors out there (PhD students and junior faculty) to socialize with the speaker afterwards (the last 30 mins). Please find the abstract below:
Despite broad consensus on the need to tackle grand challenges, disagreements over concrete solutions limit effective action. Corporations, central to competing stakeholder demands, navigate solution negotiations. Despite much insight on issue framing to build consensus, less attention has been given on the framing of solutions to promote certain alternatives while sidelining others. Analysing climate solution framing by a Norwegian fossil-fuel incumbent (2007 – 2022), we show how the incumbent leverages opposing stakeholder demands through the strategic interplay between moral and pragmatic frames to shape a climate solution that ultimately proves less impactful. We derive a model of relational framing dynamics, highlighting how incumbents establish the moral legitimacy of their fossil fuel core business. We introduce frame inversion, the oppositional framing of two independent, yet related actions to strategically enhance the legitimacy of a certain action, as key mechanism to shape a bundle of climate solutions, sidelining a more impactful alternative. Our study contributes to the literature on grand challenges and framing, by highlighting how incumbents prioritise their core business when moral stakeholder demands emerge and introducing the concept of frame inversion as central construct in negotiation processes of solutions.
Please register for the seminar here: https://corporate-sustainability.org/online-seminar-series/
Stay tuned for next year's program and have a great and productive summer!
Best regards,
Olga Hawn, PhD
Associate Professor, Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Sustainability Distinguished Fellow
Faculty Director, Ackerman Center for Excellence in Sustainability
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
Associate Editor, Strategic Management Journal
Associate Editor, Management Science