We would like to draw your attention to the following panel symposium at the upcoming AOM annual meeting:
Taking on the Challenge:
How Organization Theorists can address Grand Challenges
Tuesday, Aug 13 2019, 11:30AM - 1:00PM
Boston Hynes Convention Center, Room: 313
Panelists:
Gerald (Jerry) Davis, University of Michigan
Joel Gehman, University of Alberta
Johanna Mair, Hertie School of Governance
Gail Whiteman, Lancaster University
Discussant and Moderator:
Jennifer Howard-Grenville, University of Cambridge
Organizers:
Helen Etchanchu, Montpellier Business School
Suhaib Riaz, University of Ottawa
Panel symposium summary:
In a time of increased attention to grand challenges (e.g. Ferraro et al., 2015; George et al., 2016), such as inequality, poverty, climate change, ecological imbalances, and socioeconomic and political crises along with their extended impacts, organization theorists face an important choice. We can continue developing theory in our traditionally existing streams with occasional and peripheral links to grand challenges, such as through bringing those challenges in as part of our empirical contexts, or in our managerial implications. Or we can address head-on the importance of grand challenges, make them a core aspect of our research, and accordingly develop theoretical and empirical approaches that may be seen as a 'grand challenges turn' in our field.
Several special issues at journals (e.g., AMJ, AMD, Organization Studies) and workshops/organizing themes at conferences (e.g. EGOS) now point to organization theorists engaging with grand challenges. In doing this, organization theorists have received a mix of mild to moderate applause on one hand, and a number of gentle to harsh criticisms on the other hand. We believe it is time to consolidate the early learning from work in this area by having an honest discussion on the most inspiring as well as most contentious issues around such research.