Climate Change and the Emergence of New Organizational Landscapes

TLDR

Human‑made climate change is widely recognized as a serious global problem, yet organizational research on it is nascent and largely framed in instrumental, managerialist terms that emphasize win‑win opportunities or CSR. This study argues that climate change is a political issue involving contestation and collaboration among diverse organizations, and calls for scholars to understand apathy and inertia to chart pathways toward transformative change. The authors synthesize strategic, institutional, and political‑economy perspectives into a socioeconomic regimes framework and present seven papers that analyze climate‑change strategies, discourses, identities, and practices across multiple levels.

Abstract

There is general agreement across the world that human-made climate change is a serious global problem, although there are still some sceptics who challenge this view. Research in organization studies on the topic is relatively new. Much of this research, however, is instrumental and managerialist in its focus on ‘win-win’ opportunities for business or its treatment of climate change as just another corporate social responsibility (CSR) exercise. In this paper, we suggest that climate change is not just an environmental problem requiring technical and managerial solutions; it is a political issue where a variety of organizations – state agencies, firms, industry associations, NGOs and multilateral organizations – engage in contestation as well as collaboration over the issue. We discuss the strategic, institutional and political economy dimensions of climate change and develop a socioeconomic regimes approach as a synthesis of these different theoretical perspectives. Given the urgency of the problem and the need for a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy, there is a pressing need for organization scholars to develop a better understanding of apathy and inertia in the face of the current crisis and to identify paths toward transformative change. The seven papers in this special issue address these areas of research and examine strategies, discourses, identities and practices in relation to climate change at multiple levels.