Dear Colleagues,

Our aim for this Special Issue is to contribute to the discussions concerning the ways in which organizations and society may disengage from the uncritical adherence and strong dependency on putative economic growth. All over the world, organizations are based on the  ‘growth’ paradigm (Latouche, 2009; Daly, 2013; Hickel & Kallis,2020) which is largely accepted to be independent of the level of national economic development and, as a result, the growth paradigm is not contested in most organizational and management research (Heikkurinen et al., 2013; Shrivastava, 2015). It circumvents the public arenas where different possibilities of socioecological orders are discussed. Not surprisingly, the consequences of this blind pursuit of growth have been ecological, and economic crises have also become the everyday condition of our lives. Yet, inhabitants of big cities face daily problems with pollution, violence, and psychological stress. At the same time, organizational and management scholars have been accused of not paying due attention to the questions which really matter in society. We invite scholars to present papers discussing news ways of organizing and solving contemporary societal problems.

We invite papers that critically address the role of organizations and institutions in maintaining the status quo of economic growth. We invite papers dealing with new experiments and new forms of organizing which address societal problems linked to Sustainability and Degrowth in the Global South. For instance, there is a growing literature dealing with degrowth economics which has emerged as a critic of the assumption in the economic thought and policy making that economic growth is a must, an absolute condition for the survival of the global political economic system (Latouche, 2009; Kallis et al., 2018). It has become a mantra that is neither questioned by mainstream economists (Daly, 2013) nor by sociologists, management, or organization scholars (Heikkurinen et al., 2013).

News ways of structuring our economy will have implications for the whole organization of our society: health, work, leisure, parental leave, distribution of wealth, sustainability, corporate governance, food production, competition, etc. Do degrowth organizations present significant differences when compared to growth-seeking organizations? Take, for instance, work—how is work organized in alternative organizations? Do alternative organizations maintain the rigid division between manual and mental work? Other possible topics include, but are not limited to the following questions:

• Sustainability and degrowth also imply enormous theoretical challenges regarding why organizations exist and how they should be governed. Therefore, it is likely that our theoretical resources need a strong update, and in order to pursue this, theoretical discussions are fundamental. For instance, are there institutional environments which are more likely to facilitate the transition towards degrowth? Are there governance principles which may function as barriers to degrowth?
• Few organizations and communities are already preparing and participating in the creation of new alternatives to sustainable degrowth. We would like to invite papers analyzing possible alternatives.
• Recent problems in the economy, environmental catastrophes, and the COVID-19 pandemic indicate that their most challenging scenarios are becoming evident—how are organizations preparing for the end of growth times?
• How do incumbents resist or collaborate with sustainable and degrowth strategies?
• How can we reframe our dependency on growth? What are the organizational challenges for becoming a degrowth organization?
• Degrowth concept in business schools—is there any possibility to teach degrowth in a BS?
• Are organizations in emerging societies dealing with the possibility of degrowth? What are the institutional changes which need to take place for bringing degrowth out of a peripheral position?
• Do we need to face severe natural disasters before we start seriously rethinking our ways of organizing?
• Are there emerging alternative ways of organizing economic life? How do we characterize these organizations?

References

1. Daly, H. (2013). A further critique of growth economics. Ecological economics88(0): 20-24.
2. Heikkurinen, P., & Bonnedahl, K. J. (2013). Corporate responsibility for sustainable development: a review and conceptual comparison of market-and stakeholder-oriented strategies. Journal of Cleaner Production 43:191-198.
3. Hickel, J., & Kallis, G. (2020). Is green growth possible? New Political Economy25(4): 469-486.
4. Kallis, G., Kostakis, V., Lange, S., Muraca, B., Paulson, S., & Schmelzer, M. (2018). Research on degrowth. Annual Review of Environment and Resources43:291-316.
5. Latouche, S. (2009). Farewell to growth. Polity.
6. Shrivastava, P. (2015). Organizational sustainability under degrowth. Management Research Review, 38(6).

Dr. Robson Silva Rocha
Guest Editor

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• sustainability
• global south
• degrowth
• climate change
• ecological food production
• circular economy
• green growth
• alternative economies
• postcapitalism
• postgrowth
• energy transition
• transformation
• sustainable development
• ecological economics
• green decoupling