Race is a multi-faceted conceptual and empirical category that is largely under-studied in mainstream organization research. This is a blind spot that limits organizational research’s ability to contribute and have relevance for broader society where race and ethnicity and the role of organizations have been most recently returned to the agenda by the murder of George Floyd by a member of the police force, a central organization in our different societies.
 
This sub-plenary seeks to enlarge the space of inquiry on the issue of race and ethnicity in organizations and organizing. It seeks to open an avenue and map out how organizational scholarship can take a more important role in engaging with issues of race and ethnicity. We seek to highlight the relevance of race for organizations and organizing and open the discussion of how race needs to be written more substantially and broadly into our theories and research designs. It is particularly important to not only look at race as an empirical phenomenon, but also as a prism through which theoretical insights are created and interpreted.