Coordinators:
Ozan Nadir Alakavuklar, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Devi Vijay, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India
Daniel S. Lacerda, Montpellier Business School, France
Patrizia Zanoni, Hasselt University, Belgium
Genevieve Shanahan, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
Fabio Meira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
The Standing Working Group (SWG) on ‘Alternative Organizations and Social Transformation’ (AOST) builds upon the rapidly expanding
body of scholarship on alternative forms of organizing, which includes diverse structures such as cooperatives, time banks,
credit unions, and community care collectives. As societies face mounting multidimensional crises, this SWG deliberately steps
away from "business as usual" approaches to focus on a groundswell of alternative organizational forms and practices that
question the status quo and organize for social transformation. Building on the robust demand demonstrated by recent EGOS
sub-themes, the SWG provides a stable academic home for a lively, international community dedicated to this research.
The SWG is anchored by four primary objectives: fostering impactful theorizing, supporting methodological diversity, disseminating
alternative pedagogical praxis, and cultivating a vibrant, transdisciplinary community.
In terms of Theorizing Alternative Organizing, the community will trace heterogeneous forms of alternative organizations to account for economic activity beyond the for-profit
model, with a particular focus on the Global South and the peripheries of the Global North. Key analytical areas will include
situated governance, recognizing difference in practices of social reproduction, institutional arrangements, and the development
of new imaginaries and narratives of value.
Regarding Methodological Experimentation, the SWG posits that alternative organizations require unconventional methodologies, emphasizing that the method itself becomes
a site of prefiguration. The program will utilize practice-based approaches such as organizing studios, Live Action Role-Playing
(LARP), conjunctural analysis, and collaborative knowledge-making with artists,activists and other agents of change
to test boundaries and cultivate radical imagination.
For Pedagogical Innovation, the group will focus on transforming learning spaces into acts of reorganization through collaborative workshops. A central
priority is decolonizing curricula by challenging Eurocentric frameworks and integrating indigenous, situated knowledges to
prepare scholars and students to navigate global complexity.
Finally, the aim is to build an emancipatory, anti-colonial, and anti-racist community that fosters international and interdisciplinary dialogue across fields like arts, humanities, ecology, medicine, geography,
and architecture. Backed by widespread enthusiasm, the initiative has secured support from 81 scholars across 17 countries
and intends to collaborate with other EGOS SWGs and aligned research networks to advance pluralism, inclusivity, and epistemological
diversity.
In addition to the scholars who endorse the proposal and commit to active participation in the SWG, we will remain open, transparent,
and development-oriented. There is no closed membership: participation is based on constructive engagement with the
About the Coordinators
Ozan N. Alakavuklar is Associate Professor of Organization Studies and Chair of the Organization Studies Group at Utrecht University School of
Governance, The Netherlands. His research focuses on community-level grassroots organizations and post/non-capitalist theories
of societal transformation.
Devi Vijay is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India. Devi’s interdisciplinary research explores questions
of inequality, institutions, alternative forms of organizing, and collective action, with a focus on healthcare.
Daniel S. Lacerda is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of People and Organizations at MBS School of Business, France. His work
explores poverty, inequality, and solidarity economy initiatives.
Patrizia Zanoni is a Full Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Hasselt University, Belgium, and a former Chair of Organization Studies
at Utrecht University (2018–2023). Drawing on critical traditions, her research examines new forms of work and post-capitalist
economic organizing.
Genevieve Shanahan is a Lecturer in Management, Employment and Organization at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK. Her research
focuses on alternative organizing for just and sustainable real utopias, with a particular focus on how technology might open
up new democratic possibilities in cooperatives and commons-based organizations.
Fabio Meira is an Associate Professor of Social Management at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS (Brazil). His research
focuses on alternative organizations, solidarity economy, ethics and social responsibility, management ideology.