Call for Papers

Strange times call for strange terms. Atwater (2021) refers to an age of “normalized unprecedentedness”, a feeling that the next shock is always threatening to subsume the former. The Economist (2021), amongst others, offers the term “predictable unpredictability” to capture the notion that unpredictability is now to be expected (Beckhy & Okhuysen, 2011). The idea of the “new normal” (Pew Research Center, 2021), captures the sense that things are different from before, but somehow not different enough.
 
What does it mean to live and work in a world that is characterized by multiple, unfolding, and lingering crises? A crisis is commonly understood to be a “serious threat to the basic structures or the fundamental values and norms of a social system, which – under time pressure and highly uncertain circumstances – necessitates making critical decisions” (Rosenthal et al., 1989: 10). Recent events are challenging this conceptualization, as we continue to grapple with more complex scenarios. For example, employing a complexity perspective, Morin & Kern (1999) have introduced the notion of a “polycrisis” to highlight crisis situations that are interrelated and overlapping. Such occurrences pose unique threats, reflected in the “complex intersolidarity of problems, antagonisms, crises, uncontrollable processes, and the general crisis of the planet” (Morin & Kern. 1999: 74). Building on this, Swilling (2013: 98) notes polycrises are “a nested set of globally interactive socio-economic, ecological and cultural–institutional crises that defy reduction to a single cause”.
 
The traditional conceptualization of a crisis emphasizes its immediate, recognizable, short-lived, and often surprising qualities (‘t Hart & Boin, 2001). Recognizing that many of today’s crises are both longer lasting, and often fail to receive sufficient prioritization, Boin, Ekengren & Rhinard (2020) describe a “creeping crisis” as a “threat to widely shared societal values or life-sustaining systems that evolves over time and space, is foreshadowed by precursor events, subject to varying degrees of political and/or societal attention and are impartially or insufficiently addressed by authorities”. Embedded within this view is the recognition that urgency is socially constructed and reliant on perception, and thus disagreements may arise with regards to the extent of a crisis or its severity.
 
Together, these contributions signal that the experience of extreme events is becoming more commonplace. Reflecting these observations, our subtheme invites contributions that explore the normalization of extreme contexts. Normalization refers to the idea that what used to be viewed as deviations and exceptions are increasingly seen as inevitable, acceptable, or regularized. We welcome conceptual, methodological and empirical contributions that help us to understand what it means to live and work in times of normalized extreme contexts.
 
Normalization can be explored in terms of its inputs and effects. At the societal level, contributions may include the role of – and implications for – institutions, policy-making, cross-sector collaborations, and the civil society. At the organizational level, we invite scholars to consider the ramifications on sensemaking and the construction of urgency, the role of routines and ways of coping with (multiple) crises. At the individual level, contributions may look at the roles, lived experience, or identity. Cross-level approaches seem particularly important here and might invite consideration of how resisting labelling situations as crises, as well as how a lack of response to growing or multiple crises, are normalized.
 
For our scholarship, the normalization of extreme events also poses interesting questions on how to consolidate the research, what management and organization studies can learn from extreme contexts, and how to study extreme contexts. More specifically, we invite papers that deal with the following potential themes, but are not limited to exploring:
 
General questions:

• What is the new normal? How is it organized?

• Can the normalizing process of extreme contexts, and if so, how?

• What are appropriate research designs to study the normalizing of extreme contexts? What methods need to be introduced or built on?

 
The normalization of extreme contexts at the societal level:

• How is politics influencing the process of normalizing extreme contexts?

• How might the normalizing of extreme contexts increase societal inequalities?

• How does the overlapping of multiple crises drive the perception of urgency? How is it amplified or downplayed?

• What do we mean with the notion of polycrises? Are other conceptualizations of crisis needed?

• How are multiple crises amplifying, shaping, or normalizing each other?

 
The normalization of extreme contexts at the organizational level:

• What is the role of organizational routines for the normalization of extreme event responses?

• How do “ordinary” organizations prepare for or respond to an uncertain future?

• How is urgency constructed and framed? How do urgent developments become normalized as non-urgent by organizations?

• How is the process of normalizing influencing organizational resilience?

 
The normalization of extreme contexts at the individual level:

• What is the role of boredom or apathy in responding to or normalizing extreme contexts?

• How does the normalization of extreme contexts impact leaders (such as sense giving, or leadership roles and responsibilities)?

• What implications do experiences such as a polycrisis or creeping crisis have on organizational member’s identities?

References

• Atwater, P. (2021): “A dangerous normalisation of unprecedentedness.” Retrieved on 19 February 2023 from https://www.ft.com/content/290758b7-ef92-4540-9780-b636027b47a8.

• Boin, A., Ekengren, M., & Rhinard, M. (2020): “Hiding in plain sight: Conceptualizing the creeping crisis.” Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy, 11 (2), 116–138.
• Morin, E., & Kern, A.B. (1999): Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millenium. Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences. Cresskill, N.J: Hampton Press.
• Säkerhetspolisen (2020): Säkerhetspolisens årsbok 2020. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Sweden, 2021 (Annual threat assessment of the US intelligence community, issue).
• Swilling, M. (2013): “Economic Crisis, Long Waves and the Sustainability Transition: An African Perspective.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 6 (March), 96–115.
• ’t Hart, P., & Boin, R.A. (2001): “Between crisis and normalcy: The long shadow of post-crisis politics.” In: U. Rosenthal, R.A. Boin & L.K. Comfort (eds.): Managing Crisis: Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 28–46.
• Rosenthal, U., ‘t Hart, P., & Charles, M.T. (1989): “The World of Crises and Crisis Management.” In: U. Rosenthal, C. Charles & P. ’t Hart (eds): Coping with Crises: The Management of Disasters, Riots and Terrorism. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas.
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