Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

Societies today face profound social challenges, including mass displacement, homelessness, and multiple forms of violence—all of which are intensified by wars, geopolitical conflicts, and accelerating climate change (Amis et al., 2021; De Rond & Lok, 2016). These ongoing crises create unequal conditions, making positive social change imperative—particularly for marginalized groups, who bear the heaviest burdens yet are often called upon to drive that change themselves. However, the emotional experiences associated with pursuing positive social change (or with the inability to do so) remain underexamined in organizational research. This sub-theme seeks to explore how emotions, organizations, and institutions shape such change for marginalized groups, including but not limited to those marginalized along demographic, economic, geographic, cultural, and social dimensions (Phillips & Ranganathan, 2025).

Positive social change transforms thought, behavior, relationships, institutions, and structures to create benefits for individuals, communities, society, and environment (Nilsson, 2015; Stephan et al., 2016). For marginalized groups, emotions are central to the dynamics of these processes. For some, positive change is achieved through the activation and mobilization of emotions such as hope, empathy, and passion (Farny et al., 2019). For others, however, the process of change can be difficult, marked by hopelessness that undermines perceived collective efficacy (Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018), by fear that ties the present to past experiences (Bar-Tal et al., 2007), and even by false hope that ultimately ends in the misery of defeat (Polivy & Herman, 2000). Emotions implicated in the struggles for positive change are typically social and collective (Sawyer & Clair, 2022; Zhang et al., 2024; Zietsma et al., 2019). These dynamics are often overlooked, even though they can undermine engagement with change initiatives (Rauch, 2025). While social movement scholarship has examined emotions, it has primarily focused on negative ones such as fear, hatred, and anger (DeCelles et al., 2020; Goodwin & Jasper, 2006; Jasper & Owens, 2014). In contrast, positive, mixed, or absent emotions remain largely unexplored (Jarvis et al., 2019; Jasper & Owens, 2014; Reinecke & Ansari, 2021), particularly within management research.

We call for an integrated and in-depth understanding that explains how emotions, alone and in combination, can activate, galvanize, prevent, and sustain engagement in change initiatives across individual, organizational, and institutional levels, thereby enabling strategies that better meet the needs of marginalized groups. We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers across multiple levels of analysis. We are particularly interested in studies that explore the conditions under which the recognition of suffering can be transformed into lasting forms of change, using a range of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. This includes three broad, nonexhaustive directions of conversation:

1. Emotions underlying collective efforts that empower or prevent positive social change

We invite submissions that explore how emotions shape dynamics of marginalization in different contexts. We particularly welcome studies examining the emotional configurations that sustain or prevent engagement in change initiatives over time, and the mechanisms through which they operate, such as meaning-making, collective action formation, identity work, and processes of institutionalization or emancipation. We also welcome work on how organizations such as social movement organizations or NGOs strategically use emotions, as well as work examining what happens when emotions among marginalized groups are absent or suppressed and how that absence can demobilize collective efforts.

2. Agency, space, and temporality of positive social change

How do emotions shape where, when, and by whom positive social change is pursued? We seek submissions examining the mutual influence between emotions and the agency, spatiality, and temporality of positive social change. For instance, we encourage contributions that explore how different actors at multiple levels translate specific emotions into efficacy beliefs, commitments, and enactments; the spaces (e.g., community sites, digital platforms) where emotional work takes place and how it is institutionalized; and the eventful moments and trajectories through which emotions emerge, shift, and interact. Emotions may also shape how marginalized groups experience time—compressing it through urgency or stretching it through patience—which, in turn, can influence whether and how they engage in positive change initiatives. We welcome contributions that address one or more of these aspects.

3. Emotions, values, and the contested nature of positive social change 

What counts as positive change is inherently socially constructed and value-laden, and not everyone constructs it the same way. When marginalized groups see it differently from those who define it and may struggle to emotionally invest in visions that do not reflect their lived experience (Voronov & Vince, 2012; Voronov & Weber, 2016), the emotions that arise can reshape, redirect, or resist the very initiatives designed to help them. We invite scholarship that critically examines how “positive social change” is defined, by whom, and for whom, and the different emotional reactions among different groups involved. When these emotions go unrecognized, ostensibly positive initiatives can backfire, reinforcing exclusion rather than transformation (Khan et al., 2007). We welcome work that traces these dynamics, including how emotions and values, continuously constructed through collective inquiry (Espedal & Carlsen, 2024), shape future-making practices through which marginalized groups and their allies claim a voice in (re)defining what positive change means and enact alternatives.

We invite papers that address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• What configurations of emotions sustain individual and collective action among marginalized groups and their allies over time in their struggle for positive social change, and how do they do so?

• How can organizations and institutions channel emotions toward positive social change, rather than mere symbolic compliance, and translate momentary mobilization into future-making practices for marginalized groups?

• How do spaces (e.g., community sites) shape and sustain emotional experiences that facilitate (or hinder) positive social change? And how do emotions move across place and time?

• What new forms of positive social change are emerging, and what emotion configurations sustain these changes?

• How do emotions and values interact in defining what “positive” change is? Who are the “game players” in defining “positive social change” in various contexts, and how do marginalized groups’ emotional reactions shape, facilitate, or challenge these definitions?

• When and how do “positive” emotions backfire, hindering (rather than facilitating) positive social change? And how do various actors prevent this?

 
Hybrid Format

We are committed to making this sub-theme accessible to scholars globally. To facilitate international conversation and broaden participation, we will host it in an integrated hybrid format. Sessions will be designed to ensure meaningful exchange across on-site and remote participants, through inclusive practices such as moderated discussions, precirculated materials, and small-group interactions. Asynchronous elements such as a shared digital workspace will allow participants to engage with presentations and exchange feedback across time zones. We look forward to welcoming submissions from diverse perspectives and contexts.

• Amis, J., Brickson, S., Haack, P., & Hernandez, M. (2021). Taking inequality seriously. Academy of Management Review, 46(3), 431–439. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2021.0222
• Bar-Tal, D., Halperin, E., & De Rivera, J. (2007). Collective emotions in conflict situations: Societal implications. Journal of Social Issues, 63(2), 441–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2007.00518.x
• Cohen-Chen, S., & Van Zomeren, M. (2018). Yes we can? Group efficacy beliefs predict collective action, but only when hope is high. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 77, 50–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.016
• DeCelles, K. A., Sonenshein, S., & King, B. G. (2020). Examining anger’s immobilizing effect on institutional insiders’ action intentions in social movements. Administrative Science Quarterly, 65(4), 847–886. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839219879646
• De Rond, M., & Lok, J. (2016). Some things can never be unseen: The role of context in psychological injury at war. Academy of Management Journal, 59(6), 1965–1993. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2015.0681
• Espedal, G., & Carlsen, A. (2024). Value inquiry and constructing the good in organizations. Organization Studies, 45(8), 1075–1098. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406241253161
• Farny, S., Kibler, E., & Down, S. (2019). Collective emotions in institutional creation work. Academy of Management Journal, 62(3), 765–799. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0711
• Goodwin, J., & Jasper, J. M. (2006). Emotions and social movements. In J. E. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of emotions (pp. 611–635). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30715-2_27
• Jarvis, L. C., Goodrick, E., & Hudson, B. A. (2019). Where the heart functions best: Reactive–affective conflict and the disruptive work of animal rights organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), 1358–1387. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2017.0342
• Jasper, J. M., & Owens, L. (2014). Social movements and emotions. In J. E. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of emotions: Volume II (pp. 529–548). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9130-4_25
• Khan, F. R., Munir, K. A., & Willmott, H. (2007). A dark side of institutional entrepreneurship: Soccer balls, child labour and postcolonial impoverishment. Organization Studies, 28(7), 1055–1077. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840607078114
• Nilsson, W. (2015). Positive institutional work: Exploring institutional work through the lens of positive organizational scholarship. Academy of Management Review, 40(3), 370–398. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2013.0188
• Phillips, D. J., & Ranganathan, A. (2025). Addressing marginalized populations in management research. Administrative Science Quarterly, 70(3), 587–610.
• Polivy, J., & Herman, C. P. (2000). The false-hope syndrome: Unfulfilled expectations of self-change. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(4), 128–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00076
• Rauch, M. (2025). Between war and peace: How boredom shapes the enactment of idealized futures in extreme contexts. Academy of Management Journal, 68(3), 475–506. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2023.0618
• Reinecke, J., & Ansari, S. (2021). Microfoundations of framing: The interactional production of collective action frames in the Occupy movement. Academy of Management Journal, 64(2), 378–408. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.1063
• Sawyer, K. B., & Clair, J. A. (2022). Hope cultures in organizations: Tackling the grand challenge of commercial sex exploitation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 67(2), 289–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/00018392211055506
• Stephan, U., Patterson, M., Kelly, C., & Mair, J. (2016). Organizations driving positive social change: A review and an integrative framework of change processes. Journal of Management, 42(5), 1250–1281. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316633268
• Voronov, M., & Vince, R. (2012). Integrating emotions into the analysis of institutional work. Academy of Management Review, 37(1), 58–81. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2010.0247
• Voronov, M., & Weber, K. (2016). The heart of institutions: Emotional competence and institutional actorhood. Academy of Management Review, 41(3), 456–478. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2013.0458
• Zhang, R., Voronov, M., Toubiana, M., Vince, R., & Hudson, B. A. (2024). Beyond the feeling individual: Insights from sociology on emotions and embeddedness. Journal of Management Studies, 61(5), 2212–2250. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12976
• Zietsma, C., Toubiana, M., Voronov, M., & Roberts, A. (2019). Emotions in organization theory. Cambridge University Press.