Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

What happens when a forest “enters” a boardroom, a wetland “participates” in a pilot project, and living plants are built into buildings? Such scenes are becoming visible as organizations confront environmental crises and the limits of treating nature as a passive resource. This sub-theme explores ways of organizing with and for nature. We take seriously the premise that nature is not only affected by organizing but actively shapes it; that nature has agency and co-produces organizational processes and practices. In this pursuit, we foster exchange and cross-fertilization among management and organization studies (MOS) scholars from different fields—such as corporate governance, stakeholder management, future making, innovation studies, or open strategy—that each, in their own way, have begun to inquire into how organizations make space for actors beyond their boundaries.

For many decades, organizational processes have been anthropocentric and oriented toward economic growth, treating nature primarily as a resource that needs to be managed and optimized (Good & Thorpe, 2020). Due to the pressing need to imagine and enact alternative futures, scholars and practitioners advocate rethinking traditional forms of organizing and giving voice to nature and individuals who are affected by environmental crises, including local communities and Indigenous people (Howard-Grenville & Lahneman, 2021). Biocentric approaches invite us to recognize the value of all forms of life, and to rethink organizational purpose as contributing to the flourishing of the biosphere rather than merely human prosperity (Nadegger & Wegerer, 2024; Whiteman & Cooper, 2011). As recent research suggests, we must move beyond seeing nature as an external object or a context for human action toward recognizing its agency, creativity, and capacity for co-production (Delmas et al., 2019; Pickering, 2025; Williams et al., 2021). As such, MOS scholars suggest rejecting the traditional, dual treatment of “organization” and “nature” and moving toward a more relational understanding where nature and organization are continuously co-produced through ongoing material, spatial, and temporal entanglements (Feddersen et al., 2025; Good & Thorpe, 2020).

Different streams within the broader MOS literature have dealt with the representation and inclusion of nature. For example, stakeholder management literature has long debated whether and how nature qualifies as a stakeholder (Starik, 1995). Collaborative governance offers a fertile lens for examining how the representation of nature in organizational processes is collectively negotiated and institutionalized (Zaman et al., 2022). Practice-based studies view organizational activities as producing rather than merely responding to environmental crises (Diriker et al., 2023; Kratochvil et al., 2025). Studies on open innovation and open strategy explore more inclusive forms of organizing that allow responding to environmental challenges (Hilbolling et al., 2022; Splitter et al., 2023). These include, for example, interorganizational collaborations or multi-sector partnerships (Seidl & Werle, 2018).

This sub-theme aims to bring together MOS scholars from different fields who share an interest in conceptualizing, theorizing, and empirically exploring nature across different organizational activities. We welcome qualitative, quantitative, and conceptual submissions on topics including, but not limited to:

• How do organizations orient their activities toward ecological needs?

• How is nature (e.g., animals, ecosystems, rivers) constructed, included, or represented in organizations?

• What tensions and paradoxes arise when incorporating nature into organizational processes, and how can they be navigated?

• How can MOS scholars draw inspiration from different fields (e.g., biomimicry and biological systems) to explore new forms of organizing? 

• What are different ways to conceptualize nature, and how do these understandings shape approaches to organizing with nature?

• What are existing and novel theoretical approaches to research the inclusion of nature (e.g., practice theory, ANT, framing and sensemaking approaches, paradox theory, stakeholder theory, and system theory)?

• What are existing and novel methodological approaches for studying nature?
   

• Delmas, M. A., Lyon, T. P., & Maxwell, J. W. (2019). Understanding the role of the corporation in sustainability transitions. Organization & Environment, 32(2), 87–97.
• Diriker, D., Porter, A. J., & Tuertscher, P. (2023). Orchestrating open innovation through punctuated openness: A process model of open organizing for tackling wicked multi-stakeholder problems. Organization Studies, 44(1), 135–157.
• Feddersen, J., Feuls, M., Xu, S. M., Hernes, T., & Schultz, M. (2025). Temporary organizing with nature: How companies frame “nature” through pilot projects. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 41(2), Article 101423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2025.101423
• Good, J., & Thorpe, A. (2020). The nature of organizing: A relational approach to understanding business sustainability. Organization & Environment, 33(3), 359–383.
• Hilbolling, S., Deken, F., Berends, H., & Tuertscher, P. (2022). Process-based temporal coordination in multiparty collaboration for societal challenges. Strategic Organization, 20(1), 135–163.
• Howard-Grenville, J., & Lahneman, B. (2021). Bringing the biophysical to the fore: Re-envisioning organizational adaptation in the era of planetary shifts. Strategic Organization, 19(3), 478–493.
• Kratochvil, R., Langenmayr, T., & Seidl, D. (2025). Researching large-scale phenomena. In B. Grossmann-Hensel, P. Jarzabkowski, R. Kratochvil, D. Seidl, A. P. Spee, & R. Whittington (Eds.), Elgar encyclopedia of strategy as practice (pp. 342-344). Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Nadegger, M., & Wegerer, P. K. (2024). Rhythms of repetition and disturbance: Reimagining business-as-usual in the Anthropocene. Organization, 33(3), 396-415. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084241303098
• Pickering, A. (2025). Acting with the world: Agency in the Anthropocene. Duke University Press.
• Seidl, D., & Werle, F. (2018). Inter-organizational sensemaking in the face of strategic meta-problems: Requisite variety and dynamics of participation. Strategic Management Journal, 39(3), 830–858.
• Starik, M. (1995). Should trees have managerial standing? Toward stakeholder status for non-human nature. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881435
• Splitter, V., Dobusch, L., von Krogh, G., Whittington, R., & Walgenbach, P. (2023). Openness as organizing principle: Introduction to the special issue. Organization Studies, 44(1), 7–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406221145595
• Whiteman, G., & Cooper, W. (2011). Ecological sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 54(5), 889–911. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2008.0843
• Williams, A., Whiteman, G., & Kennedy, S. (2021). Cross-scale systemic resilience: Implications for organization studies. Business & Society, 60(1), 95–124.
• Zaman, R., Jain, T., Samara, G., & Jamali, D. (2022). Corporate governance meets corporate social responsibility: Mapping the interface. Business & Society, 61(3), 690–752. https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650320973415