Organizing Beyond Organizations for the Common Good: Confronting Societal Challenges Through Process Studies

By Joel Gehman, Ann Langley, Paula Jarzabkowski

Understanding the societal consequences of organizations is a perennial, if sometimes neglected, concern within the field of organization studies. Recently, such concerns have been given renewed emphasis, with one vibrant stream of research focusing on 'grand challenges', particularly those with a strong societal component, directed at a common good beyond that of business organizations themselves. This might include issues such as sustainable development, natural disasters and pandemics, poverty, community regeneration, and climate change.

This volume builds on the current interest in grand challenges by taking seriously the problem of 'organizing beyond organizations', and by engaging with the unique methodological and theoretical toolkits afforded by a process studies perspective to address these issues. Societal challenges are inherently inter-organizational, necessitating theoretical approaches that not only examine organizational action but also frame that action in terms of its wider relational dynamics with other stakeholders. Although some of these considerations are not new, their implications for addressing societal issues such as grand challenges and sustainable development goals has scarcely been considered, let alone how traditional and non-traditional modes of organizing might jointly work towards achieving such outcomes. The chapters embrace the power of a process worldview in order to understand the dynamic nature of any particular grand challenge or societal issue as it evolves within the relationality of actions and practices within and between organizational actors.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198956649
• ISBN13: 9780198956648
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 256 Pages