Organizations and Climate Change - (Research in the Sociology of Organizations) by Ion Bogdan Vasi & Edward T Walker (Hardcover)

About the Book

This volume contains an Open Access chapter.

Organizations and Climate Change brings together new empirical papers that set an agenda for a more holistic theory of organizations and climate change, examining how various kinds of organizations respond to one of the most important challenges.

Book Synopsis

This volume contains an Open Access chapter.

While the domains of organizational theory, grand challenges, and environmental sociology have developed via relatively distinct fields in sociology and management, they speak to a common set of social change phenomena at the intersection of the state, non-profits, and businesses. Organizations and Climate Change brings together new empirical papers that bridge these domains and sets an agenda for a more holistic theory of organizations and climate change, a theory that examines how various kinds of organizations respond to what is considered as one of the most important challenges for humanity during the 21st century.

Each of papers included in this volume focus on the way in which organizations shape or respond to the climate change challenge. Three papers examine how business organizations address the climate change problem, including corporate communication of climate change mitigation actions, corporate strategies that undermine decarbonization, and corporate marketing of low-carbon technologies. Three papers investigate how non-profit organizations form networks that shape climate change negotiations, incorporate climate change into their missions, and justify not incorporating climate change into their mission. Finally, three papers explore how universities, boundary organizations, and organizational fields engage in climate change mitigation or attempt to influence other organizations to engage in these actions. The afterword summarizes research on both enablers and blockers of climate action and identifies several promising directions for future work.

Organizations and Climate Change distils insights and highlights opportunities for future research on organizations and the climate change grand challenge.

About the Author

Ion Bogdan Vasi is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Iowa, USA. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Management.

Edward T. Walker is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.