The organizational dimensions of social-ecological tipping points

Organizers

• Steffen Boehm, University of Exeter Business School
• Maike Hamann, University of Exeter Centre for Geography & Environmental Science
• Ralph Hamann, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business

Summary

In this hybrid workshop, we aim to foster dialogue between researchers in sustainability and organization studies on the organizational dimensions of social-ecological tipping points. Businesses and other organizations are key actors that contribute to breaching negative tipping points, and they face challenges in adapting to such breaches. They can also be vital allies in realizing positive tipping points. Yet we know little about whether or when managers attend to tipping points, or how they might pre-empt or respond to negative tipping points, on the one hand, and purposefully work towards positive tipping points, on the other. We thus seek to share knowledge and develop research opportunities in this important and as yet understudied area.

Background and rationale

In the Anthropocene, change is no longer just incremental and linear. In an era of global connectedness and complexity, change can be exponential, sudden, and cross-scalar (Lenton et al. 2023). Tipping points occur when change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a threshold, leading to substantial, widespread, frequently abrupt, and often irreversible impacts (Armstrong McKay et al., 2022; Milkoreit et al., 2018).

In recent years, tipping points in ecosystems or the Earth system as a whole have received much attention (Rocha et al. 2015). Changes resulting from tipping points in ecosystems are often referred to as regime shifts, or sometimes as critical transitions (Lenton et al. 2023). Planetary boundaries are one example of tipping points, which – if transgressed – may result in large-scale and potentially irreversible transitions toward global environmental conditions that are less favourable for human societies (Richardson et al. 2023).

Lenton et al. (2023) argue that social systems, like ecological systems, can cross tipping points into new stable system states, over various timescales. Examples include political revolutions or the spread and adoption of technological innovations. Within this context, the idea of ‘positive’ tipping points has gained traction, which are essentially intervention points that could be intentionally triggered to accelerate progress towards desired transformative change (Lenton et al. 2022). However, Milkoreit (2022) cautions against the misapplication of the concept of social tipping points at the expense of other, more established theories of social change. More research is needed to identify evidence for tipping points in a variety of social-ecological-technological systems, as well as the processes that lead to the transgression of both negative and positive tipping points.

Meanwhile, even though the management and organization studies (MOS) literature is beginning to show interest in concepts related to social-ecological resilience (e.g., Dentoni et al., 2021; Hamann et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2017), there has been hardly any dedicated attention among MOS scholars to the more specific, yet pivotal notion of tipping points. An influential exception is Whiteman’s and colleagues’ article (2013) emphasising the need for business to attend to planetary boundaries. But it is notable that most of the articles that cite this piece do so to emphasise the urgency of such strategic shifts and very few home in on the specific implications of tipping points at different scales (for an exception, see Williams et al., 2021).

We argue that it is important to create stronger connections between the social-ecological systems (SES) and MOS communities, with a specific emphasis on tipping points. Much is to be gained by bringing the notion of tipping points more centrally into MOS conversations, and this would have mutual benefits.

For a start, organizations play critical roles in recognizing, pre-empting, or otherwise responding to potential tipping points, and so the MOS community should play a more active role in motivating and guiding managers to give attention to this theme. MOS scholars can thus make practically and theoretically important contributions by adopting, adapting, refining, and applying extant SES scholarship on tipping points.

Moreover, a stronger link between SES and MOS scholars on tipping points can also be generative for SES scholarship. SES scholars have noted the importance of building on longer-standing social science literature on organizational and social change (e.g., Milkoreit et al., 2023) – these are themes that have been central in MOS research for many decades. For example, MOS scholars can bring to bear sophisticated analyses of what shapes managers’ (limited) attention to social-ecological systems (Bansal et al., 2018), how different political interests within organizations may either advance or hinder the recognition and responsive action on such risks (Waeger & Weber, 2019), or how institutional logics, diverging interests, and power differences influence the potential for collaborative action in such responses (Gray et al., 2022; Powell et al., 2018).

This workshop thus seeks to contribute to this cross-disciplinary dialogue between SES and MOS scholarship. We will bring together scholars interested in tipping points from both communities, hear from researchers who have begun to think about the organizational implications of tipping points, and then jointly explore thematic priorities for and potential SES-MOS collaborations on future research on this topic.

Keynote speakers

Steve Smith

Steve is the Tipping Points Research Impact Fellow at the Global Systems Institute (GSI) and Green Futures Solutions (GFS), at the University of Exeter in the UK. He is also a Hoffmann Fellow at the World Economic Forum, Geneva, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), University of Surrey, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts (FRSA). Steve co-leads the research on positive social tipping points at GSI/GFS, and is a lead author of the Global Tipping Points Reports.

Ralph Hamann

Ralph is Professor and Deputy Director: Faculty and Research at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business in South Africa. His research and teaching is on strategy and sustainability, social innovation and entrepreneurship, and cross-sector collaboration. He is co-founder and director of the Embedding Project South Africa and the Southern Africa Food Lab, two initiatives bridging research and practice. Ralph has been a visiting scholar or consultant in different parts of the world, most recently as Pearson Visiting Professor of Engineering and Entrepreneurship at Brown University.

Agenda

10.00 Coffee and tea

10.15 Welcome and overview

Maike Hamann (Exeter)

10.30 What do we know about social-ecological tipping points, and what questions remain?

Steven Smith (Exeter)

11.00 What do we know about organizations attending or responding to social-ecological tipping points?

Ralph Hamann (Cape Town)

11.30 Open discussion

Facilitation: Maike Hamann (Exeter)

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Developing an interdisciplinary research agenda: Key questions, research designs, potential funding, etc. – small group discussion

14.30 Coffee and tea

15.00 Feedback from groups and concluding discussion

Facilitation: Steffen Boehm (Exeter)

15:30 Close

Banner image: Figure adapted from Yletyinen et al. 2017.

References

• Bansal, P., Anna, K. I. M., & Wood, M. O. (2018). Hidden in plain sight: The importance of scale in organizations’ attention to issues. Academy of Management Review, 43(2), 217–241.
• Dentoni, D., Pinkse, J., & Lubberink, R. (2021). Linking Sustainable Business Models to Socio-Ecological Resilience Through Cross-Sector Partnerships: A Complex Adaptive Systems View. Business and Society, 60(5), 1216–1252.
• Gray, B., Purdy, J., & Ansari, S. (2022). Confronting power asymmetries in partnerships to address grand challenges. Organization Theory, 3(2), 263178772210987.
• Hamann, R., Makaula, L., Ziervogel, G., Shearing, C., & Zhang, A. (2020). Strategic responses to Grand Challenges: Why and how corporations build community resilience. Journal of Business Ethics, 161(4), 835–853.
• Powell, E. E., Hamann, R., Bitzer, V., & Baker, T. (2018). Bringing the elephant into the room? Enacting conflict in collective prosocial organizing. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(5), 623–642.
• Waeger, D., & Weber, K. (2019). Institutional complexity and organizational change: An open polity perspective. Academy of Management Review, 44(2), 336–359.
• Whiteman, G., Walker, B., & Perego, P. (2013). Planetary Boundaries: Ecological foundations for corporate sustainability. Journal of Management Studies, 50(March), 307–336.
• Williams, A., Kennedy, S., Philipp, F., & Whiteman, G. (2017). Systems thinking: A review of sustainability management research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 148, 866–881.
• Williams, A., Whiteman, G., & Kennedy, S. (2021). Cross-Scale Systemic Resilience: Implications for Organization Studies. Business and Society, 60(1), 95–124.
• Yletyinen, J., Tylianakis, J., Brown, P. & Pech, R. (2017). Planning for tipping points and enhancing resilience in production landscapes. Policy Brief No. 18, Landcare Research.

Data Protection and Privacy

• To aid organisation of this event, attendee information may be shared with relevant staff in the University e.g. a list of attendees could be provided to the University host, guest speaker.
• We will store your information securely, so that we can communicate to you about the event (e.g. cancellation of event, changes to the itinerary, a satisfaction survey).
• We delete our access to personal information on Eventbrite after 6 months.
• More information on the University’s privacy policies can be found here.
• For more information on Eventbrite’s own privacy policy, please visit this page.