10591: What Now? What Are We Missing? What Do We Need to Learn and Change as Management Scholars?

This proposed panel symposium explores how management paradigms/research could evolve to encompass the realities of swiftly-changing politics, social norms, and polycrisis. Opening key knowledge gaps, provocateurs reflect research on what is missing and how to move new insights forward. Sandra Waddock (Boston College) introduces topics and speakers then asks what next in the light of global challenges shifting democratic and egalitarian norms? What now and how to catalyze transformative action? Brad Agle (Brigham Young) discusses The Totality of Allegiance: Inside the Hearts and Minds of Trump Supporters (with Travis Ruddle), which researched how so many good, honest, hardworking Americans could support a politician who clearly did not share many of their values or personal conduct. Irene Henriques (York U) explores how the massive increase in information availability and growing specialization of media outlets has transformed stakeholder perceptions of when their interests and identities are at risk or could be advanced by influencing firm behavior. Otto Scharmer (MIT) introduces Presencing: Seven Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business (with Kaufer), and the concept of social soil, arguing that democracy is undermined by two main forces: dark money and ‘dark tech’. Bobby Banerjee (City St George’s, U London) explores key aspects of Project 2025 – a US-manifesto so radical and regressive that even Donald Trump tried to distance himself from it. These topics and numerous others based on audience input arguably need to be incorporated into management thinking, paradigms, and research to evolve a world that copes with today’s emerging polycrisis.