International workshop: Researching the processes and practices of tackling responsible management and sustainability challenges

The severity of the triple planetary crisis: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, has fuelled a proliferation of fast-growing research streams on tackling sustainability and responsibility challenges. This international research workshop brings together early career researchers (ECRs) and senior scholars to develop the community around and advance emerging research on the processes and practices of tackling responsible management and sustainability challenges. It will serve as a platform for leveraging research, skills and networks across junior and senior scholars, and across diverse research perspectives.

Over the past decade, the practices and processes of organising and strategising for sustainability and responsibility challenges have become focal points for management scholarship. This is reflected in the emergence of different novel research streams revolving around practice-based studies of grand societal challenges (Albertsen et al 2024; Danner-Schröder et al, 2025; Jarzabkowski et al 2022; Seidl and Werle 2018), responsible management-as-practice (Gherardi and Laasch, 2023), organising sustainability (Hengst, et al, 2020; Soderstrom and Weber, 2020), and sustainability transitions (Shove 2022), among others. The research has been significant in carving new ground by leveraging process and practice theory to study new research problems. Though concerned with different facets of research problems, these research avenues share an interest in the situated practices and processes through which the work of managing, strategising and organising for sustainability and responsibility challenges occurs.   Considering the significance to society, practitioners and students, this workshop will bring scholars together across streams to work on and leverage the diversity, connections and unexploited synergies across process- and practice-based sustainability and responsibility research. It will do so by stimulating discussion of ongoing and emerging research across ECRs, senior scholars, and research streams.

Keynote contributions by practice scholars

• Anja Danner-Schröder (Kaiserslautern University)

• Silvia Gherardi (University of Trento)

• Renate Kratochvil (Stockholm School of Economics)

• Oliver Laasch (ESCP Business School Berlin)

• David Seidl (University of Zurich)

• Eero Vaara (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

• Convenor: Toke Bjerregaard Nottingham Business School (NTU)

Why attend?

Join us at NTU London to take stock of the use of practice theories across research streams in this field, and to advance it through cross-stream conversations and exploration of new avenues for process- and practice-based sustainability and responsibility research.

The workshop will comprise keynote provocations, cross-stream exploration of research opportunities, research clinics for participants’ ideas and work in progress, workshop dinner, etc. Participants will thus also be able to present and develop their research ideas and work in progress in sessions chaired by different practice-theoretic experts (such as Gary Burke, University of Bristol, Katharina Dittrich, University of Warwick), members of organising team, and joined by keynote scholars. Participants will have the opportunity to share and discuss short summaries of work in progress or research ideas.

Who should attend?

We welcome PhD students and ECRs interested in a wide range of research topics related to this area of study. We also welcome more senior researchers whose work engages practice/process lenses. Applicants might be interested in processes and practices of tackling sustainability and responsibility challenges in individual organisations, multiparty collaborations, or wider systems and assemblages of practices. (ECRs and PhD students will receive priority in the case of oversubscription). Spots are not unlimited (decisions will balance fit and diversity). Please complete the brief application form and return to us by the end of the working day 15 March. Apply here.

Bursaries

Thanks to funding from SAMS, a number of travel/accommodation bursaries of £225 are available for PhD/ECR participants. Please indicate your request in the application form. As bursaries are not unlimited, decisions will have to balance fit and diversity.

Organising team

• Toke Bjerregaard, Nottingham Business School (NTU) (toke.bjerregaard@ntu.ac.uk)

• Natalie Toms, Nottingham Business School (NTU) (natalie.toms@ntu.ac.uk)

• Derrick Boakye, Aston Business School (Aston University)

• Maimoona Waseem, Nottingham Business School (NTU)

• Sahar Bakr, Nottingham Business School (NTU)

Please email with any queries.

Discussants/roundtable chairs

• Gary Burke, University of Bristol

• Katharina Dittrich, Warwick Business School

Application

Please complete the brief application form and return to us by the end of the working day 15 March.

Apply using the application form. Spots are not unlimited (decisions will balance fit and diversity).

No registration fee: Participation in the workshop is free of charge (incl. catering, workshop dinner contribution).

Timeline

Application deadline: 15 March 2026.
Decision: We plan to communicate the decision by the end of March 2026.
Programme: Full programme to be announced.

References

Albertsen, R. R., Ansari, S., Heucher, K., Krautzberger, M., Langley, A., Reinecke, P. C., Slawinski, N. and Vaara, E., 2024. Strategizing Together for a Better World: Institutional, Paradox and Practice Theories in Conversation. Journal of Management Inquiry, 33 (2), pp. 115-130.

Danner-Schröder, A., Mahringer, C., Sele, K., Jarzabkowski, P., Rouleau, L., Feldman, M., Pentland, B., Huysman, M., Sergeeva, A. V., Gherardi, S., Sutcliffe, K. M. and Gehman, J., 2025. Tackling Grand Challenges: Insights and Contributions from Practice Theories. Journal of Management Inquiry, 34 (2), pp.143-166.

Gherardi, S. and Laasch, O.,2022. Responsible Management‑as‑Practice: Mobilizing a Posthumanist Approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 181, pp. 269–281.

Hengst, I.A., Jarzabkowski, P.,Hoegl, M. and Muethel, M., 2020. Toward a Process Theory of Making Sustainability Strategies Legitimate in Action. Academy of Management Journal, 63 (1), 246-271.

Jarzabkowski, P., Bednarek, R., Chalkias, K. and Cacciatori, E., 2022. Enabling Rapid Financial Response to Disasters: Knotting and Reknotting Multiple Paradoxes in Interorganizational Systems. Academy of Management Journal, 65 (5), pp. 1477-1506.

Seidl, D. and Werle, F., 2018. Inter-organizational Sensemaking in the Face of Strategic Meta-problems: Requisite Variety and Dynamics of Participation. Strategic Management Journal, 39 (3), pp. 830-858.

Shove, E. 2022. Connecting Practices: Large Topics in Society and Social Theory. London: Routledge.

Soderstrom, S. B. and Weber, K., 2020. Organizational Structure from Interaction: Evidence from Corporate Sustainability Efforts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 65 (1), pp. 226-271.