Academics Beyond Academia: Management Scholars on the Ground to Address Grand Challenges

Abstract

Recent research in management emphasizes the need to engage with grand challenges of our time, such as climate change, inequality, poverty, ecological imbalances, conflict, socioeconomic and political crises, etc. in which organizations, their managers, and other stakeholders are implicated and by which they are also impacted in various ways. We take this conversation further and in a new direction through a panel of academics who have gone ‘beyond academia’. In addition to publishing research related to such challenges, these academics have also engaged in significant efforts ‘on the ground’ to address such challenges through policy work, social activism, leadership roles outside of typical academic settings, roles in social movements, becoming part of solution implementation in communities, and so on. Our symposium discusses how the exploration of such roles by management academics can open up our field to make an impact towards addressing grand challenges in direct ways and also feed back into theory, methodology, and pedagogy in unexpected and fortuitous ways.