Economic Inequality and Management: Empirical and Theoretical Developments a Decade after Occupy

Abstract

A coherent agenda on economic inequality is still in its early stages of development in the management field. While research since the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 has helped legitimize the topic and brought inequality in vogue as a keyword in our journals, a central concern remains about how much empirical and theoretical progress has actually been made. Management scholarship in this area thus has to take stock of progress across the first decade since Occupy and critically assess empirical and theoretical insights to invigorate a new generation of scholars who can take us beyond this decade of inequality research and into the next. This panel symposium will bring together insights from the diverse panel and the discussant towards two objectives: first, to provide a critical assessment of the extent and nature of progress that has been made in the field, and second, to lay out a pathway of where the field needs to go in order to make important headway in terms of theoretical and empirical contributions, and also in providing contributions of relevance to policy and practice. In doing this, we provide an avenue for management scholars to engage with the theme of the Academy of Management 2022 conference, “Creating a Better World Together,” given that inequality remains one of the most pressing societal grand challenges of our times.