The Role of Marginalized Actors in Field-level and Social Change

Abstract

While scholars become increasingly interested in tackling grand challenges, that is, intractable social issues that require extensive involvement of the public sector such as poverty and inequality (George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi & Tihanyi, 2016), the role of marginalized actors is little understood in field processes and social change. This is surprising, since grand challenges largely revolve around marginalized actors. In this symposium, we present four empirical papers that examine the role of distinctive marginalized groups in different fields and social change processes. While two papers highlight the more receptive role of marginalized actors, the other two focus on their proactive role on different pathways to field or social change. Together, these studies enrich the literature on organizational fields, improve our understandings of marginalized actors and provide practical implications to address grand challenges.