Speaker: Professor Renate E. Meyer
Title: Heated Atmosphere: Field structuration in the online climate change debate
Date: Thursday, 27 Feb 2025
Time: 10:00am – 11:45am
Venue: Building 21, PAP Moran, G058, Seminar Room
EY Song is the host of this visit.
Abstract:
Fields depend on actors’ mutual awareness for structuration and mutual understanding for signification. Prior research has produced differing propositions as to who is best able to create change within a field: Elites with ample resources, peripheral actors who are less invested in the status quo, or bridging organizations that are able to leverage resources from multiple clusters? Research has also stated that we are more likely to form ties with those who are more similar in appearance, express more prototypical political and moral views, or express similar emotions. We use an organizational field perspective to study how organizations partake in the signification of amorphous, yet intransigent issues and how fields’ structuration changes. We use three ‘snapshots’ (2016, 2019, and 2022) of the field that has formed around the climate change debate to analyze these dynamics. In particular, we ask how framings, political views, and emotions affect the positioning of organizations within the field and the fields’ structure and what role they play for field-level changes.
Bio:
Renate E. Meyer is Professor of Organization Studies at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. At WU, she is Department Chair of the Department of Management, Head of the Institute for Organization Studies and Co-Director of the Research Institute for Urban Management & Governance. Renate is also Part Time Professor in Institutional Theory Copenhagen Business School and holds visiting positions at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, and University of Alberta. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies.
Renate’s current research interests include phenomenological institutional theory, the translation of new ideas into new cultural contexts, and their impact in society, institutional renewal, multimodality, collective action in crises, as well as governance structures and governance faultlines mostly in urban contexts. Renate has published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Annals, Organization Studies, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Strategic Organization, or Public Administration, Public Management Review, or Urban Studies.