In this paper, we address debate about social constructionism and critical realism by examining current concerns relating to the carbon economy, climate change and related ecological issues. At the same time, we consider the implications of our discussion for processes of governance. Following an introduction, we present three varied sets of argument by ourselves as Editors. We then conclude the paper by briefly introducing each of the papers included in this Themed Section.
Abrahamson, E., & Eisenman, M. ( 2001). Why management scholars must intervene strategically in the management knowledge market. Human Relations, 54, 67-75.
2.
Al-Amoudi, I., & Willmott, H. ( 2011). Where constructionism and critical realism converge: Interrogating the domain of epistemological relativism. Organization Studies, 32 (1).
3.
Apel, K.-O. ( 1979). Towards a transformation of philosophy, trans. Glyn Adey and David Frisby. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
4.
Archer, M. ( 2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5.
Bansal, P., & Gao, J. ( 2006). Building the future by looking to the past: Examining research published on organizations and environment. Organization & Environment, 19 (4), 458-478.
6.
Barnes, B., Bloor, D., & Henry, J. ( 1996). Scientific knowledge: A sociological analysis. London: Athlone.
7.
Beck, U. ( 1992[1986]). The risk society: Towards a new modernity. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
8.
Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. ( 1967). The social construction of reality. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.
9.
Burningham, K., & Cooper, G. ( 1999) Being constructive: Social constructionism and the environment . Sociology, 33 (2), 297-316.
10.
Callon, M. ( 1991). Techno-economic networks and irreversibility. In J. Law (Ed.), A sociology of monsters? Essays on power, technology and domination (Sociological Review Monograph 38). London: Routledge .
11.
Carolan, M.S. ( 2005). Society, biology, and ecology: Bringing nature back into sociology’s disciplinary narrative through critical realism. Organization & Environment, 18 (4), 393-421.
12.
Catton, W.R., & Dunlap, R.E. ( 1980) A new ecological paradigm for post-exuberant sociology . American Behavioral Scientist, 24 (1), 15-47.
13.
Clegg, S., Courpasson, D., & Phillips, N. ( 2006). Power and organizations. London: SAGE.
14.
Colignon, R.A. ( 1997). Power plays: Critical events and the institutionalization of the Tennessee Valley Authority. New York: State University of New York Press.
15.
Collins, H., & Evans, R. ( 2009). Rethinking expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
Coopey, J. ( 2003). Sustainable development and environmental management: The performance of UK business schools. Management Learning , 34, 5-26.
17.
Courpasson, D. ( 2006). Soft constraint: Liberal organizations and domination . Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.
18.
Courpasson, D., & Dany, F. ( 2009). Cultures of resistance in the workplace. In S. R. Clegg and M. Haugaard (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of power (pp. 332-347). London: SAGE.
19.
Crossley, N. ( 2003). Even newer social movements: Anti-corporate protests, capitalist crises and the re-moralization of society. Organization , 10 (2), 287-305.
20.
Crouch, C. ( 2005). Capitalist diversity and change: Recombinant governance and institutional entrepreneurs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21.
Dean, M. ( 1999). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: SAGE.
22.
Deetz, S. ( 2000). Putting the community into organizational science: Exploring the construction of knowledge claims. Organization Science , 11, 732-738.
23.
Deetz, S. ( 2003). Reclaiming the legacy of the linguistic turn. Organization, 10 (3), 421-429.
24.
Ezzamel, M., & Reed, M. ( 2008). Governance: A code of multiple colours. Human Relations, 61 (5), 597-615.
25.
Farrell, C., & Morris, J. ( 2003). The neo-bureaucratic state: Professionals, managers and professional managers in schools, general practices and social work. Organization, 10 (1), 129-156.
26.
Ferraro, F., Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R.I. ( 2005). Economics language and assumptions: How theories become self-fulfilling. Academy of Management Review, 30, 8-24.
27.
Fischer, F. ( 2000). Reframing public policy: Discursive politics and deliberative practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
28.
Fischer, F. ( 2009). Democracy and expertise: Reorienting policy inquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29.
Foucault, M. ( 1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect (pp. 87-104). London : Harvester Wheatsheaf.
30.
Foucault, M. ( 2003). Society must be defended. London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press.
31.
Franklin, A. ( 2002). Nature and social theory. London: SAGE.
32.
Gergen, K.J. ( 1992). Organization theory in the postmodern era. In M. Reed & M. Hughes (Eds.), Rethinking organization. London : SAGE.
33.
Giddens, A. ( 2009). The politics of climate change. Cambridge : Polity.
34.
Goldenberg, S. ( 2010). Industry group targets Obama’s green plan. The Guardian, 22 April.
35.
Hambrick, D.C. ( 1994). What if the Academy actually mattered? Academy of Management Review, 19, 11-16.
36.
Hoggan, J., & Littlemore, R. (2009). Climate cover-up: The crusade to deny global warming. Vancouver: Greystone.
37.
Holt, R., & Mueller, F. ( 2011). Wittgenstein, Heidegger and fixing meaning in organization studies. Organization Studies, 32 (1).
Irwin, A. ( 2001). Sociology and the environment: A critical introduction to society, nature and knowledge. Cambridge: Polity.
40.
Jarzabkowski, P., Mohrman, S., & Scherer, A.G. ( 2010). Organization studies as applied science: The generation and use of academic knowledge about organizations. Organization Studies Special Issue, 31 (9/10), 1189-1207.
41.
Jasanoff, S. (Ed.). (2004). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order. London: Routledge.
42.
Jermier, J.M., Forbes, L.C., Benn, S., & Orsato, R.J. ( 2006). The new corporate environmentalism and green politics . In S. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. Lawrence, & W. Nord (Eds.), Handbook of organizational studies (2nd edn, pp. 619-650). London: SAGE.
43.
Kallio, T.J., & Nordberg, P. ( 2006). The evolution of organizations and the natural environment discourse: Some critical remarks. Organization and Environment , 19 (4), 439-457.
44.
Laclau, E. ( 1990). New reflections on the revolution of our time, London: Verso.
45.
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. ( 1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy, trans. W. Moore and P. Cammack. London: Verso.
46.
Latour, B. ( 1987). Science in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
47.
Latour, B. ( 1991). Technology is society made durable. In J. Law (Ed.), A sociology of monsters? Essays on power, technology and domination (Sociological Review Monograph 38). London: Routledge.
48.
Law, J. ( 1994). Organizing modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
49.
Law, J., & Hassard, J. (Eds.). (1999). Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Blackwell.
50.
Levy, D. L., & Newell, P. J. (Eds.). (2005). The business of global environmental governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
51.
Lukes, S. ( 2005). Power: A radical view, 2nd Edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
52.
Miller, P., & Rose, N. ( 2008). Governing the present. Cambridge: Polity.
53.
Munro, R. ( 2009). Actor-Network-Theory. In M. Haugaard & S. Clegg (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Power (pp. 125-139). London: SAGE.
54.
Murphy, R. ( 1994). Rationality and nature: A sociological inquiry into a changing relationship, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
55.
Newton, T. ( 1996). Postmodernism and action. Organization , 3 (1), 7-29.
56.
Newton, T. ( 1998). Theorizing subjectivity in organizations: The failure of Foucauldian studies? Organization Studies, 19 (3), 415-447.
57.
Newton, T. ( 2002). Creating the new ecological order? Academy of Management Review, 27 (4), 523-540.
58.
Newton, T. ( 2003). Crossing the great divide: Time, nature and the social . Sociology, 37 (3), 433-457.
59.
Newton, T. ( 2005). Practical idealism: An oxymoron? Journal of Management Studies, 42 (4), 869-884.
60.
Newton, T. ( 2007). Nature and sociology. London: Routledge.
61.
Newton, T. ( 2009). Organizations and the natural environment. In M. Alvesson, H. Willmott , &T. Bridgman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of critical management studies (pp. 125-143). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
62.
Newton, T. ( 2010). Knowledge and practice: Organization studies within a historical and figurational context’. Organization Studies , 31 (9/10), 1369-1395.
63.
Newton, T., & Keenan, T. ( 1991). Further analyses of the dispositional argument in organizational behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76 (6), 781-787.
64.
Newton, T., & Harte, G. ( 1997) Green business: Technicist kitsch? Journal of Management Studies, 34 (1), 75-98.
65.
Parker, M. ( 1992). Post-modern organizations or postmodern organization theory. Organization Studies, 13, 1-17.
66.
Pearce, F. ( 2010). Climate change emails between scientists reveal flaws in peer review: A close reading of the hacked emails exposes the real process of science, its jealousies and tribalism. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review (accessed 16 February 2010).
67.
Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C.T. ( 2002). The end of business schools? Less success than meets the eye. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1(1), 78-95.
68.
Reed, M. ( 1993). Organizations and modernity: Continuity and discontinuity in organization theory. In J. Hassard & M. Parker (Eds.), Postmodernism and organizations . London: SAGE.
69.
Reed, M. ( 2008). Exploring Plato’s cave: Critical realism in the study of organization and management. In D. Barry and H. Hansen (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches to Management and Organization, (pp. 68-78). London: SAGE.
70.
Reed, M. ( 2009). Critical realism in critical management studies. In M. Alvesson, T. Bridgman, & H. Willmott (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of critical management studies (pp. 52-75). Oxford : Oxford University Press.
71.
Reed, M. ( 2010). The post-bureaucratic organization and the control\revolution . In S. Clegg & M. Harris (Eds.), Managing modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
72.
Reed, M. ( 2011 forthcoming). Theorizing power/domination and studying organizational elites: A critical realist perspective. In D. Courpasson, D. Golsorkhi , & G. Sallas (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations. Bingley: Emerald Publishers.
73.
Rose, N. ( 1990). Governing the soul. London: Routledge.
74.
Rose, N., & Miller, P. ( 1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government . British Journal of Sociology, 43 (2), 173-205.
75.
Rowell, A. ( 2007). Exxon’s foot soldiers: The case of the International Policy Network. In W. Dinan & D, Miller (Eds.), Thinker, faker, spinner, spy: Corporate PR and the assault on democracy. London : Pluto Press.
76.
Rynes, S.L., & Shapiro, D.L. ( 2005). Public policy and the public interest: What if we mattered more? Academy of Management Journal, 48, 925-927.
77.
Scott, J.C. ( 1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts . New Haven: Yale University Press .
78.
Scott, J. ( 2008). Modes of power and the reconceptualiztion of elites. In M. Savage & K. Willaims (Eds.), Remembering elites (pp. 27-43). Oxford : Blackwell.
79.
Selznick. P. ( 1966[1949]). TVA and the grass roots, 2nd Edn. New York: Harper.
80.
Soper, K. ( 1995). What is nature? Culture, politics and the non-human. Oxford: Blackwell.
81.
Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J.I. ( 1987). Constructing social problems. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Thompson, G. ( 2003). Between hierarchies and markets: The logic and limits of network forms of organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
84.
Union of Concerned Scientists (2007). Smoke, mirrors and hot air: How ExxonMobil uses big tobacco’s tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate science. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists.
85.
Williams, S., & Bendelow, G. ( 1998). The lived body: Sociological themes, embodied issues . London: Routledge.
86.
Wilson, E.O. ( 2008). Interview with E. O. Wilson broadcast on BBC Radio 3 ‘Arts and Ideas’ Podcast, 6 January 2008.
