Research Seminar – Sophie Bacq

Sophie Bacq is Professor of Social Entrepreneurship and Coca-Cola Foundation Chair in Sustainable Development at IMD in Switzerland. A globally recognized thought leader in social entrepreneurship and change, Sophie investigates and theorizes about entrepreneurial action aiming to solve intractable social and environmental problems, at the individual, organizational, and civic levels of analysis. Sophie has taught and conducted empirical research on social entrepreneurship in Europe, the United States and South Africa. She has published over 40 articles in top-tier management and entrepreneurship journals, for which she has received multiple awards. She also serves as a Field Editor for the Journal of Business Venturing, is a member of the Editorial Review Boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, and Journal of Management, and has guest edited several special issues for Academy of Management Perspectives, California Management Review, Journal of Management Studies and International Journal of Management Reviews. Sophie is the Co-Director (with Jill Kickul) of The Annual Social Entrepreneurship Conference, and Lead Faculty of the award-winning Annual Social Entrepreneurship Doctoral Seminar.

Collective Action for Sustainability: Breaking Down Silos in Management

Research  Abstract: “Management scholarship has increasingly recognized collective action as crucial for addressing sustainability challenges. While this has generated valuable insights across different management fields, the literature remains fragmented with limited cross-pollination. Through bibliometric and qualitative analyses of 388 articles, we identify eighteen distinct research conversations across seven management fields, revealing both the breadth of collective action scholarship and opportunities for knowledge integration. Our integrative review aims to bridge these conversations while situating sustainability-focused collective action research within broader management scholarship. The review makes three key contributions. First, we develop an organizing framework that demonstrates how sustainability challenges manifest across multiple levels of analysis and allows us to analyze how different management fields contribute to understanding collective action at different levels. Second, we show how research conversations not explicitly focused on sustainability can meaningfully inform the study of collective action for sustainability. Third, we identify promising directions for future research, including shifting focus from “commons creation” to “commons governance,” exploring boundary conditions of collective action, and examining both intended and unintended outcomes. By bringing scholarly communities together, our review lays the foundation for more rigorous and impactful scholarship at the nexus of CA and sustainability.“