Call for Papers - Polycrisis & Precarity: Understanding the Lived Experience of Workers

Guest Editors

Helet Botha, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Helet Botha

Wim Vandekerckhove, EDHEC Business School, R. Edward Freeman

R. Edward Freeman, University of Virginia, Wim Vandekerckhove

Christopher Wong Michaelson, University of St. Thomas, Christopher Wong Michaelson

“Indeterminacy… is frightening, but thinking through precarity makes it evident that indeterminacy also makes life possible.” – Anna Tsing

The world in which businesspeople work is one of polycrisis: an unprecedented multitude of cascading and interrelated challenges confront humanity and our planet (Henig & Knight, 2023; Tooze, 2022). Some of the most impactful crises are estimated to be misinformation, severe weather events, bio-diversity loss, and societal polarization. The term polycrisis uniquely characterizes our time, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report, which foretells “a predominantly negative outlook for the world over the next two years that is expected to worsen over the next decade” (2024: 6). With this Special Issue, we aim to promote inquiries into the implications of polycrisis for Business Ethics. These inquiries start with the lived experience of workers in business organizations – managers, employees, executives – who may both be affected by polycrisis and held responsible for confronting polycrisis.

Amid polycrisis, lived experience becomes likely to reflect the precarity that existentialist philosophers have long considered the fundamental nature of the human condition (e.g., Beauvoir, 1962). By “precarity” we mean the combination of vulnerability (in relation to others) and indeterminacy (no promise of a stable future) (Tsing, 2015). Today, our embodied experiences of war in geographically distant locales are vivid and renders highly cognitively salient or accessible the experience of vulnerability in relation to others, and particularly of others as “adverse”. This experience is certainly solidified by sharp political polarization, and perhaps also by the existence of necessary discourses on the persistent effects of colonization and systemic bias in terms of gender, race, ability, and sexual orientation. Increased awareness of the depletion of planetary resources brings about confrontation with indeterminacy as well as vulnerability.

We are calling for papers that take as their starting point the phenomenon that is the individual worker’s situatedness within polycrisis. Consider as an example the experience of Jean, a France-based middle manager of a US headquartered sports gear company. Over the last two months, Jean may have dealt with supply chain disruptions due to active conflict in the Red Sea. Simultaneously, leadership of his company is faced with responding to a (possibly) deep-fake video circulating the internet in which the CEO uses homophobic language. As Jean is preparing for a meeting with the executive management about reducing their European workforce, he receives a call from his husband, informing him that a hurricane destroyed a property where relatives live in Miami. What would make Jean’s sense of moral agency emerge intact amid polycrisis rather than give in to nihilism? What are the guides for not only survival but meaningful existence that workers conceive of or subscribe to that enable them to cope with these cascading crises? Do certain values, or ethical systems hold more water amid polycrisis than others? When does the experience of vulnerability stunt versus stoke the fire of moral imagination (Werhane, 2008, 2018)? And what are the relational dynamics, habits of mind and behavioral tendencies that allow for “no guarantees” about the future to be experienced as facilitating (rather than undermining) the potential for a worthwhile life?

Types of Papers and Suggested Topics

• Papers that draw from existentialist and other philosophical perspectives to address polycrisis

When situated individual experience is the entry point to knowledge, certain streams within philosophy, and especially what is sometimes referred to as continental philosophy, provide an intellectual foundation for developing questions and generating insight. Existentialist philosophies tend to treat precarity not uniquely as the result of polycrisis but rather as the fundamental (enduring) nature of the human condition. It stands to reason that these philosophies can pre-empt important questions for the business practitioners of our time and may also have insights into the problems that workers presently face. We welcome the application of not only the thinkers widely known as “existentialists”, but also other philosophers who embrace the notion of human agency despite or vis-à-vis polycrisis. We are looking for both historical and contemporary authors whose work can be used toward understanding workers’ experience amid polycrisis, through their exploration of themes including but not limited to anguish, anxiety, authenticity, good faith/ bad faith, relatedness to others, the indeterminacy of the future as well as the purpose, or meaning of human existence (nothingness), and freedom.

• Papers that draw upon literary fiction and criticism to consider polycrisis

We believe the novel and other forms of fiction are important vehicles for building knowledge about situated experiences of polycrisis because of the window it offers onto characters’ existence, both over time and in each moment (See also Murdoch, 1999). With fictional characters, we have access to their sense making, or stream of consciousness, and emotional experience, as well as their behavior and relational capacities. For instance, we encourage authors to delve into the meaning of employment, work, vocation or calling in the context of polycrisis wherein precarity can lead to individual effort being construed as futile. For instance, theory could be developed on the basis of analyzing Zadie Smith’s The Embassy of Cambodia (2013) wherein an immigrant housekeeper, Fatou, possesses neither her passport nor an independent income, nonetheless concludes that she is not a slave; or Land of Milk and Honey (2023), by C Pam Zhang wherein a culinary professional grapples with the moral dilemma of using the scarce remainder of fresh produce on earth towards fine dining meals for wealthy patrons. Alternatively, some contributions could rely on concepts that have their roots in literary fiction to shed light on phenomena related to leadership amid polycrisis, for instance, Dostoevsky’s irreducible guilt in The Brothers Karamazov (1880).

• Papers that use other conceptual and empirical methods to understand individual workers’ responses to polycrisis

It has been argued that polycrisis cannot be addressed by attending to the moral responsibilities of individuals (e.g., Shotwell, 2016). We are weary that such a stance promotes moral disengagement and associated negative effects on individual lives and organizational outcomes (see e.g., Detert et al., 2008). Therefore, this Special Issue seeks contributions that focus on the role played by individual cognition, moral motivation and the relationships individuals are engaged in when it comes to coping with and confronting polycrisis. We are also looking for empirical designs and data collection efforts to understand the conditions under which an awareness of an indeterminate future sparks a sense of agency and when it dampens it. How can individuals be encouraged to “save what they love” (Franzen, 2018) despite discouraging effects of abstract framings of the crises of our time? How might empirical methods be employed to understand how cynicism can be counteracted in the context of polycrisis?

Paper Development Workshop

Pre-submission: Interested authors are invited to submit a 500-word extended abstract for consideration to participate in an online Special Issue Paper Development Workshop, which will be separately advertised and promoted.

This workshop itself will take place over approximately two hours. In the first one-hour session, we will introduce the special issue and explain what we are looking for in terms of submissions. In the second hour, groups of authors will attend one hour breakout sessions with a facilitator to discuss their proposed papers and the fit with the special issue as well as receive feedback from other authors. The digital format will ensure that attendance is possible for as many authors from around the world as possible. Attendance is not a precondition for submission. For further information on the workshop email Helet Botha hbotha@umich.edu.

Submissions Instructions

All submissions must be original, not published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. The authors should follow the Journal of Business Ethics guidelines. Please submit manuscripts through the Editorial Manager® by 1 May 2025. The online submission system will be opened 60 days prior to this submission deadline. Please contact the guest editors through the contact details provided above for any informal enquiries related to the Special Issue. Submitted manuscripts will go through a double-blind peer-reviewed process as indicated in JBE’s submission guidelines. Journal’s editorial procedures (Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance) and how reviewers are selected (Peer Reviewer Selection).

References

De Beauvoir, S. (1962). The ethics of ambiguity, tr. Citadel Press.

Detert, J. R., Treviño, L. K., & Sweitzer, V. L. (2008). Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: a study of antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(2), 374.

Franzen, J. (2018). The end of the end of the Earth: Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Dostoevsky, F. (1880/2009). The Brothers Karamazov. Project Gutenberg ebook 28054. Available at

Henig, D., & Knight, D. M. (2023). Polycrisis: Prompts for an emerging worldview. Anthropology Today, 39(2), 3-6.

Murdoch, I. (1999). Existentialists and mystics: Writings on philosophy and literature. Penguin.

Shotwell, A. (2016). Against purity: Living ethically in compromised times. U of Minnesota Press.

Smith, Zadie (2013). The Embassy of Cambodia. London: Hamsh Hamilton.

Stavrova, O., & Ehlebracht, D. (2019). Broken bodies, broken spirits: How poor health contributes to a cynical worldview. European Journal of Personality, 33(1), 52-71.

Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.

Tooze, A. 2022. Welcome to the world of the polycrisis. Financial Times, 28 October.

Werhane, P. (2008). Mental models, moral imagination, and systems thinking in the age of globalization. Journal of Business Ethics, 78, 463–474.

Werhane, P. (2018). The linguistic turn, social construction and the impartial spectator: why do these ideas matter to managerial thinking?. Philosophy of Management, 17, 265-278.

World Economic Forum. (2024). Global Risks 2024. Geneva: World Economic Forum.

Zhang, C Pam. (2023) Land of Milk and Honey. Penguin Random House.