Understanding Crises – Shaping Change
Key subject area “Organizing in Times of Crisis”
What does “organizing” mean when crises are no longer isolated exceptional events, but rather overlap and reinforce one another? Our research team is investigating how different types of organizations, ranging from businesses and public institutions to associations and NGOs, can continue to actively help shape social change amid a widely recognized polycrisis.
Our Goal
We investigate how organizations can become more resilient and sustainable in the face of intertwined crisis phenomena, both global and local. As a result, we view crises not as disruptions, but as systemic phenomena that fundamentally challenge existing organizational structures. The goal is to develop new models of organization and crisis management that provide guidance and enable action even under conditions of high uncertainty. How organizations respond to crises plays a decisive role in determining how resilient and adaptable our societies are as a whole. Here lies the societal relevance of our research area.
The Challenge
Established research approaches assume that crises are temporary and that returning to the previous order is possible, however, current social developments show a different picture. Crises are increasingly intertwined and profoundly transform existing routines, institutions, and infrastructures. This requires a fundamental rethinking of how we organize: How are decisions made under conditions of uncertainty? How do new roles and forms of cooperation emerge? How are supply chains being restructured?
Our Approach
We explore organizational practices in various crisis contexts and examine the extent to which these enable organizational and societal agency in times of polycrises. Thus, we combine interdisciplinary approaches from organizational theory, sociology, psychology, and transformation research and take into account the perspectives of various societal stakeholders. With this foundation, we develop innovative and practice-oriented concepts for research and practice.
This key subject area was developed within the context of the Leuphana Center for Organization & Social Transformation (LOST). It constitutes a research focus of the internationally oriented LOST group.
The key subject area is part of the Embracing Transformation program, which is funded by the Strategic Development of Potential initiative of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation.
