Organization and Management Theory OMT

Now in its fourth year running since AOM 2023, this symposium continues an ongoing conversation on organizing with nature, with this year's focus turning to rhythm.

Management and organization research is starting to pay more attention to nature, not just as an outside environment that organizations sit in, but as a system of more-than-human actors that actively take part in organizational processes alongside human actors. There's growing interest in studying nature's rhythms and the mismatches between organizational time and nature's time. Yet we're still used to treating nature's rhythms as background, as an environment organizations can control.

As a result, organizations often manipulate, dictate, or force nature's rhythms to fit organizational goals. These goals tend to benefit only some actors in the present, while overlooking many others, including our shared future.

This symposium brings together panelists and the audience for a joint conversation to reflect on this imbalance, a view that treats nature as either under our command or beyond it, and to explore how we might move toward a more balanced understanding of organizing with nature. Together, we'll critically examine the rhythms of organizing with nature from a more-than-human perspective, one that doesn't automatically place humans above other living and non-living beings and things.

Date: Sunday, August 2, 2026
Time: 4:45pm to 6:15pm ET
Location: Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown, Ballroom Level, Liberty Ballroom A

Organizers: Sunny Mosangzi Xu (Aarhus University), Miriam Feuls (Copenhagen Business School)
Panelists: Laura Albareda (LUT University), Seray Ergene (University of Rhode Island), Omid Omidvar (Warwick Business School), Katie (Kathleen) Ann Stephenson (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Discussant: Brian T. Pentland (Michigan State University)
Sponsored by: OMT (Organization and Management Theory), ONE (Organizations and the Natural Environment)