Organization and the ecological crisis – A lecture series

This is a series of public lectures in which connoted scholars will present research addressing the ecological crisis and organization. Speakers will focus on their research’s concrete suggestions for how we can better organize and / or on the impact of their work for new and more productive forms of scholarly societal engagement today. The lecture series serves as a platform for discussion, networking, and collaboration among scholars, educators, students, and experts.

This series is conducted in the context of IOA’s (Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School) sustainability initiative. Organizers: Miriam Feuls, Stine Haakonsson, José Ossandón, and Trine Pallesen.

- Lecture 1: In praise of (indicative) planning, March 26, 2025.

In this lecture, Cornel Ban and Jacob Hasselbalch draw on a recent paper, ‘Green economic planning for rapid decarbonization’ published in the journal New Political Economy, to defend the urgency of bringing planning back to political and academic priority. The argument will unfold in three steps. (1) It has become increasingly obvious that the ecological crisis will not be sufficiently addressed with market-based coordination. We necessitate more and better planning. Academic and political debates, however, are often paralyzed with the opposition between socialist central planning and capitalist decentralized markets. The historical conundrum the ecological crisis poses is how to better plan in the context of contemporary capitalism. (2) We revise two different traditions which have demonstrated how planning can successfully work in advanced capitalist democracies. First, the tradition of indicative planning: state economic planning conducted in response to market failures in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and Japan. And second, planning in large corporations such as Ikea, Toyota or Walmart. (3) The lecture ends with an agenda for how to bring planning to the center of research and practice of economic organization.  

Cornel Ban, associate professor, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School

Jacob Hasselbalch, associate professor, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School

The page was last edited by: Department of Organization // 03/25/2025