Democratic organizing for social change

Christine Unterrainer, Wolfgang G. Weber, Thomas Höge and Severin Hornung

Chapter 20 in Handbook of Critical Work and Organizational Psychology, 2026, pp 343-364 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Since the 1970s, neoliberalism and associated profit and growth imperatives have restructured society, aggravating social inequality, injustice, alienation, human suffering, and the ecological crisis. Work and organizational (W-O) psychology has largely neglected these issues. Critical W-O psychology needs to problematize these developments, investigating strategies of social change. W-O psychology attempts to address social and ecological sustainability through constructs of corporate social responsibility (CSR), empowerment, and pseudo-participation. However, CSR is conceptually a greenwashing technique, similar to other management practices that claim to contribute to socio-ecological sustainability but actually do the opposite. Alternatives for critical W-O psychologists to engage in societal transformation are democratization, decommodification, and degrowth. Focusing on democratic structures and processes at different levels, we discuss organizational democracy at the individual (micro) and organizational (meso) levels, and economic democracy, solidarity economy, and degrowth at the societal (macro) level. Delineated are strategies of economic democracy “from below” and “from above” and their integration in “Real Utopias” as alternatives to global capitalism.

Keywords: Social Change; Economic Democracy; Organizational Democracy; Solidarity Economy; Degrowth; Real Utopias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035331055
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