The event will be rescheduled next year so that Julia Grimm from Stockholm University can still present research on bridging mechanism enabling a shared lifeworld in multi-stakeholder initiatives.

How to you get adversaries to collaborate? Drawing on a complementary case study of the German “Partnership for Sustainable Textiles” and “Fossil Free Sweden”, Dr. Grimm and her collaborators Rebecca Rühle (VU Amsterdam) and Juliane Reinecke (University of Oxford) show how the divergent agendas of the different participants of MSIs tend to jeopardize the collaboration. This issue can be addressed, however, by fostering deliberation within a shared lifeworld à la Habermas and by opening up dynamic spaces for substantial collaboration in which, notably, economic and norm-based rationales can coexist. The research presented and discussed in this hybrid RMI Research Seminar has important practical implications for MSIs and their participants such as companies, trade unions and civil society organisations.

Dr. Julia Grimm is an Assistant Professor in the Management, Organisation and Society Department at Stockholm University, Stockholm Business School. Having a background in organisation and management studies and qualitative research methods, her primary research interests include phenomena such as transnational and collaborative governance, collective action and social movements, as well as multi-stakeholder partnerships – all in the context of global supply chains. She works on issues around social and environmental sustainability and mostly draws on framing and paradox theory. 

RMI Research Seminars provide a forum for discussing latest findings in research areas matching or complementing those of the Reinhard Mohn Institute of Management at Witten/Herdecke University. Speakers are usually international, early-career and/or interdisciplinary-minded researchers. This hybrid event is open to anyone interested. Please register, indicating if you intend to participate in person on Campus or via Zoom (link will be sent), by email: rmi@uni-wh.de.