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We warmly invite you to our Professional Development Workshop (PDW), Compliant but Irresponsible?: Sustainability and the Rhetorics of Organizational Stewardship, at the 2026 Academy of Management Annual Meeting.

This PDW brings together scholars from different regions across the globe to provide complimentary perspectives and critically examine how socioecological stewardship and sustainability organizing is shaped by legacies of extraction, colonial governance, and histories of organizational misconduct. Drawing on litigated cases involving multimillion-dollar liability claims and compensation settlements from multinational companies, especially in Indigenous contexts, the workshop explores how responsibility is constructed, contested, justified, and sometimes denied across organizational, legal, and community interfaces. Some of the fundamental questions this workshop aims to address include: Can organizations be compliant and still be irresponsible? Where does the boundary of organizational socioecological responsibility lie, especially when societal expectations extend beyond regulatory compliance? What insights can Indigenous ontologies, relational ethics, and intergenerational accountability offer for sustainability organizing? And how might management theory and practice move beyond the rhetorics of compliance toward more meaningful forms of stewardship?

The PDW will be held from 8:00 to 10:00 AM ET (GMT-4/UTC-4) on Sunday, August 2, 2026, at the Sheraton – Liberty Ballroom A. Those participating in the conference remotely will also have the opportunity to join online. Please send a direct message to any of the organizers if you would like to receive a link to participate.

Through case presentations, panel discussions, and interactive sessions, the workshop aims to advance conversations on sustainability, stewardship, organizational responsibility, and the normative foundations of socioecological accountability. Therefore, we invite scholars, practitioners, and early-career researchers whose research engages with these themes and the broader field of management for collective well-being to join this important conversation as we explore the ethical dimensions of organizational responsibility and socioecological stewardship, particularly in contexts where livelihoods and survival are deeply intertwined with socioecological well-being.

The panelists include Irene Henriques (York University, Canada), Diego Coraiola (University of Victoria, Canada), and Stephen Cummings (University of Sydney, Australia).

Case presentations will be delivered by Peter Musinguzi (University of Melbourne, Australia), Esther Hennchen (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), Hellen Marquezini (University of Victoria, Canada), Christian Igbeghe (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), and Irene Henriques (York University, Canada). The session will be moderated by Lauren Walter (University of Victoria, Canada).

Organizers: Christian Igbeghe (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), Peter Musinguzi (University of Melbourne, Australia), and Lauren Walter (University of Victoria, Canada).

This PDW is sponsored by the ONE Division and is relevant to scholars and practitioners across career stages, divisions, and interest groups, providing an interactive space for the development of novel research ideas and the advancement of ongoing conversations on sustainability, organizational responsibility, and stewardship.

We look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia.