Facts

Contact person:
Jens Rennstam
Financer:
  • Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas).
Responsible at MaU:
Jens Rennstam
Project members at MaU:
External project members:
  • Alexander Paulsson Lunds universitet
Time frame:
01 January 2027 - 31 December 2030
Faculty/department:
Research environment :
Research subject:

Project description

Our project aims to develop knowledge about the role of business in a society where economic growth is no longer the overarching goal. It builds on the growing body of degrowth research, which critiques the growth paradigm and advocates for a radical reorganization of production and consumption, with a focus on ecological and social sustainability.

The project addresses the paradox that, although we know we cannot continue growing as we do, business – a central engine of the economy – is still largely built on the assumption that it should strive for economic growth. To explore this paradox empirically, the project focuses on craft-based organizations, which previous research has highlighted as businesses that in many ways embody degrowth ideals. Craft businesses are often characterized by local embeddedness, and an emphasis on quality and sufficiency rather than growth. As such, they offer a source of inspiration for exploring alternatives to industrial mass production and may contribute new perspectives on sustainable production and consumption.

Theoretically, the project is grounded in cultural and practice-based perspectives within organization studies. It focuses on the norms, values, identities and material practices that shape and are generated in craft-based production and consumption. Methodologically, the project relies on qualitative methods such as interviews, observations, document studies, netnography and shadowing. The analysis is inductive and interpretive, guided by open research questions concerning how degrowth practices take shape, how craft practitioners understand key organizational dimensions, and how they manage tensions with growth-oriented ideals of production and consumption.

We expect the results to provide a deeper understanding of how degrowth business can take concrete form, what cultural and structural conditions enable or constrain this, and how new norms and identities emerge. The project contributes to degrowth theorization as well as to research on craft as a form of organizing. The societal relevance lies in offering knowledge about how business can be organized beyond the growth paradigm – an issue of increasing importance for future transition efforts. The results are relevant for craft producers and consumers, but also for larger firms and policymakers seeking new pathways for sustainable transformation.