Mass Mobilising for Climate Action: A Member‐Driven Innovation Process in a Nongovernmental Organisation

Abstract

Environmental organisations (EOs) are not‐for‐profit organisations that contribute to responsible innovation (RI) efforts to mitigate the climate crisis as central catalysts in society. While the RI discourse in management research acknowledges that collaboration between a broad variety of actors is necessary to foster climate action, so far, we lack knowledge about EOs' innovation methods, strategies, practices and outcomes. Such research is, however, needed to support them in their innovation activities and facilitate multiactor collaboration. To explore this phenomenon, we present a case study to explore how EO members may innovate the organisation's communication strategy from within to develop its RI capability. Using qualitative, ethnographic methods, we investigate a particular process in which a local subdivision of a Danish EO attempts to revise and innovate the overall communication strategy of the EO to mass mobilise for postanthropocentric climate action. In our analysis, we shed light on the gestalt of this process, which resembles, we argue, an emancipation process. Accordingly, we examine democratised, participatory innovation practices and the subsequent adaptation to existing organisational communication. In the particular case, we suggest that this leads to a combination of opposing communication messages and the mainstreaming of the outcome of the innovation process.