In our essay “Strategy Can No Longer Ignore Planetary Boundaries: A Call for Tackling Strategy’s Ecological Fallacy” (Bansal et. al., we argue that the field of Strategy has contributed to the planetary crisis, including particularly climate change and loss of biodiversity.  The complicity of Strategy scholars in the crisis was inadvertent and unintentional.  It grew out of developments in the 1970s and 1980s, when the focus of analysis shifted from the social to the organizational level under the assumption that the pursuit of profit by corporations would lead to widespread fulfillment of social goals.  This involved a logical mistake called an ‘ecological fallacy,’ which is a statistical term describing how desirable macro-level outcomes in complex systems do not accumulate from the pursuit of goals at constituent levels of analysis. We realize this is somewhat wonky and technical, and we devote considerable space in our paper to explaining this ecological fallacy as clearly as we can. The main point here is that, by conceptualizing the purpose of the field for many decades as understanding heterogeneity in firm profitability, Strategy scholars inadvertently contributed to the planetary crisis by legitimizing the singular pursuit of profit by corporations as a constructive social aim. 

Our essay is published in the Journal of Management Studies as a “Point,” to which two “Counterpoints” are offered. Davis’ and DeWitt’s (2024) Counterpoint entitled “Can Strategy Address the Climate Crisis without Losing its Essence?” mainly agrees with our diagnosis, but is pessimistic that the field of Strategy can fruitfully change. The authors go as far as to argue that Strategy would have to morph into Organization Theory to become effective in overcoming its problems. Of course, we already have a very well-developed field of Organization Theory, but their main concern is that the culture – the essence – of the field of Strategy is out of alignment with the required transformation. In the end, Davis and DeWitt (2024) express pessimism that our proposed approach can be effective. 

Foss’ and Klein’s (2024) Counterpoint entitled “Do We Need a ‘New Strategy Paradigm’? No” expresses “doubt that such new foundations are necessary or useful.”  There are five major components of their argument. The first is that our characterization of the history of the field is errant. The second is that established tools exist to deal with important problems related to social goals. The third is that the proposed approaches we offer are subject to their own problems. Fourth is “a level of climate alarmism that is not supported by the scientific consensus.”  Fifth is that market-based institutions can deliver social benefits that we underestimate. 

The three pieces are accompanied by an Introduction by Wickert and Munzio (2024) entitled “What is the Strategy of Strategy to Tackle Climate Change?”, that frames the disagreements between the Point and Counterpoints in terms of (1) understandings of climate change, (2) approaches to development of solutions, and (3) the purpose of theory in guiding performative action.  The Introduction is a well-developed argument that could reasonably construed as a third Counterpoint because it encourages deeper inquiry into Strategy’s ontology, intervention, and performance. 

We have many thoughts in response to the complex and well-argued perspectives of the Counterpoints and Introduction. These range from relatively technical, narrow, and particular concerns all the way to broad conceptual questions.  We have resisted the temptation to dive into the details.  Here we try to stick to the big picture and make the following points that we see as prevailing. 

1. Climate change is urgent and actionable. We agree with Davis and DeWitt (2024) that remediating and adapting to climate change are the central social challenges of this century.  At the same time, we agree with Foss and Klein (2024) that there are insights and tools and analysis that the field of Strategy can offer to support effective action on climate issues. Indeed, one of our central purposes is to press Strategy scholars for more work on planetary issues. We do not yet have enough, as a recent analysis reveals that that fewer than 1% of published papers in core journals deal with any of the four Sustainable Development Goals on climate and biodiversity.  We disagree with Foss and Klein (2024) that our view is alarmist and assert that the body of evidence on the planetary crisis is so compelling as to be beyond dispute scientifically. We also agree with Wickert and Munzio (2024) in describing the field’s ontology, as we are disagreeing with Davis’ and DeWitt’s (2024) suggestion that Strategy may not be able to change – and that it may not have much worthwhile to offer. 

2. For decades, the field of Strategy’s purpose has been to explain heterogeneity in firm performance, construed mainly in terms of profitability.  We wish we had room to quibble with Foss and Klein (2024) on the details about how the field got to this place; and with Davis and DeWitt (2024) on whether the only truly viable path forward is to morph Strategy into Organization Theory.  We don’t, though. Instead, we simply want to assert that, notwithstanding the outcomes of the quibbles, it is incontrovertible that the field of Strategy has been characterized by this purpose for more than a generation.  We also believe that the culture of business cultivated in our classrooms was deeply influenced by this purpose. 

3. The untethered pursuit of profits by companies without a contextualization in a framework of broader social aims has been central to the climate crises. As Wickert and Munzio (2024) suggest, Strategy scholars could debate forever about the sources of the planetary crisis: the culture of business; the pursuit of profits; governments’ failures to internalize externalities; the social focus on wealth accumulation; other post-industrial problems and conditions. Our argument is that all of these issues are relevant as they are each part of a system of interactions.  In this system, there is no question that corporations have been complicit. This does not mean that companies have not often contributed to the fulfillment of a wide range of social goals such as those expressed in SDGs 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 (among others). Yet, today, at the halfway mark in the 15-year journey between the initial expression of the SDGs and the date set for their fulfillment, society has not made nearly enough progress and even slipped backwards on several of the goals. We have institutional failure in the sense that no governmental or market mechanism is addressing planetary crises effectively. Here we agree with Davis and DeWitt (2024) and disagree with Foss and Klein (2024). 

4. The field of Strategy can repair cracks in its foundations. We have already seen in the field the adoption of new dependent variables, adaptations in some areas of theory, some updating of methods, and exciting empirical results. Our argument is that we need much more of this innovative kind of work, and that we need it urgently, and that it will make a difference. Here we disagree with Davis’ and DeWitt’s (2024) argument that Strategy needs to morph into Organization Theory. Organization Theory is primarily grounded in sociology, and so its assumptions and aims are different from those of Strategy, which incorporates insights from Economics and other disciplines to address problems facing organizational leaders. Importantly, Strategy seeks causal understandings of organizational outcomes, whereas Organization Theory offers rich description at a range of levels. We believe that both approaches are important. We agree with Foss and Klein (2024) that the field of Strategy, with its emphasis on corporations, markets, resources, and collaborations, can contribute to understanding of the social systems that are giving rise to planetary outcomes. However, as Wickert and Munzio (2024) indicate, we hold different beliefs from Foss and Klein (2024) about what constitutes legitimate organizational performance and interventions. We also do not believe that repairing cracks in our foundations is enough. 

5. We need new foundational pillars in our thinking about macro objectives, multi-level theorizing, and temporal dynamics. Incremental innovation in the field of Strategy will be insufficient. A new, complementary foundation for the field of Strategy can move our attention to system-level outcomes. We need to address questions such as where and when accumulated firm action contributes constructively to social aims such as the preservation of planetary systems. Here we are seeking a way forward that builds on the insights of our Organization Theory colleagues to a broader understanding of the consequences over time of socially constructive initiatives. Strategy can reinvent itself by building the kinds of insights that all of the authors involved in this Point-Counterpoint want. 

We encourage you to engage with this critical debate. The ecological fallacy in Strategy is more than a statistical artifact. It is endangering planetary systems. We are calling on Strategy scholars to repair our established approaches and to build new foundations that support the achievement of new insights about the relationships between the corporation and society, and particularly about the role of the corporation in the planetary crises.