Digitalization has far-reaching implications for individuals, organizations, and society. While extant management and organization studies mainly focus on the positive aspects of this development, the dark and potentially unexpected sides of digitalization for organizations and organizing have received less scholarly attention. This special issue extends this emerging debate. Drawing on empirical material of platform corporations, social movements, and traditional corporations, eight articles illuminate the various negative implications of the digitalization of work and organization processes, particularly for workers, employees, and activists. In this introduction, we contextualize these valuable contributions that underline the dangers of the ubiquity and simultaneity of digitalization and begin to sketch out potential avenues toward a comprehensive critical agenda of digitalization in organization studies.

Purpose A growing number of research report positive effects of gamification, that is the introduction of game elements to non-game contexts, on stakeholder intentions and behaviors. Hence, gamification is proposed as an effective tool for organizations to educate their stakeholders about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability-related topics. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors ask whether gamification can communicate matters of social and environmental concern. Based on three consecutive experimental studies, the authors show that there are boundary conditions to the effectiveness of gamified communication on stakeholder attitude, intention and behavior. Findings The authors find positive, negative and insignificant effects of gamification on pro-environmental attitude, intention and behavior. Based on these ambiguous results, the authors conclude with a call for more rigorous forms of designing gamified experiences to foster stakeholder learning and highlight and develop several such future research and engagement opportunities. Originality/value The study is the first to apply gamification to the context of corporate and in particular CSR communication. It is furthermore one of the first studies that actually research the effects of gamification empirically, and in controlled experimental conditions.

Stakeholder recognition constitutes a firm’s experience of affirmation and acknowledgment from stakeholders and is deemed essential for organizations to develop positive self-relations and a sense of themselves as morally responsible social actors. Through an in-depth case study, I show how a firm’s varied experiences of stakeholder recognition for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts alternately facilitated and hindered the performativity of its aspirational CSR talk through two key processes: (a) a recognition-attainment process whereby the experience of stakeholder recognition helped turn aspirational CSR talk into “substantive” talk with the performative potential to catalyze other CSR practices; and (b) a subsequent recognition-commodification process induced by a perceived misrecognition that ultimately rendered such talk “ceremonial.” Elucidating stakeholder recognition as an undertheorized boundary condition of aspirational CSR talk, this study adds to performative approaches to CSR communication. It further contributes to research on recognition by demonstrating the explanatory potential of Axel Honneth’s notion of recognition in researching business and society interactions.

Societal grand challenges have moved from a marginal concern to a mainstream issue within organization and management theory. How diverse forms of organizing help tackle -or reinforce -grand challenges has become centrally important. In this introductory paper, we take stock of the contributions to the volume on Organizing for Societal Grand Challenges and identify three characteristics of grand challenges that require further scholarly attention: their interconnectedness, fluidity, and paradoxical nature. We also emphasize the need to expand our methodological repertoire and reflect upon our practices as a scholarly community.

Legitimacy is crucial for the survival and growth of strategic ventures inside larger corporations. Yet, despite much progress, research on the strategic venturing‐legitimacy nexus, that is, how internal strategic initiatives gain legitimacy and become part of the corporate strategy, remains underexplored. Drawing on the analysis of a longitudinal case study of the development of a sustainability initiative within a major diversified firm, we identified three core mechanisms of legitimation – seeding, energizing and prospering – that turned the concept of sustainability from an internally widely shared moral obligation into a business case. Our study contributes three distinct mechanisms that facilitate the legitimation and the integration of a strategic initiative within the corporate strategy. Moreover, we show how the sequence of legitimation mechanisms matters and highlight the inherently sequenced nature of strategic venture legitimation.

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Technology, Megatrends and Work. Of all the profound changes in business, technology is perhaps the most ubiquitous. There is not a facet of our lives unaffected by internet technologies and artificial intelligence. The Journal of Business Ethics established a dedicated section that focuses on Technology and Business Ethics, yet issues related to this phenomenon run right through all the sections. Kirsten Martin, editor of the Technology and Business Ethics section, joins our interim social media editor, Hannah Trittin-UIbrich, to advance a human-centric approach to the development and application of digital technologies that places Business Ethics at centre of the analysis. For Shuili Du, technology is the defining condition for a new era of Corporate Social Responsibility—CSR 3.0—which she defines as “a company’s socially responsible strategies and practices that deal with key ethical and socio-technical issues associated with AI and related technologies on the one hand and leverage the power of AI and related technologies to tackle social and environmental problems on the other hand.” It is not just technologies that are a determining feature of our lives but technology companies, an argument made by Glen Whelan as he examines Big Business and the need for a Big Business Ethics as we try to understand the impact of Big Tech on our post-work world. Indeed, as noted by Ernesto Noronha and Premilla D’Cruz, megatrends in addition to advancement in technologies, namely globalization, the greening of economies, and changes in demographics and migration, are shaping the future for workers in ways previously unimaginable. Contributing to this important debate, Praveen Parboteeah considers the influence of another longstanding but oft overlooked megatrend, the role of religion in the workplace. Given the enormity of the influence of technology and other megatrends in our world, it is not surprising that this essay introduces ground-breaking ideas that speak to the future of business ethics research.

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How does responsible digital innovation become an accepted and desired innovation practice for businesses? Drawing on the case of Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR), we study how institutional entrepreneurs across different fields construct CDR as an issue to legitimize corporate commitment to responsible digital innovation. Our qualitative study from Germany suggests that institutional entrepreneurship for responsible digital innovation entails the discursive, relational and material legitimation of responsible digital innovation through the issue of CDR. The findings of this study enrich institutional research on digital innovation by shedding light on the field‐level construction of responsible digital innovation through Corporate Digital Responsibility. We further extend existing CDR frameworks by detailing the multi‐stakeholder efforts that may shape a firm's approach to CDR, as well as by revealing additional topics associated with the issue. We highlight the theoretical and practical implications of our research.