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The purpose of this paper was to build a review of the various management processes of this knowledge in this domain, with the aim of identifying research topics and perspectives for knowledge management (KM) within the boundaries between science and society. At the boundary between science and society, the development of agricultural systems is grounded in various innovation processes that are currently being challenged by sustainability issues. In particular, farmers’ knowledge is emphasized today in various reports and scientific studies as a way of designing more sustainable agricultural systems.

A literature analysis was performed on a database built from the Web of Science and 273 scientific article abstracts were qualitatively analyzed.

Four KM strategies on the basis of the objectives of these papers, the arguments used to justify the study of farmers’ knowledge (FK) and the position of the authors in relation to this knowledge were built. These strategies can be broken down as follows: assessing FK to improve it; documenting FK to capitalize or legitimize it in development processes; using FK as a resource for innovation; and facilitating the sharing of various sources of knowledge to increase the efficiency of development projects.

Because the four KM strategies show a relative genericity, research perspectives for each of them, some of which were related to the KM community and some of which extended the focus on political, legal or sociological aspects of knowledge production processes at the boundary between science and society, were drawn.

The four categories of KM strategies revealed the importance of legitimization processes of practitioners’ knowledge when dealing with innovation at science–society boundaries, whereas such processes are often neglected by classical KM methodologies.

This work questions the category of “practitioners’ knowledge”, stressing the need to go beyond the dichotomy between scientific and empirical knowledge and to recognize the hybrid nature of knowledge. It also shatters the myth that local knowledge is more sustainable than science-driven innovations, arguing for more KM efforts at the boundary between science and society.

Even if farmers’ knowledge has been used since the 1970s to promote more endogenous innovation processes as opposed to classical science-driven innovation processes, no review has yet been done of the use of farmers’ knowledge in the development of agricultural systems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of instruments defined as artefacts, rules, models or norms, in the articulation between knowing‐in‐practice and knowledge, in learning processes.

The paper focuses on a distributed, knowledge‐intensive and instrumented activity at the core of any collective action: qualification. The particular case of breeding activities in the livestock sector has been studied, where collective practices of animal qualification for collective breeding have been studied. Qualitative data stemming from in‐depth interviews and observation of daily practices have been analysed, combining practice‐based approaches on knowing processes and science philosophers' theories on the use of instruments during action.

The study of instruments used in daily practices allows us to go beyond the dichotomy between opposite types of knowledge, i.e. scientific knowledge seen as a stock, and sensible knowledge seen as purely tacit and equated to non‐instrumented practices. Instruments are not merely mediators in learning processes; they also take an active part in shaping and activating knowledge and learning processes.

Further research is needed on the designing of reflexive instrumentation, which takes knowing and knowledge articulation into account better.

Using instruments as a key concept to analyse knowing‐in‐practice processes has both methodological and managerial implications for identifying those instruments that favour learning processes.

This paper complements more classical practice‐based approaches by proposing a new perspective on instruments in learning processes, which is particularly relevant to the study of pluralistic organisations where power is diffuse.

The aim of this introduction to the special issue is to furnish a panorama on how practice‐based studies (PBS) concerned with organizational learning have developed in recent years, and to describe the topics that such studies have debated.

The articles in this special issue were first presented at the standing working group on “Practice‐based Studies of Knowledge and Innovation in Workplaces” of the European Group for Organizational Studies, and will therefore provide the background to PBS and an idea of its methodology.

The practice‐ based approach may be useful for: a renewed conception of organization as a texture of interrelated practices which extend to form an action‐net sustained by a knowing‐in‐action which renews itself and transforms itself into being practiced; a renewed conception of knowledge as a situated, negotiated, emergent and embedded activity; a renewed conception of materiality as a form of distributed agency and an intimate relationship with humans; a methodology for analysis of the new forms of work as knowing‐in‐practice; and a lexicon which comprises new expressions and concepts for the renewal of organization studies.

The special issue does not represent an extended review of the literature on PBS.

This paper offers an overview of an emergent field of studies.

Purpose – This chapter presents the results of an exploratory study carried out on activist institutional investor strategies. It aims to identify the way in which different types of institutional investors are reacting to new institutional pressures in the French context.

Design/methodology/approach – Our methodology is based on a series of semi-directive interviews, combined with additional relevant data.

Findings – The interpretation of results makes use of institutional theory, more specifically the work of Oliver (1991). Our study shows that active institutional investors may opt for different responses when confronted with new institutional pressures, and that these responses would seem to depend on antecedents underlined by Ryan and Schneider (2002), which in turn depend on the nature of their business relationships with the firm in which they invest. Whereas pressure-sensitive investors (such as banks and insurance companies) generally adopt acquiescence responses, pressure-resistant investors (such as pension funds and investment funds) pursue joint strategies of co-optation, influence or control with key actors such as local and international proxy advisors and French investor associations. Acting conjointly, certain pressure-resistant investors are often considered as institutional entrepreneurs in that they initiate changes and actively participate in the implementation of new norms in the field of shareholder activism in the French context. In parallel to this ongoing professionalization, other pressure-resistant investors such as activist hedge funds seem to lack sufficient legitimate power to be effective.

Originality/value – This chapter illustrates that the level of institutional investor activism depends largely on the relevant national legal framework. It also shows how institutional investor coalitions take advantage of new institutional pressures to enhance their legitimacy or increase the effectiveness of their action.

Wineries today are faced with the prospect of having to include environmental sustainability into their practices but implementation can be hard, complicated or even undesired. This research aims to examine firm features, specifically winery size and foreign direct investment, as potential sources of variability regarding environmental sustainability attitudes and practices.

Questionnaires were administered via telephone interviews with 63 wineries in France. Production surface and wine activities in other countries were the independent variables examined as potentially predicting environmental sustainability attitudes and practices, leading to competitive positioning and perceived firm success.

The findings clearly show that bigger wineries are more likely to practice environmental sustainability, but they do not necessarily have more positive attitudes toward environmental sustainability. For winery managers, firm size and environmental sustainability practices interact because they are perceived to lead to competitive advantages such as augmented product quality and better innovations. Larger firms are also more sensitive to micro pressures emanating from customers, competitors and distributors regarding environmental sustainability. Finally, wineries engaging in foreign direct investments have more positive attitudes toward and engage in more environmental sustainability practices than firms that remain domestic.

Rather than comparing firms that are environmentally sustainable versus firms that are not, this research examined actual firm characteristics that may influence management’s propensity to engage in environmental sustainability practices. This research provides explanations for why there are augmented environmental sustainability practices by larger wineries and the sources of subjective norms encouraging larger wineries, versus smaller wineries, to practice environmental sustainability.

Purpose – This chapter introduces this book’s topics, purpose, and key themes. It summarizes the purpose of the book which is to explore through both descriptive and conceptual means the use of power by institutional investors in bringing about changes to corporate behavior, so that corporations engage in improved environmental, social, and governance actions.

Methodology/approach – This chapter reviews literature and chapters and offers conceptual development.

Findings – The forces driving the actions of institutional investors are different from many other shareholders being determined by a unique set of costs, benefits, and objectives. As such three general categories of institutional elements constrain and guide this behavior: regulative elements which include constitutions, laws, and property rights; normative elements which include informal norms, values, and codes of conduct; and cultural-cognitive elements which include shared beliefs, identities, and mental models. It highlights the role of regulation and “soft” law, the impact of values and customs, and the way sense-making and cognition impacts on decisions and actions.

Practical/social implications – The chapter highlights the interplay between hard and soft law in progressing the agenda. It seems that hard law is a hygiene factor forming the base on which initial gains can be made in the application of institutional shareholder power. Moreover, the use of soft law such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the newly founded Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, institutional investors can gain improved disclosure of sustainability performance to incorporate into their investment decisions. Moreover, it highlights the gaps in the use of the power that exists. The movement is still emerging with the focus on corporate governance and environmental considerations primarily. There are still improvements to be made for institutional investors in the social aspects of the responsibility agenda as well in pushing companies to be more transparent, improve reporting, and engage in more long-term decision-making.

Originality/value – The chapter contributes to the debate on governance convergence between liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). It is important to look beyond national characteristics alone and demonstrate that organizations, even though they are impacted by institutions, are not necessarily passive acceptors of their fate. Hence this chapter highlights that in expanding from a dyadic approach comparing LMEs and CMEs, the strategic choice of decision-makers, the power of the actors, and the processes used by institutional investors in changing corporate behavior are important considerations.

This study aims to explore passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere and addresses two research questions: How does passion animate passionate labour? How does the emotion of passions and the discipline of labour fuse within passionate labour?

This study presents a three-year netnographic fieldwork of replikate fashion blogger-preneurs. Data are based on in-depth interviews, blogs, social media posts and informed by the relationships developed across these platforms.

Throughout the findings, this study unpacks the “little passions” that animate the passionate labour of blogger-preneurs. Passions include: passion for performing the royal lifestyle, the mobilisation of passion within strategic sociality and transformation and self-renewal through blogging. Lastly, the cycle of passion illustrates how passions can be recycled into new passionate projects.

This study offers insight on how passionate labour requires the negotiation and mobilisation of emotion alongside a calculated understanding of market logics.

This study raises implications for aspiring blogger-preneurs, luxury brand managers and organisations beyond the blogging context.

The contribution of this study lies in the cultural understanding of passion as a form of labour where passion has become a way of life. The theorisation of passionate labour contributes to existing research in three ways. First, this study identifies social mimesis as a driver of passionate labour and its links to class distinction. Second, it offers insight on how passionate labour requires the negotiation and mobilisation of emotion alongside a calculated understanding of market logics. Third, it advances critical debate around exploitation and inequality within digital labour by demonstrating how passion is unequally distributed.