Add to Calendar

Apple   Google   Office 365   Outlook   Yahoo

Embodied institutional work: Anti-speciesism 
at vegan animal sanctuaries

About the Research

Institutional scholarship over the past two decades has enabled us to understand the types, processes, and outcomes of institutional work to a considerable extent. However, institutionalists have yet to explore how workers might leverage embodied experiences to influence higher-order institutional dynamics. In this qualitative inductive study based on participant observation, interview, (audio)visual, and social media data, we shed light on what we label embodied institutional work. Our empirical setting is the field of vegan animal sanctuaries in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. We find three embodied institutional work tactics which could provoke institutional change: embodied empathizing, embodied de-anonymization, and embodied prefiguration. We suggest and discuss the novel concept of embodied institutional work and contribute to the literatures on institutional work and institutional translation. We moreover contribute methodologically by exemplifying a reconciliation between polarized rational and affective, traditional and posthuman methodological approaches in management and organization studies.

About Daniel Semper

Daniel Semper works as Lecturer in Management at the University of St. Andrews since 2023. Prior to joining St. Andrews, he has worked as an Assistant Professor at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Daniel is also affiliated with the Center for Civil Society Studies at Stockholm School of Economics. He obtained his PhD from JKU Linz, his MA in management and organizational analysis from Warwick Business School, his BA and MA in Sociology from the University of Graz. He held visiting positions at the University of Alberta, UTS Sydney, University of Bergamo, and at the Higher School of Economics Nizhny Novgorod. His research interests revolve around topics of institutional change within and across organizational fields, the formation of field identity, the role of embodiment in institutional work, and conceptualisations of institutional power.

Date: Thursday 23 October, 2025

Time: 12:45-14:15 CEST

Venue: Room Roland Calori (B3), (Zoom link provided to registered attendees)

Reminder: We no longer provide food as per school policy…

Should you want to attend, please register at https://forms.gle/rYxqPmw7cZsCrsHU8