The production and dissemination of knowledge, particularly on inequalities, climate change, and biodiversity, are increasingly under attack. These attacks are reflected in some political and administrative decisions adopted across several national contexts, such as the measures taken by President Donald Trump since his return to power. Beyond the US, academic freedom is being directly or indirectly undermined in many countries. For example, in France, controversies surrounding 'Islamo-leftism' within universities, reignited by the Minister of Higher Education, have been accompanied by concrete attacks on several scientific institutions.
Although research on grand challenges, sustainability, and ecosystem transitions is still ongoing, climate policies and the low-carbon transition are also under attack from many sides. These attacks range from climate scepticism to misinformation and lobbying, and aim to delay or weaken existing or future standards, as illustrated by the recent deregulation movement in Europe around the Omnibus law. Despite research pointing to the depletion of global resources, sustainable finance, ESG investing, and CSR are becoming increasingly polarized. Some asset managers are taking a more cautious approach to their commitments, and major players such as BlackRock announced in 2024 that they would be withdrawing ESG-labelled financial products. Some companies are reviewing their CSR practices and communication by adopting withdrawal or 'silence' strategies.
At the same time, the movement for equity, equality, and inclusion seems to be reaching a peak when it comes to considering diverse identities within organizations. And yet, it is simultaneously accompanied by growing opposition. The murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests in 2020 intensified diversity initiatives, while fuelling a conservative backlash. In connection with these events, the public statements of certain companies, far from achieving consensus, have sometimes crystallized negative reactions.
Finally, the flexibilisation of work is also undergoing changes. While teleworking, part-time work and flexible hours have become the norm, particularly because of the health crisis, the ideal of constant availability remains dominant. Barriers to the use of these arrangements, such as stigmatization and career penalties, persist and are even becoming more pronounced, while calls for a return to the office are growing.
Whether it be attacks on science, the retreat from climate and financial commitments, the contestation of inclusion policies or the questioning of individualized management systems, these developments reflect a critical re-evaluation of social and ecological advances perceived as progressive: a phenomenon known as 'backlash'.
At its most basic level, backlash is defined as resistance to social progress. It is an active 'counterattack' against initiatives, programmes, knowledge, and policies that aim to change existing patterns of inequality and injustice. Used at a political level, the term refers to a retrograde goal of returning to a previous social condition, using extraordinary objectives and tactics that challenge dominant narratives to interfere with the dominant public discourse. The concept of 'backlash' emerged in the 1970s in the United States, in political science, to describe and analyse right-wing extremism. The emphasis is then placed on the link between 'backlash' and symbolic investment in the past: beyond simple opposition, backlash is often associated with fear of loss and nostalgia for an idealized past. In the 1990s, the feminist movement took up this notion, suggesting that every advance made by women triggers a hostile reaction to block or reverse their gains. Since then, it has been particularly mobilized in the field of gender studies and research on diversity, equality, and inclusion, which combine backlash with the study of the negative social and economic consequences affecting individuals who go against social norms.
Today, some researchers attribute a systematic nature to backlash. All projects aiming for social justice encounter resistance from privileged groups seeking to restore or maintain their power, contributing to a growing polarization of opinions. This development has been fuelled by several structural and psychological factors that have broadened its scope, including fear of losing resources, fear of the emergence of new dominant values, and questioning of existing values.
In management literature, the issue has mainly been explored from the perspective of diversity. Studies have focused on how women, particularly those in leadership positions, who challenge gender stereotypes may face a number of sanctions, such as hostile messages, negative evaluations, lack of promotion, or tensions with colleagues.
However, in a context where organizations play an increasingly political role, where they constitute a microcosm reflecting societal aspirations, and are part of increasingly connected networks of stakeholders, the phenomenon of backlash impacts organizations as a whole. Management and organization studies, together with other disciplines such as political science, sociology and psychology, can contribute to exploring the phenomenon at the institutional, organizational, managerial, and individual levels to shed new light on these dynamics, help us analyse them critically and position ourselves, as researchers and practitioners, in these debates.
At the institutional level, backlash can be understood through the three pillars—regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive—that structure the legitimacy of practices. It is not simply a matter of decline, but rather the outcome of institutional efforts aimed at undermining or redefining norms that were previously thought to be established. For example, the recent decline in commitment to sustainable development in the United States is based on anti-ESG laws passed in 37 states and decisions by the Supreme Court. At the same time, a 'backlash industry' is mobilizing framing marketing strategies to influence norms and representations. Nevertheless, institutional work does not only serve to destabilize institutions; it can also aim to defend, maintain, or strengthen them through various institutional maintenance practices involving stakeholders both inside and outside organizations.
At the organizational level, backlash can be overt, as illustrated by the explicit withdrawal of social or environmental policies under pressure following governance or political evolutions. These changes can generate opposition from stakeholders and can prove difficult to implement depending on how deeply rooted they are in regulations, culture, or processes. Alongside these apparent shifts, more subtle forms of backlash are also emerging: resource reductions, the withdrawal of objectives, silence, and changes in vocabulary, generating tensions between discourse and practice. Among stakeholders, trade unions play a central role in protecting existing rights. They constitute a counter-power that can either slow down backlash or contribute to it.
Managers appear to be key intermediaries, caught up in contexts of ambiguity, conflicting values and contradictory demands. Neither mere executors nor fully autonomous, they are faced with moral and political dilemmas, which sometimes lead them to support strategic changes, and sometimes to resist or attempt to preserve certain commitments. However, backlash remains poorly conceptualized as a specific managerial challenge with both organizational and societal dimensions.
At the individual level, organizational contexts characterized by normative uncertainty or contested values can exacerbate the identity and moral tensions experienced by individuals, with lasting effects on their commitment, well-being and career choices. These tensions drive action, with employees who are particularly sensitive to social or environmental issues making their voices heard within organizations in the form of internal activism. But threat is as much a cause as a consequence of backlash: it can emerge from perceived threats to the identity, status, or legitimacy of certain dominant groups, revealing ambivalent dynamics.
Taken together, these different levels do not function in isolation but feed into each other: institutional transformations redefine the organizational and managerial scope for action, which influences individual experiences, which in turn can help to consolidate, influence, or challenge existing institutional frameworks.
This special issue aims to contribute to the theorization of the backlash phenomenon by analysing its institutional, organizational, managerial, and individual manifestations. The objective is to gain a better understanding of the internal and external mechanisms that promote backlash, as well as its effects and their complex relationships. Ultimately, this special issue will seek to understand the representations and experiences of the various stakeholders faced with backlash, including the multiple forms of resistance it can generate.
This special issue calls for papers based on a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches and encourages the adoption of multidisciplinary approaches at the intersection of management science, sociology, political science, psychology, communication, philosophy and law, among others. Submitted articles may be conceptual or empirical and based on a variety of ontologies. They may explore in depth one of the manifestations of backlash (e.g. questioning of science, environmental commitments, DEI policies, or flexible work), take a more comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of backlash, or conduct comparative studies. Submitted manuscripts may also offer an analysis focused on a specific level of analysis (individual, managerial, organizational, or institutional) or undertake a multi-level analysis.