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🌌 Roundtable: Beyond Capitalist Realism in New Space - How Can Alternative Organizational Forms Challenge Dominant Structures in the Space Economy? (Registration open)

  • 1.  🌌 Roundtable: Beyond Capitalist Realism in New Space - How Can Alternative Organizational Forms Challenge Dominant Structures in the Space Economy? (Registration open)

    Posted 57 minutes ago

    The New Space sector is often presented as a story of democratization, bold futures, and transformative innovation. Yet it remains shaped by institutional constraints that privilege venture capital-backed, IP-concentrated, and market-driven organizational forms.

    This roundtable explores the tension between technological imagination and political imagination in space entrepreneurship. While visions of multi-planetary futures are increasingly visible, alternative organizational approaches (including commoning, cooperative ownership, open innovation, and participatory governance) often struggle to gain legitimacy and support.

    Drawing on institutional theory, organization studies, and critical performativity, the discussion will examine how competing institutional logics create both constraints and possibilities for alternative organizational models in the Space Economy.

    πŸ‘₯ Facilitators
    β€’ Marc Ventresca - SaΓ―d Business School, University of Oxford
    β€’ Gemma Milne - University of Glasgow
    β€’ Felix Honecker - University of Glasgow

    πŸŒ€ Discussion questions
    β€’ What mechanisms insulate dominant organizational forms in New Space from critique while marginalizing alternatives?
    β€’ How can CMS scholars engage performatively to challenge these dynamics?
    β€’ How can prefigurative politics and alternative organizations inform space ventures with different ownership, governance, and social relations?
    β€’ How does future-oriented discourse around risk and investability limit organizational imagination?
    β€’ What collaborative or interventionist research approaches can support entrepreneurs, policymakers, and advocacy groups working toward transformative organizational alternatives in space?

    Join us for a focused discussion on how the Space Economy can help management scholars rethink power, ownership, governance, organizational imagination, and alternative futures in frontier industries.

    πŸ—“οΈ August 1, 2026 | 2:00–5:30 PM
    πŸ“ Loews Hotel, Philadelphia, USA
    πŸ”— Register: https://lnkd.in/e3czZT4R
    πŸ“© Questions: Mehdi.montakhabi@said.oxford.edu



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    Enrique Acebo
    University of LeΓ³n
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