[Research Seminar] Organizing Collective Action – Emotional Energy Replenishment as Central Element / Managers Intention Towards the Integration of Neurodiverse Individuals in the Workplace
September 26th, 2025
10:30am – 12pm in Promenade Building (PR13) & on Zoom
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Speakers: Itziar CASTELLO-MOLINA, Bayes Business School, UK
& Oluwatobi OMOTOYE, PhD Student at IÉSEG Business School, France
abstract
Organizing Collective Action – Emotional Energy Replenishment as Central Element, by Itziar CASTELLO-MOLINA
This paper seeks to explore how social entrepreneurs maintain the emotional energy necessary to sustain collective action in highly hostile and emotionally draining environments. While previous literature on social entrepreneurship and social movements has focused on impact (Austin, Stevenson & Wei-Skillern, 2006; Delmestri& Goodrick, 2016) and the values that motivates affects and therefore action (Miller, Grimes, McMullen & Vogus, 2012; Shepherd & Williams, 2014), scholars have paid limited attention to the organizing of collective action involved in sustaining activist engagement (Barberà-Tomàset al. 2019) subjected to strong emotional pressure due to being regularly subjected to hate speech, online threats, and legitimacy challenges and are working for institutional maintenance (not disruption) (McCarthy & Glozer, 2022).
Our central research question is: How do social entrepreneurs organize to shield themselves from emotionally violent environments in order tomaintain their emotional energy?
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Managers Intention Towards the Integration of Neurodiverse Individuals in the Workplace, by Oluwatobi OMOTOYE
The integration of neurodiverse individuals into the workplace has gained increasing recognition, yet many still face barriers to full inclusion.
Neurodiversity refers to natural differences in cognitive functioning, including conditions like autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and dyslexia. Although evidence shows that neurodivergent employees can bring unique skills and perspectives, they remain disproportionately excluded from the labor market, with high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Managers play a critical gatekeeping role in determining whether organizational policies on inclusion are effectively implemented in practice. This study examines managers’ intentions to integrate neurodiverse individuals into the workplace by extending the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The study proposes that the perceived organizational inclusion climate influences managers’ attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioralcontrol regarding their intention to integrate neurodiverse individuals. In turn, these TPB constructs predict managers’ intentions to integrate neurodiverse individuals. Furthermore, perceived organizational support and managerial self-efficacy are introduced as boundary conditions, strengthening the relationships between TPB predictors and intention. A two-phase data collection approach will be employed to survey managers. Theoretically, the study contributes to the TPB literature by incorporating organizational context and boundary conditions, addressing a key limitation in explaining managerial intentions towards neurodiverse individuals.
Practically, it offers organizations valuable insights into how supportive climates, resources, and managerial confidence can foster effective integration of neurodiverse individuals into the workplace.