COVID-19 forced us to move a conference from a Greek island to the web — and quickly. Here’s what we learnt

Abstract

In May this year, we were convening a dream conference: 140 like-minded academics on a Greek island for three-and-a-half days to work on a topic we cared about – organising sustainably. We recognised the contradiction of travelling to Crete to discuss sustainable organising. But it was a long tradition of the Organization Studies Summer Workshop — an annual workshop of organisation scholars — to be there. This year’s workshop focused on how businesses and other organisations could be reconfigured to operate in more ecologically-friendly and socially just ways. So, we tried instead to make the conference itself sustainable by using a sustainable venue, serving only vegetarian meals, avoidin..