International Centre of Public Accountability Seminar with Prof Sven Modell (Manchester)

Space Mining as an Emerging Organisational Field: An Institutional Logics Perspective

Abstract

Space mining, or the prospecting for and extraction of minerals and other resources from celestial bodies, has emerged as an integral part of the “New Space” economy and has been extensively debated and researched in the space literature. Responding to recent calls for management and organisation scholars to take greater interest in this economy, this paper advances a theoretical framework that conceptualises space mining as an emerging organisational field. In contrast to much prior research, which has debated what might constitute appropriate governance regimes for this field, this directs our attention to how such regimes may be institutionalised as the field continues to evolve over time. To make sense of such processes of institutionalisation, I mobilise an institutional logics perspective. Three institutional logics, centred on concerns with entrepreneurialism, sustainability and regulation, are identified. I also examine how the interplay between these logics has shaped the field of space mining to date and how they may be expected to affect future trajectories of change. I discuss the implications of my observations for future research on space mining as well as the institutional logics perspective.

About the speaker

Sven Modell received his PhD in Business Administration from Lund University, Sweden in 1998. Prior to joining Alliance Manchester Business School in 2007 he held a Chair in Accounting at Stockholm University School of Business, Sweden. He also holds Visiting Professorships at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Norway, and Turku School of Economics, Finland. He has previously been a Visiting Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Sydney, Australia, and an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He currently serves as Associate Editor of Accounting and Business Research and European Accounting Review and sits of the editorial boards of a number of other, leading accounting journals. In addition, he is an Editor of the European Accounting Association's PhD Mentoring Initiative, which is a forum where doctoral students in accounting can receive advice and feedback on their research proposals and ongoing research work. Between 2019 and 2022, he served as International Director and Chair of the International Committee of the American Accounting Association Management Accounting Section and was also a member of the Executive Committee of the section. He is the recipient of several research awards, including the Mary Parker Follett Award for Outstanding Paper in Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal in 2019 (for his paper "Rethinking performativity: a critical realist analysis of accounting for corporate social responsibility", co-authored with Max Baker at the University of Sydney).