Organisational practices and grand challenges : the case of large digital firms

Following the thermo-industrial revolution, the impact of homo sapiens has been so deep that in thousands of years from now it will be possible to carry out a "geology of mankind" (Crutzen 2002). Indeed, besides traces of some past constructions it will be possible to identify geological evidence of its negative impacts on the natural environment (pollutions, destruction of biodiversity, global ecosystem changes). Our species appeared some 300 000 years ago, for Palsson et al. (2013) if we are to survive the Anthropocene, "it is essential to fundamentally rethink the environment-humanity relationship", and possibly to set boundaries to those negative impacts. For example, Steffen et al. (2015) suggested nine planetary boundaries, and not crossing them would require adequate governance responses (Biermann 2012). Unfortunately, according to Whiteman et al. (2013), "Despite awareness of the declining state of ecosystems, business management scholars have yet to adequately link business processes to macro ecological processes and boundary conditions". In order to examine the extent to which the business processes of large digital firms are linked to "macro ecological processes and boundary conditions", that we call "grand ecological challenges", we discuss the following propositions: - Proposition n°1: Large digital firms are concerned with grand ecological challenges. - Proposition n°2: Large digital firms adopted practices to address grand ecological challenges.