Degrowth and business: Towards a holistic research agenda

A growing number of publications focuses on business in relation to degrowth. Such research, for example, considers what it would take for businesses to become degrowth-compatible, what business practices need to be in place, and how businesses would have to relate with nature, human and non-human beings. Although degrowth business scholarship has come a long way in the past couple of years, many key questions have yet to be posed and addressed more systematically. The present contribution uses the new philosophically informed ‘deep transformations’ theory of degrowth to propose a holistic research agenda that can guide future degrowth business research. Rooted in the four planes of social being (material transactions with nature, social interactions, social structures, and inner being) underpinning this theory, combined with a framework classifying three types of knowledge (system, transformation, and target) about the present, short- and medium-, and long-term futures, the contribution identifies and systematically orders a series of questions for degrowth business scholarship to consider. • We use a new, holistic deep transformations theory of degrowth. • We propose a theoretically and philosophically informed research agenda. • Research should concern nature, social interactions, social structures, inner being. • Research should concern system, transformation and target knowledge. • Inter- and trans-disciplinarity, and new research methods, are required.