Research interests
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Political economies and ecologies of management, organisation and sustainability
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Business and governance of climate change and carbon markets
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Sustainability of, and circular economy approaches to, food systems
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Environmental activism inside and outside organisations and corporations
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Relations between business, governments and civil society
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Circular economy and doughnut economics approaches
Research projects
Professor Boehm’s research focuses on a range of social scientific analyses of problems of environmental sustainability and circular economy. He is currently engaged in the following projects, many of which have received funding from a range of sources:
Food and the Circular Economy: Exploring the opportunities available to, and challenges faced by, small and medium-sized enterprises in the food and beverages manufacturing industry as they transition towards the circular economy.
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Climate policy and carbon markets: A critical interrogation of the social struggles involved in forming a sustainable climate policy. Prof Boehm has developed critical understandings of the role of carbon markets, arguing that they have been a distraction and that they have had a range of unintended, negative social and environmental consequences.
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Sustainability of the food system: Developing an inter-disciplinary and political economy approach to understanding issues of health, well-being, environmental sustainability, work and labour in the global food system. Prof Boehm has run funded research projects on local food systems, agroecological business and health and well-being.
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The water-food-energy-environment nexus: Expanding our perspective of the nexus by incorporating political, economic and social issues that are not normally considered by environmental scientists and systems engineers.
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Environmental activism amongst social movements, community groups, NGOs, policymakers and company employees and managers: Expanding our perspective of activism to include domains not normally considered to be ‘activist’.
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Political economy and governance of organisation: Expanding our view of organisation to include social movement, environmental and political activities. Such a view must include an understanding of the social struggles between business, government and civil society actors who often have different interests, facing divergent material realities and practices.
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In all of the above areas, he’s been supervising Masters dissertations and PhD theses.
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Research and Impact Funding Awarded
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2022-2027: ESRC: Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science (ACCESS), £5m (Co-I; PI: Devine-Wright).
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2022-2023: EPSRC IAA Translational Funding: ‘Food policy in Cornwall’, £35,000 (PI: Böhm).
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2018-2022: Tevi, funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the UK Government, £5m (PIs: Böhm and Gaston)
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2019-2020: EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA): 'Development and trialling of the ‘Circular Economy Capability Maturity Model Tool’', £9,931 (PI: Böhm).
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2019-2021: EPSRC: Exeter Multidisciplinary Plastics Research hub: ExeMPLaR, £1m (Co-I; PI: Hopkinson).
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2019-2020: EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA): 'Circular Economy Roadmap for Southwest Food and Agriculture', £10,106 (PI: Böhm).
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2016-2018: EPSRC: ‘Modelling supply chain optimisation in the food and beverages industry: Helping SMEs in South West England work towards the circular economy’, £483,000 (PI: Böhm).
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2016-2017: British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship: ‘Environmental Activism within Energy Companies’, £78,958 (PI: Böhm).
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2015-2017: Swedish Energy Agency: ‘Renewable Energy Activism’, £120,000 (PI: Annika Skoglund)
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2015-2015: ESRC Nexus Networks: ‘Agroecological Business: Connecting civil society, SMEs and consumers to nature and the land’, £20,000 (PI: Böhm)
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2013-2015: ESRC seminar series: ‘The Future of our Food: Resilience, Security and Justice in a Global Context’, £30,000 (PI: Böhm)
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2012-2015: East of England Cooperative Society: ‘The impact of relocalised food systems on wellbeing’, £75,000 (PI: Böhm)
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2012-2013: British Academy: ‘Assessing the contribution of local food systems to community wellbeing in the East of England’, £10,000 (PI: Böhm)
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2011-2013: Green Light Trust: ‘Evaluating the Low Carbon Champions project’, £15,000 (PI Böhm)
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2010-2012: University of Essex: ‘Ecocultures and resilience’, £50,000 (PI Böhm)
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2009-2010: British Academy, ‘The Social, Economic and Environmental Impacts of Carbon Markets: The Case of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)’, £7500 (PI Böhm)
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2005-2007: ESRC, ‘Alternative Media and Public Action: Organising the Global Alternative Networks’, RES-155-25-0029, £44,754.78 (PI: Andre Spicer)
Post-doctoral Supervision
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2024-to date: Francesa Boyd, UK, Net-Zero in Cornwall
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2024-to date: Aoifa Maher, UK, Net-Zero in Cornwall
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2023-to date: Fatma Sabet, UK, Food Systems in Cornwall.
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2019-2020: Olga Andrianova, UK, Tevi: Environmental Growth for Business in Cornwall.
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2017-2018: Roberta de Angelis, UK, Circular Economy
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2015-2016: Rogerio Fae, Brazil, Relations between the national development strategy and the social construction of space in the city of Rio Grande, Brazil.
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2014: Annika Skoglund, Sweden, ‘Green Human Resource Management: The case of Vattenfall’
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2013: Patricia Mendonca, Brazil, ‘Social movements in Brazil: the contribution of political discourse analaysis’
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2012: Eloise Dellangnelo, Brazil, ‘Laclau and Mouffe’s relevance for organization and management studies'
PhD Supervision
Current students:
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Christoffer Söderlund Kanarp (SLU, Sweden): Climate Adaptation in Sweden (Formas scholarship)
- Xiaofan Fan (Exeter): Place-based circular economy policy
Completed PhD projects:
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Josep Pinyol: The circular economy policy of the European Union (Marie Curie PhD scholarship)
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Ho, Chia-Hao: Circular Economy internal activists: A social network analysis (Exeter)
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Celal Cahit Agar: Turkey’s great leap forward: social and environmental implications (Exeter)
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Jasper Finkeldey: The social and environmental realities of mining in South Africa (Essex, ESRC PhD scholarship award)
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Ruth Melville: Measuring the Unmeasurable: Exploring the Impact of Measurement on Value in the Arts (Essex, ESRC PhD scholarship award)
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Tamás Lestar: Managing for food sustainability: Vegans and the vegan food society (Essex)
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Francisco Valenzuela: Driving (e)quality: Exploring subjectivity in the implementation of emergent public sector reforms in Chilean higher education (Essex, Chilean Government scholarship)
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Will Lewis: The political organisation of GM food: A discourse analysis (Essex)
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David Watson: Assessing the contribution of a more localised food system to wellbeing (Essex, ESRC PhD scholarship award)
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Lauren Crabb: Carbon markets: A crucial mechanism in our fight against climate change or another example of imperialism? (Essex)
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Matthew Hancocks: Disclosing Disclosing: An immanent critique of Disclosing New Worlds as a key text in the Processual School of Entrepreneurship Studies (Essex)
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Sanjay Lanka: The Araku Way: Sustainability Accounting for Fair Trade Coffee (Essex, Essex University scholarship award)
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Bo Le: Governance and supply chain management in the electric car industry in China (Essex)
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Neil Sutherland: Social Movement Organisations: Democracy, Participation and Leadership (Essex)
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Samuel Mansell: A Critique of Stakeholder Theory (Essex)
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Birke Otto: Politics and Management in Water Governance: Networks, Knowledge and Capacities (Essex)
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Aanka Batta: Becoming Selves: Psychoanalysis and Consumer Identity (Essex)
Visiting students:
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Yuna Fontoura, Brazil, The governance of food security: a discourse analysis
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Rafael Kruter Flores, Brazil, The appropriation of water: A critique
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Research appointments and activities
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Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and Business
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Section Editor, ‘Environment & Business Ethics’, Journal of Business Ethics
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Associate Editor, Organization
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Editorial Review Board member, Organization Studies
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Editorial board member, Social Movement Studies
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Member of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Panel
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Member of the ESRC Peer Review College
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Member of the EPSRC Peer Review College
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Member of British Academy of Management
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Member of the European Group of Organisation Studies (EGOS)
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Member of the Academy of Management (AoM)
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Member of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE)
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Reviewer for top ranked journals including: Organization Studies, Organization, Journal of Management Studies, British Journal of Management, Academy of Management Discoveries, Academy of Management Perspectives, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, Regulation & Governance, Global Environmental Policy, Climate Policy, Work, Global Environmental change, Employment & Society, Culture and Organization, Human Relations, Management & Organizational History, New Political Economy, Environment and Planning A, D & E, Antipode, Urban Studies, Marketing Theory, Macromarketing, Environmental Sociology, Sociology, Ecological Economics, Journal of Cleaner Production, Environmental Politics, and others.
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Editorships
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Section Editor, ‘Environment & Business Ethics’, Journal of Business Ethics
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Associate Editor, Organization
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Founding co-editor of the open access publishing press MayFlyBooks (www.mayflybooks.org).
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Special issue editor for Organization ‘Fruits of our labour: Work and organization in the global food system’ – with Tim Lang (City, London) and Marja Spierenburg (Radboud University Nijmegen)
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Special issue editor for Sustainability ‘Innovations in the Circular Economy: Commons or Commodity?’ – with Stefano Pascucci and Allen Alexander (Exeter)
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Special issue editor for Culture & Organization ‘Contested realities of the Circular Economy’ – with Hervé Corvellec (Lund), Alison Stowell (Lancaster) and Francisco Valenzuela (University of Chile)
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Special issue editor for Qualitative Research Methods in Organization and Management ‘Organizational Practices of Social Movements and Popular Struggles: Understanding the Power of Organizing From Below’ – with Maria Ceci Misoczky and Guilherme Dornelas Camara (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)
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Special issue editor for Critical Perspectives of International Business ‘Extractivism and the Links between International Business and People’s Struggles’ – with Maria Ceci Misoczky and Rafael Kruter Flores (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)