Expert futures? Re-examining the role of experts and expertise in organisations and organising

Datos Bibliográficos

ID23310568
AutoresCara Reed (0000-0003-1085-1661, Cardiff University), Alexandra Bristow (0000-0002-8744-5293, The Open University), Gabriela Lotta (0000-0003-2801-1628, FGV EAESP, Brazil), Gabriela Spanghero Lotta (0000-0001-5455-3557, FGV EAESP, Brazil)
Año2026
Fecha de publicación2026-07-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOrganization (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13505084261464326
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas62

In this editorial, we link the notions of experts and expertise to onto-epistemological justice and call for their re-examination in light of pressing contemporary challenges, crises and complexities. We argue that the debates on experts and expertise in and around organisations can be understood through a matrix of two key tensions – dismissal versus affirmation of expert authority and depolitisation versus politisation of expertise. Taken together, these produce four positions – technical dismissal, politicised dismissal, politicised affirmation and technical affirmation – that are mobilised by academics, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, media, and experts themselves, often simultaneously and in contradictory ways. We offer the matrix as an analytical tool to build on the Organization heritage of engagement with expert power and contestation, and develop new understandings of the current condition of experts and expertise in organizational contexts. The papers in the special issue surface these tensions in the forms of politicised dismissal of expertise through neoliberal erosion, the expert work of politicised affirmation, and politicised self-affirmation and self-dismissal of the dark side of expertise. We examine the continuities and differences in the organization of experts, the organizing of expertise, and the power dynamics involved. We also call for future critical research to continue to deconstruct, problematize and reconceptualize experts and expertise, particularly in relation to key societal challenges and more extreme contexts of expert organizing.