Defense of Jean-Philippe Decka

Businesses facing planetary boundaries 

Strategies for social transformation from a degrowth perspective

Supervised by Thomas PARIS

Defense sheduled fo Monday 17 november 2025 at 4:00 pm to École polytechnique, Drahi Xnovation Center 

Abstract:

Faced with the overshoot of planetary boundaries, companies must adapt their organizational model to sufficiency. However, companies seeking to adopt sufficiency practices find themselves confronted with the difficulty of embodying them in the current socioeconomic system. To overcome these obstacles, degrowth companies are attempting to transform society towards greater environmental sufficiency and social equity. This research therefore examines the strategies of these companies.

This doctoral thesis proposes a study of degrowth companies from three different perspectives, each of which is explored in a scientific article. The first article aims to clarify the relationship between business organizational design and the concept of sufficiency through a systematic literature review. The second article focuses on a longitudinal case study of an alternative organization based in rural France.

Its purpose is to study the organization's economic activities and social transformation actions to determine how these practices prefigure degrowth. The third article is organized around a multiple case study of degrowth activist companies. It examines interorganizational collaboration with stakeholders as a strategic lever for social transformation.

The research contributes to the academic literature by proposing two innovative concepts: “the terrestrial enterprise,” which emphasizes the centrality of the notion of desirable activity and highlights tensions and ambivalences in the characteristics of a degrowth business; and the “subsistence economic model,” which offers a tool for practitioners in businesses committed to degrowth to organize themselves strategically toward greater autonomy.

Keywords: social transformation, degrowth, sufficiency, alternative organization, prefiguration, planetary boundaries

Composition of jury :