In a recent article Richard Welford encouraged discussions about the status and future of environmentally related organization and management-research. The following contribution is an attempt to take up some of the challenges that our field faces. The purpose is to analyse the relationship between, on the one hand, a growing flora of environmental efforts and environmental solutions and, on the other hand, a management research that is developing on its own terms. The author's basic premise is that these two need to move closer to each other. A number of theses are also presented. The author's basic thesis is that organization and management theory does not need yet another new special subject; rather, it is environmental research that needs to more seriously include relevant management research. The second thesis is that there are no objective environmental problems (as most environmental researchers maintain), but that environmental problems are social constructions. The paper finishes with a number of conclusions in favour of a management focused environmental research, that is guided by an intention of 'soft interventions '. 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC LANGUAGE
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ne of the purposes of research is to increase our understanding of reality through linguistic development. The fact that environmental research has developed separately from management research has made it difficult for 'ecological language' to converge with 'economic language'. This phenomenon pertains to research as well as to company practices. Concepts such as 'life cycle', 'environment', 'sustainable development', 'ecoefficiency' and 'dematerialization' are currently discussed and form a new linguistic and conceptual world. The terminology is often not defined and tends to take on different meaning, depending on the context and players. To a great extent, ecological language lives a life of its own and has a tendency to be elitist, to the extent that it creates hypothetical worlds for a small circle of initiated people -in other words, it is exclusive.
No theorist or pragmatist today can claim to understand the nature of environmental problems in its entirety or to have anything more than partial solutions to the problems. If anything, we are on a voyage of discovery where the key to