Across multiple disciplines, scholars increasingly describe the present as a condition of polycrisis: a situation in which multiple crises unfold simultaneously, interact across systems, and generate cascading and non-linear effects (Henig & Knight, 2023; Tooze, 2022). Climate change, geopolitical conflict, democratic erosion, technological disruption, economic volatility, and public health emergencies are analyzed not as isolated phenomena but as interdependent and mutually reinforcing dynamics. This perspective challenges traditional understandings of crisis as a temporally bounded disruption that can be clearly identified and managed (Bundy et al., 2017), and instead foregrounds questions of structural vulnerability, governance capacity, leadership, and legitimacy.

This doctoral seminar examines contemporary crisis research across disciplines. Moving from disruption to polycrisis and persistent instability, the course explores how crises are conceptualized, how they become visible and actionable, and how organizing and governance respond under sustained uncertainty (Boin, 2024). Particular attention is given to critically examining taken-for-granted concepts such as vulnerability, resilience, crisis leadership, and crisis communication from multiple theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2007). The aim is to develop a shared conceptual foundation and to enable participants to situate their own research projects within current debates on organizing in times of crisis, including questions of coordination, power, legitimacy, and collective response.

The seminar enables students to:
- Differentiate and critically assess key crisis conceptualizations (crisis as disruption, creeping crisis, polycrisis, etc.)
- Understand interdisciplinary perspectives on crisis (drawing on, e.g., organization theory, governance research, public management, and disaster risk studies)
- Analyze crisis as a multi-level and temporally complex phenomenon (including structural vulnerability, institutional response, and legitimacy dynamics)
- Position their own doctoral research within crisis scholarship (explicitly articulating its crisis understanding, level of analysis, and potential contribution)

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