Our goal is to rethink the role and responsibilities of business in creating a sustainable society. As part of this mission, we publish the #thinklist - a list of influential faculty thinkers on social media who focus on issues of responsible business.

The #thinklist was initially compiled using an online platform that tracks an individual’s social media use to calculate a score corresponding to their online ‘power’. This data-based approach used a person’s follower count, retweets, replies and mentions to gauge their influence online. However, from 2020 onwards, we have adopted a different approach that seeks to be less data-driven and more inclusive.

The #ThinklistAmplify methodology

The #thinklist is no longer based on metrics such as follower numbers. It is instead curated by a group of experts in the field. The Centre for Business, Organisations and Society oversee the list, but commission the input of other leading scholars.

The #ThinklistAmplify, comprising of racialized scholars, was selected by Deborah Brewis, Nolywé Delannon and Vivek Soundararajan. Deborah and Nolywé were members of our #Thinklist30, and all three have experience in work that seeks to amplify issues that have been marginalised in scholarship on responsible business study.

By using the term racialized we refer to scholars who, based on perceived biological traits, are subject to racialization, i.e. “the process by which societies construct races as real, different and unequal in ways that matter to economic, political and social life.” (Ontario Human Rights Commission, n.d.).

Our group of curators drew up the final list based on public nominations. Each nomination was considered in light of the following criteria:

• They must be a researcher in the field of responsible business
• They must be active communicators on social media
• They must be a member of a racialized group across the world, as per the definition provided above
• They must be a faculty members of a business school or management department, or be a faculty member based in other disciplines who engage on a regular basis with the broad management scholarship community.

The curators sought to honour all nominations where these criteria were fulfilled and the nominee had confirmed that they would welcome being included.

This version of the #thinklist differs from the #Thinklist30 in a few key ways - firstly we opened the list for nominations for scholars who communicate on a wide range of social media platforms rather than just twitter, in recognition that racialized scholars, especially those based in the Global South, may have built their community on social media platforms that are not available to or commonly used by scholars in the Global North. Secondly, we widened the field by considering scholars who work in disciplines outside of management.

Finally, it is important to remember that the #thinklist is a living thing - it develops and changes over time. Each list is just a snapshot of the curators’ views during that quarter. If we have missed something, or if you have thoughts about refining our selection criteria to better fulfil our ambitions of inclusivity, please let us know.