Translation Agencies as Distribution Heads: Organizing Persuasion of Climate Solutions in a Multiply Differentiated Society

Abstract From the perspective of translation theory, society can be understood as a highly intricate web of translation relations linking function systems, organizations, milieus, and persons. This complexity makes it difficult to come up with generalizable solutions to major societal problems (“Grand Challenges”) that are acted upon exactly as intended. This leads to translation theory’s take on organizations as “distribution heads.” Organizations enter the picture not as agents that can ensure, for example, that climate-friendly actions are taken, but as “translation agencies” that re-specify, re-embed, and dispatch solutions (or “solution-ideas”) toward other organizations, milieus, and persons. Project Drawdown and Action Speaks serve as two illustrative cases of such translation agencies. Neither of them produces climate solutions themselves; rather, they conceive their role as mediating the translation of existing solutions into a multiply differentiated society. For organizational sociology this offers a valuable analytical lens: it enables a more nuanced capture of processes of transformation and social change – encompassing, but not limited to, the difficulties inherent in those transformations. This is especially pertinent for processes that are still unfolding. Accordingly, solutions do not simply spread; rather, they are spread deliberately through the coordinated work of translation agencies.