Animals and Business

This book explores the role, impact and experiences of animals within organisations and the wider socioeconomic contexts in which they participate.

Animals are vital to business. From agriculture to tourism, logistics to digital media, animals work, reproduce, create value and support livelihoods. Yet business and management theory still largely treats organisations as purely human domains. Animals and Business challenges this view. By introducing an interspecies approach to responsible management, the book explores how animals are not just resources or external ethical concerns, but key actors within organisations and industries. It examines how business practices shape animals’ lives and how, in turn, animals influence how value is created and sustained. Each chapter takes an animal-centred approach to a familiar idea such as work, consumption and innovation. Case studies range from broiler chickens in global supply chains to bees in forest honey economies and medical scent-detection dogs in Nordic healthcare. Developed in dialogue with international scholars, the book’s central claim is simple: Business is better understood, and better practised, when we recognise the animals whose lives and labour are intertwined with it.

This book is essential reading for students and researchers working at the intersection of business studies, animal studies and sustainability.