This paper argues for the importance of war as a topic deserving more focused attention in organization science. We first identify different reasons why organizational scholars should consider war an important and relevant field of study. We then provide an overview of existing organizational research on war, leading us to highlight critical blind spots. It leads us to develop an integrative theoretical framework—structured around three building blocks: (a) the nature of war from an organizational viewpoint, (b) its temporal dynamics, and (c) the actors in the war ecosystem—laying the foundations of a programmatic theory to analyze war as a specific area of inquiry in organization science. We next provide directions for research into organization science at the intersection of each of these three building blocks and outline a roadmap to identify pressing questions that organizational scholars can address. Finally, we highlight empirical challenges and offer specific recommendations to pave the way for future research by organization scholars. This paper thus significantly contributes to establishing a forward-looking research agenda that can help scholars problematize key questions in the analysis of war.
