Guest editorial on transformation and societal change

Catering to the growing community of scholars and practitioners who see the needed transformation and societal change in our modern temporality, this article serves as a preamble to a fascinating collection of five applied‐research contributions. The article also defines our modernity's problematic mess, an attempt that creates the need to reconcile three hellenic ‘–isms’, three philosophical constructs most pertinent to our modernity's quest for transformational and societal change. They are pertinent because all five research contributions this guest editorial is about rely on one or more of them either explicitly or implicitly. Newcomers to transformational and societal change research will find the brief overview of the requisite philosophical background useful as it emphasizes philosophy's value for future research. By integrating multiple, diverse perspectives, this Human Systems Management (HSM) Special Issue can serve as a prototype for future HSM special issues, which will further integrate transformation and societal change with research and practice in managing human, i.e., natural, systems and help identify new, exciting opportunities for future research in social science and beyond.