Call for Papers

Special Issue of Strategy Science: Shaping the Future:

Strategies for Market Creation and Transformation

Editors

Elizabeth Pontikes

Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Violina Rindova

Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

Submission Deadline: April 30th, 2019

In the modern economy, across industries, firms increasingly face rapid, disruptive changes in their environments. Most are caught off-guard and forced to defensively respond. But some initiate these changes, shaping the environment in ways that favor the firm.

The focus of this special issue is firm strategies that fundamentally change markets. The study of market structures is a mainstay in management research: industry forces, strategic groups, product market categories, ecosystems, exchange networks, alliances, and organizational architectures, to name a few. But much of this work takes market structures as given and examines strategic behavior within them. In fact, markets are often understood as “structured and patterned exchanges that exhibit a high degree of regularity in product/service offering, the roles that actors play in the exchange, and the infrastructure that enables and governs the exchange.” (Lee, Struben, Bingham, 2017: 244).

We invite papers that reverse this emphasis, studying how firms reshape market structures and chart new trajectories. Of particular interest is work that examines strategic choices through which firms reconceptualize existing structures or create new ones, processes through which they mobilize stakeholders to engage in novel types of interactions, or the mechanisms by which entrepreneurs, activists, coalitions, and audiences contribute to these processes.

Given our focus on agency, we welcome papers that examine these dynamics at the individual, organizational, industry and market levels of analysis. We seek theoretical and empirical contributions that from a variety of perspectives, including qualitative and quantitative research designs. However, whatever the theoretical perspective, level of analysis, or methodological approach, submitted papers should focus on questions of firm strategy.

Manuscripts for the special issue are to be submitted by April 30th, 2019. Manuscripts that do not appear to fit the topical focus of the special issue will be considered, with the authors’ approval, for a regular issue of Strategy Science. Strategy Science is a quarterly journal looking to publish a small set of high-quality articles in each issue that address central topics in the field. Authors can expect rapid and high-quality reviews by appropriate leading scholars in the field and clear editorial guidance should a revision be requested. For information about the special issue and the journal please see this link: http://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/stsc

Call for Papers

Organization Science: Special Issue on Experiments in Organizational Theory

Editorial Team

Oliver Schilke, Sheen S. Levine, Olenka Kacperczyk, Lynne G. Zucker

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2019 (11:59 PM EST)

In this special issue, we set out to expand organizational theorists’ methodological repertoire with experiments—studies in which the environment is sufficiently controlled to rule out competing explanations of causality. Since the field’s inception, organizational theorists have advocated for experiments (e.g., Weick 1967; Zelditch 1980). In recent years, this call has been amplified. Among institutional theorists, for example, experiments are in the process of becoming the go-to method for micro-institutional inquiry (see Bitektine, Lucas and Schilke 2018, for a recent review). Expanding Zucker’s (1977) seminal study of institutionalization and cultural persistence, recent studies demonstrated the rapid spread of false beliefs and counterfactual behavior in markets, even in seemingly ideal conditions (Levine et al. 2014). They experimentally manipulated institutional complexity (Raaijmakers et al. 2015), institutionalized belief systems (Hafenbrädl and Waeger 2017), various types of institutional logics (Glaser et al. 2016), and organizational identity (Schilke 2018). Experiments are becoming prevalent throughout organizational theory, utilized in such diverse domains as social network theory (Mason and Suri 2012), market and entrepreneurial competition (Levine, Bernard and Nagel 2017), status theory (Correll et al. 2017), organizational categories (Kovács, Carroll and Lehman 2014), innovation (Boudreau and Lakhani 2016), transaction cost economics (Harmon, Kim and Mayer 2015), evolutionary economics (Wollersheim and Heimeriks 2016), and search and routines (Laureiro-Martínez et al. 2015).

The experimental approach offers several unique qualities. Foremost, experiments can identify causality—the gold standard of science (Coleman 1990; Merton 1949). Their design can eliminate extraneous factors and the resulting endogeneity (Brewer 1985). What is more, experiments can be easily replicated (Croson, Anand and Agarwal 2007). This may be one reason why experimental results are at least as robust as those of other methods, as a massive replication effort found (Camerer et al. 2016). Such rigorous testing of causal arguments can address questions that lay at the heart of organizational theory, complementing other methods (Schilke 2018). And finally, experiments can uncover mechanisms. This can aid, for instance, in measuring individual-level processes, thereby enhancing our understanding of how individuals are embedded in and respond to larger entities, whether in top-down or bottom-up processes (Smith and Rand forthcoming). As such, experiments can play a central role in advancing a true multi-level approach in organizational theory (Felin, Foss and Ployhart 2015), one that links macro-phenomena—whether organizational, network, market, or societal—with micro-processes. Institutional theorists, for instance, commonly agree that we must account for micro-processes (Battilana 2006; Bitektine and Haack 2015; Fine and Hallett 2014; Thornton, Ocasio and Lounsbury 2012). Similar calls for research into micro-processes are heard in other domains: the behavioral theory of the firm (Gavetti, Levinthal and Ocasio 2007), corporate governance (Westphal and Zajac 2013), exploration–exploitation (Lavie, Stettner and Tushman 2010), population ecology (Baum and Amburgey 2002), evolutionary economics (Felin et al. 2012), and new organizational forms, such as online communities and open collaboration (Faraj, Jarvenpaa and Majchrzak 2011; Levine and Prietula 2014). Individual behavior, cognition, and affect are up-front again, promising a better understanding of organizational phenomena, and we believe experiments will play a key part in this endeavor.

This special issue offers scholars an opportunity to push boundaries, conceptual and methodological, with experimental approaches (Bitektine and Miller 2015). We maintain a broad definition of experimental research, including experiments in the laboratory and in the field or investigations that combine experiments and other methods.

Theoretical scope:

• Submissions should make a significant theoretical contribution to
  • testing
  • expanding
  • reframing, or
  • questioning an important organizational theory.

Papers that do not explicitly speak to a question at the core of organizational theory fall outside the scope of the special issue.

• Relevant organizational theories include, but are not limited to: institutional theory, evolutionary economics, the behavioral theory of the firm, status theory, trust and embeddedness theory, social network theory, new organizational forms, transaction cost economics, population ecology, entrepreneurship, diffusion, and innovation, among others.
• Submissions that include multi-level designs are strongly encouraged. These may, for instance,
  • test behavioral assumptions and individual-level processes that underlie a macro-level theory,
  • investigate whether a theoretically-proposed mechanism is indeed behind an observed empirical regularity,
  • or otherwise bridge the micro and the macro, as in Coleman’s (1990) bathtub framework (see Felin, Foss and Ployhart 2015 for a recent discussion).

Methodological scope:

• Submissions must have experimental methodology at their core. Relevant experimental approaches include laboratory experiments as well as artefactual, framed, and field experiments (conducted, to varying extent, in the participants’ everyday environment, see Levitt and List 2009). Outside the scope of this special issue are techniques that attempt to identify treatment effects in naturally occurring data, such as natural experiments.
• Experiments may follow the traditions of sociology, psychology, economics, or a blend of disciplinary traditions (Ariely and Norton 2007).
• Many experimental studies include a manipulation whereas others do not. For instance, a manipulation is uncalled-for if an experimental study simply seeks to contrast theory and actual behavior or isolate processes in a controlled environment (Lant and Montgomery 1992; Levine, Bernard and Nagel 2017).
• We welcome multi-method papers, such as those that mix experiments with qualitative methods (Fine and Elsbach 2000), archival data (Audia, Locke and Smith 2000), or agent-based models (Fang 2012)—as long as the experimental approach lies at the core of the paper.
• We welcome innovative experimental methodologies, such as the use of novel behavioral tasks, video clips, neuroscientific instruments, and protocol analysis (Laureiro-Martínez and Brusoni 2018; Reypens and Levine 2017).
• Recent surveys of published research found no systematic differences between the behavior of managers and students (Fréchette 2015, 2016), and we are aware that online labor markets offer a unique opportunity for experiments (Reypens and Levine 2017). Yet, we still expect authors to explain why these populations are appropriate for their study (Bitektine, Lucas and Schilke 2018).
• Experiments are uniquely positioned to enhance the validity and reliability of organizational theory. For that, we support efforts such as:
  • Open data and instruments: Sharing of data and instruments (e.g., instructions, tasks, measures) through a public depository, such as the Open Science Framework (OSF; http://osf.io).
  • Preregistration: Counterintuitive findings can be more convincing if the hypotheses and analysis plan have been registered before data collection began. Preregistration, which provides a time-stamped copy of the hypotheses, can be easily done at the OSF.
  • Reporting of exact p-values and statistical power, discussion of effect sizes, and use of alternatives to null-hypothesis testing (Wasserstein and Lazar 2016).

Review Process

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically via https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orgsci (choosing “special issue” in step 1). All submissions will receive a comprehensive screening. Manuscripts falling within the methodological and theoretical scope of the special issue (as defined above) and deemed to have a reasonable chance of conditional acceptance after no more than two rounds of revisions will enter the review process. Reviewers will be asked to respond quickly, and authors will have strict deadlines for revisions. The submission window will open on August 1, 2019 and close on September 15, 2019 (11:59 PM EST). Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so earlier submissions will receive a quicker response. Special requests for early submissions (prior to August 1) may be accommodated in individual cases. We will invite authors to a special-issue conference at the University of Arizona held in May of 2020, where they will present and receive constructive feedback, a means of further condensing time-in-review. The special issue is scheduled for publication in winter 2020-21.

References

Ariely, D., M.I. Norton. 2007. Psychology and experimental economics. Current Directions in Psychological Science 16(6) 336-339.

Audia, P.G., E.A. Locke, K.G. Smith. 2000. The paradox of success: an archival and a laboratory study of strategic persistence following radical environmental change. Academy of Management Journal 43(5) 837-853.

Battilana, J. 2006. Agency and institutions: the enabling role of individuals’ social position. Organization 13(5) 653-676.

Baum, J.A.C., T.L. Amburgey. 2002. Organizational ecology. J.A.C. Baum, ed. Companion to organizations. Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 304-326.

Bitektine, A., P. Haack. 2015. The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: toward a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review 40(1) 49-75.

Bitektine, A., J. Lucas, O. Schilke. 2018. Institutions under a microscope: experimental methods in institutional theory. A. Bryman, D.A. Buchanan, eds. Unconventional methodology in organization and management research. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 147-167.

Bitektine, A., D. Miller. 2015. Methods, theories, data, and the social dynamics of organizational research. Journal of Management Inquiry 24(2) 115-130.

Boudreau, K.J., K.R. Lakhani. 2016. Innovation experiments: researching technical advance, knowledge production, and the design of supporting institutions. Innovation Policy and the Economy 16 135-167.

Brewer, M.B. 1985. Experimental research and social policy: must it be rigor versus relevance? Journal of Social Issues 41(4) 159-176.

Camerer, C.F., A. Dreber, E. Forsell, T.-H. Ho, J. Huber, M. Johannesson, M. Kirchler, J. Almenberg, A. Altmejd, T. Chan, E. Heikensten, F. Holzmeister, T. Imai, S. Isaksson, G. Nave, T. Pfeiffer, M. Razen, H. Wu. 2016. Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics. Science 351(6280) 1433-1436.

Coleman, J.S. 1990. Foundations of social theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Correll, S.J., C.L. Ridgeway, E.W. Zuckerman, S. Jank, S. Jordan-Bloch, S. Nakagawa. 2017. It’s the conventional thought that counts: how third-order inference produces status advantage. American Sociological Review 82(2) 297-327.

Croson, R., J. Anand, R. Agarwal. 2007. Using experiments in corporate strategy research. European Management Review 4(3) 173-181.

Fang, C. 2012. Organizational learning as credit assignment: a model and two experiments. Organization Science 23(6) 1717-1732.

Faraj, S., S.L. Jarvenpaa, A. Majchrzak. 2011. Knowledge collaboration in online communities. Organization Science 22(5) 1224-1239.

Felin, T., N.J. Foss, K.H. Heimeriks, T.L. Madsen. 2012. Microfoundations of routines and capabilities: individuals, processes, and structure. Journal of Management Studies 49(8) 1351-1374.

Felin, T., N.J. Foss, R.E. Ployhart. 2015. The microfoundations movement in strategy and organization theory. Academy of Management Annals 9(1) 575-632.

Fine, G.A., K.D. Elsbach. 2000. Ethnography and experiment in social psychological theory building: tactics for integrating qualitative field data with quantitative lab data. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 36(1) 51-76.

Fine, G.A., T. Hallett. 2014. Group cultures and the everyday life of organizations: interaction orders and meso-analysis. Organization Studies 35(12) 1773-1792.

Fréchette, G.R. 2015. Laboratory experiments: professionals versus students. G.R. Fréchette, A. Schotter, eds. Handbook of experimental economic methodology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 360-390.

Fréchette, G.R. 2016. Experimental economics across subject populations. J.H. Kagel, A.E. Roth, eds. The handbook of experimental economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 435-480.

Gavetti, G., D. Levinthal, W. Ocasio. 2007. Neo-Carnegie: the Carnegie school's past, present, and reconstructing for the future. Organization Science 18(3) 523-536.

Glaser, V.L., N.J. Fast, D.J. Harmon, S. Green. 2016. Institutional frame switching: how institutional logics shape individual action. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 48A 35-69.

Hafenbrädl, S., D. Waeger. 2017. Ideology and the micro-foundations of CSR: why executives believe in the business case for CSR and how this affects their CSR engagements. Academy of Management Journal 60(4) 1582-1606.

Harmon, D.J., P.H. Kim, K.J. Mayer. 2015. Breaking the letter vs. spirit of the law: how the interpretation of contract violations affects trust and the management of relationships. Strategic Management Journal 36(4) 497-517.

Kovács, B., G.R. Carroll, D.W. Lehman. 2014. Authenticity and consumer value ratings: empirical tests from the restaurant domain. Organization Science 25(2) 458-478.

Lant, T.K., D.B. Montgomery. 1992. Simulation games as a research method for studying strategic decision making: the case of MARKSTRAT. Working paper, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Laureiro-Martínez, D., S. Brusoni. 2018. Cognitive flexibility and adaptive decision-making: evidence from a laboratory study of expert decision makers. Strategic Management Journal 39(4) 1031-1058.

Laureiro-Martínez, D., S. Brusoni, N. Canessa, M. Zollo. 2015. Understanding the exploration-exploitation dilemma: an fMRI study of attention control and decision-making performance. Strategic Management Journal 36(3) 319-338.

Lavie, D., U. Stettner, M.L. Tushman. 2010. Exploration and exploitation within and across organizations. Academy of Management Annals 4(1) 109-155.

Levine, S.S., E.P. Apfelbaum, M. Bernard, V.L. Bartelt, E.J. Zajac, D. Stark. 2014. Ethnic diversity deflates price bubbles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(52) 18524-18529.

Levine, S.S., M. Bernard, R. Nagel. 2017. Strategic intelligence: the cognitive capability to anticipate competitor behavior. Strategic Management Journal 38(12) 2390-2423.

Levine, S.S., M.J. Prietula. 2014. Open collaboration for innovation: principles and performance. Organization Science 25(5) 1414-1433.

Levitt, S.D., J.A. List. 2009. Field experiments in economics: The past, the present, and the future. Eur Econ Rev 53(1) 1-18.

Mason, W., S. Suri. 2012. Conducting behavioral research on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Behavior Research Methods 44(1) 1-23.

Merton, R.K. 1949. On sociological theories of the middle range. R.K. Merton, ed. Social theory and social structure. Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 39-53.

Raaijmakers, A., P. Vermeulen, M. Meeus, C. Zietsma. 2015. I need time! Exploring pathways to compliance under institutional complexity. Academy of Management Journal 58(1) 85-110.

Reypens, C., S.S. Levine. 2017. To grasp cognition in action, combine behavioral experiments with protocol analysis. R.J. Galavan, K.J. Sund, G.P. Hodgkinson, eds. Methodological challenges and advances in managerial and organizational cognition. Emerald, 123-146.

Schilke, O. 2018. A micro-institutional inquiry into resistance to environmental pressures. Academy of Management Journal 61(4) 1431-1466.

Smith, E.B., W. Rand. forthcoming. Simulating macro-level effects from micro-level observations. Management Science https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2877.

Thornton, P.H., W. Ocasio, M. Lounsbury. 2012. The institutional logics perspective: a new approach to culture, structure and process. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Wasserstein, R.L., N.A. Lazar. 2016. The ASA's statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. American Statistician 70(2) 129-133.

Weick, K.E. 1967. Organizations in the laboratory. V.H. Vroom, ed. Methods of organizational research. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1-56.

Westphal, J.D., E.J. Zajac. 2013. A behavioral theory of corporate governance: explicating the mechanisms of socially situated and socially constituted agency. Academy of Management Annals 7(1) 607-661.

Wollersheim, J., K.H. Heimeriks. 2016. Dynamic capabilities and their characteristic qualities: insights from a lab experiment. Organization Science 27(2) 233-248.

Zelditch, M. 1980. Can you really study an army in a laboratory? A. Etzioni, E.W. Lehman, eds. A sociological reader on complex organizations, 3 ed. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, NY, 528-539.

Zucker, L.G. 1977. The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence. American Sociological Review 42(5) 726-743.

Guest Editors:

Paul Hirsch (Northwestern), Pablo Martin de Holan (EMLyon), Nelson Phillips (Imperial College London), Stelios Zyglidopoulos (University of Glasgow)

Deadline for paper submissions: March 31, 2016

“Corruption is violence.” - Dalai Lama

Corruption is a significant problem in much of the world. It acts as a barrier to development, leads to the unfair and inefficient distribution of resources, is highly corrosive of the social fabric in any society where it occurs, and can have dire consequences for the competitiveness of firms and the well being of citizens, employees, and whole societies. In this first ever JMI special issue, we will focus on corruption in and around organizations and particularly on the role of managers and organizations in corruption.

But what exactly is corruption?  One common definition defines it “as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (Transparency-International 2011). This abuse of power can manifest in two ways (Zyglidopoulos 2015). First, individuals or organizations can abuse their power by breaking or stretching existing rules and norms for their own benefit (first-order corruption). And second, individuals or organizations can abuse their power to create or change existing rules and norms so that they can unfairly benefit from them (second-order corruption).

Based on such an understanding of corruption in and around business organizations, and in accordance with JMI’s policies, we invite qualitative empirical papers, essays, interviews and dialogues that explore a range of themes at multiple levels of analysis, including but not limited to the following:

a) At the individual level

How do managerial actions contribute to corruption? Can a leader stop corruption? How does corruption in a team develop and spread? How do individual emotions contribute to corruption? How do individuals rationalize their behavior? How can managers prevent first- and second-order corruption?

b) At the organizational level

What are the organizational antecedents and / or consequences of corruption? What are the processes through which corruption appears, is maintained and spreads? How can corruption be avoided or managed once it appears? Are there organizational structures/cultures/routines that reduce the likelihood of corruption? How can organizations manage the process of creating fair rules and norms?  How does corruption erode competitive advantage?

c) At the field or industry Level

What field level dynamics are associated with widespread corruption?

Can corruption become institutionalized in a field? If so, how does an illegitimate behavior become institutionalized? What forms of institutional work are associated with stopping corruption? How do institutional entrepreneurship and/or institutional work relate to corruption?  Are some industries more prone to corruption than others?

d) At the societal level

How do societal factors affect corruption in organizations? How does corruption in organizations affect government and civil society? How does the existence of elites affect the dynamics of corruption? What is the role of generalized social trust in determining the level of corruption within a society? What are the micro and macro consequences of corruption?

Submissions

We are seeking submissions for most sections of JMI including Essays, Non-Traditional Research, Dialogue, Reflections on Experience, Six Degree of Separation and Meet the Person. We encourage authors to read the recent Editors Introduction (Phillips and Trank 2014) that provides more information on writing for JMI and descriptions of the different sections. Essays and non-traditional research will be double-blind reviewed following the journal’s normal review process and criteria. For other sections of the journal, please contact one of the special issue editors to discuss your idea BEFORE writing up your submission.

Please submit papers through the journal’s online submission system, SAGE track. To do so, please visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jomi, create your user account (if you have not done so already), and submit your manuscript according to the directions. Instructions for the format for papers is here: 

http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journalsProdDesc.nav?prodId=Journal200922&ct_p=manuscriptSubmission&crossRegion=eur

You will be able to submit your paper for this Special Issue through SAGETrack between the 1st of Febuary and the 28th of February 2016.

Authors should ensure to mention in their submission letter that the article is to be considered for the special issue.

For further information please contact one of the Guest Editors for this Special Issue: Paul Hirsch ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Pablo Martin de Holan ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Nelson Phillips ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Stelios Zyglidopoulos ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Administrative support & general queries

Donna Sutherland-Smith, Editorial Assistant, Journal of Management Inquiry: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

References

Phillips, N. & Trank, C. Q. 2014. 'Editors’ Statement.' Journal of Management Inquiry, 23:1, 3-4.

Transparency-International 2011. 'The Global Coalition against Corruption.' Transparency International.

Zyglidopoulos, S. 2015. 'Toward a Theory of Second-Order Corruption.' Journal of Management Inquiry, 1056492615579914.

Special Issue of Organization Studies

The Material and Visual Turn in Organization Theory:

Objectifying and (Re)acting to Novel Ideas

Guest Editors

Eva Boxenbaum (Mines ParisTech & Copenhagen Business School).

Candace Jones (Boston College)

Renate Meyer (WU Vienna & Copenhagen Business School)

Silviya Svejenova (Copenhagen Business School & Esade Business School)

Organization Studies, the official journal of the European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS), invites submissions for a Special Issue on “The Material and Visual Turn in Organization Theory: Objectifying and (Re)acting to Novel Ideas”.

Deadline for paper submissions: February 28th 2015

Contemporary organizations increasingly rely on images, logos, videos, building and office design, building materials, physical product design and a range of other material and visual expressions to form identity, communicate, organize their activities, and compete. For example, organizations build consumer awareness through websites and twitter feeds, express corporate values and shape employee interactions through building designs, and reformulate the way we interact with technologies and one another through products like Apple’s Macintosh and i-phone.

Visual and material artefacts can travel as fast and as far as complex, abstract ideas expressed in words, and they are as open to interpretation as is text. They capture the imagination of audiences in new and substantially different ways, triggering a range of cognitive, emotional and other responses that transform audiences into active co-creators and communicators of symbolic meaning. Yet, our theories of organizations are ill equipped to capture the significance of the visual and material turn, and the ways in which organizations and other actors objectify novel ideas and engage (with) their members as well as various audiences in the (re)active co-creation, contestation, stabilization, diffusion, and deinstitutionalization of innovations. In fact, the social sciences have paid attention to materiality and visuality in the past (e.g. Gilles Deleuze, Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, and Michel Serres, among others) but these elements have perhaps been lost or distorted in their translation into organization theory. It is only recently that organizational scholars have begun to take interest in either integrating these two inter-related aspects of organizing within existing organizational theories or formulating entirely new theories and methodologies that are adapted to their empirical study.

In the late 20th century, social scientists have tended to emphasize the primacy of the linguistic and cultural dimensions of organizational life. Indeed, we have experienced a “linguistic turn” (Rorty, 1967, 1991) and a “cultural turn” where scholars examine cognitive and shared cultural frameworks constructed through language (e.g., Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Searle, 1997) that direct practices (e.g. Alexander, Giesen & Mast 2006; Bourdieu, 1977; Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007). As a consequence of how these works have been employed in or applied to organizational theory, material and visual dimensions of organizing tend to be absent or immaterial in the cognitive and cultural frameworks that dominate organizational theories, even those that emphasize material practices (Jones, Boxenbaum & Anthony, 2013).

Although many social and organizational theories do not attend to material and visual expressions, scholars do acknowledge material and visual artefacts as critical elements, which populate, express and construct our social worlds and organizational experiences. For instance, forms, images, visualizations, and assemblages are found essential for processes of organizing (Quattrone, Puyou, McLean & Thrift, 2012). Artefacts are considered central to collective processes such as sensemaking (Stigliani & Ravasi, 2012) and semiotic processes through signification (Friedland, 2001), as well as conduits for expression of occupational jurisdictions, identity, and legitimacy (Bechky, 2003; Fiol & O’Conner, 2006; Rafaeli & Pratt, 2006; Rafaeli & Vilnai-Yavetz, 2004). Design, texture and color, and new technologies excite consumer responses and stabilize new markets (Eisenman, 2013). When advertising materials decay or are misplaced, an intended message to prevent AIDS and improve public health goes awry or falls silent (McDonnell, 2010). Meaning and boundaries of novel managerial ideas are defined and translated through their visual representation (Höllerer, Jancsary, Meyer & Vettori, 2013). Buildings direct our social interactions (Gieryn, 2002), materialize our ideas (Jones & Massa, 2013) and shift cultural understandings and social relations  (Jones, Maoret, Massa & Svejenova, 2012).

In fact, some of the organizational theories, perspectives, and analytical approaches that have emerged in recent decades engage more directly with the study of artefacts. For instance, science and technology studies (STS) have developed significant insight into how material objects instantiate ideas, shape collective knowledge, streamline organizational practice, and assign value to a variety of phenomena (e.g., Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987; Pinch & Bijker, 1984). Actor-network theory (ANT) scholars have investigated the acts of experimenting, measuring, calculating, writing, and communicating as constitutive of scientific facts (Muniesa, forthcoming), whereas social construction of technology (SCOT) researchers have examined material objects as arenas of negotiation among actor groups with divergent interests (Pinch & Trocco, 2002). Activity theory scholars have explored the intersection of human consciousness, activity, and interaction design, focusing on the human engagement with digital artefacts in the totality of their potentials (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006). Another line of research on materiality has developed around management tools as an element that fundamentally structure and shape organizational practice (Chiapello & Gilbert, 2013; Labatut, Aggeri & Girard, 2012). Finally, research related to institutional work has explored not only the dynamic relationship between organizational practice and artefacts but also the institutional conditions and effects of these dynamics (e.g., Blanc & Huault, 2014; Gond & Boxenbaum, 2013; Lawrence, Leca & Zilber, 2013; Raviola & Norbäck, 2013).

Scholars engaging with materiality and visuality tend however to focus on associated social understandings and social processes rather than on the material and visual artefacts themselves (e.g., see Leonardi & Barley, 2008; Orlikowski & Scott, 2010 for reviews). For instance, theoretical work has defined material practices as organizational structures known through symbolic processes (Thornton, Ocasio & Lounsbury, 2012). Further, there has been a growing interest in the “turn to things” (Geiryn, 2002; Preda, 1999), the material basis of organizing (Leonardi, Nardi & Kalinikos, 2012), “how matter matters” (Carlile, Nicolini, Langley & Tsoukas, 2013), and the visual dimension of organizations, organizing and organizational research (Bell, Warren & Schroeder, 2014; Meyer, Höllerer, Jancsary & van Leeuwen, 2013). Responses to these calls are scattered and infrequent and contained within distinct academic communities, which prevents a dialogue on the emergent material and visual turn in social and organizational theories across different ‘epistemic communities’ (Holt & den Hond, 2013).

This special issue seeks to advance the study of organizations and organizing by exploring how organizations, organizational members and audiences experience and engage with materiality and visuality in the course of objectifying and responding to new ideas. It brings into focus the material and visual artefacts themselves, and aims to involve a diverse range of scholars and scholarly traditions in a debate about their significance in organizational life. We welcome submissions that address materiality and visuality from different epistemological vantage points, in different contexts, through different methodologies, and in both textual and visual form. We are also open to work that seeks to juxtapose, connect or explore the limits of the visual and the material dimensions in ways that advance the study of organizations. In particular, we invite submissions that address the following three major questions and provide novel insights on them:

1. How do ideas take form through visual and material representation?

We invite articles that examine the nature and role of objectification in organizations. Processes of objectifying refer to the act of giving expression to abstract ideas, ideals, or feelings in a form that can be experienced by others through touch and/or vision. What ideas get objectified and which ones remain in the realm of the abstract? Through which types of objects and artefacts are new ideas objectified? Who objectifies novel ideas in organizations and what form can that objectification take (e.g. sketches, models, reports)? Are some forms of objectification better at focusing the attention of employees, investors, or other stakeholders, and at evoking response in them? Which practices and processes facilitate or hamper such objectification (e.g. prototyping, designing workplaces for play)?

2. How do audiences experience visual and material artefacts and how do they enact those experiences?

Although material and visual artefacts underpin our individual and collective experience, we rarely examine the reactions they provoke in audiences. In the contemporary hyper-objectified organizational realities, audiences play a more active and ambivalent role as both producers and consumers of innovative ideas. They may have larger margins for interpreting and reacting emotionally to new ideas when they are expressed visually and materially rather than textually. How do objectified novel ideas become noticed/selected (or unnoticed/deselected) through visual/material expression? How do visual and material artefacts entice interpretations and provoke emotional responses in individuals, and how do such individual responses consolidate into shared definitions and/or emotive reactions to objectified ideas? And finally, how do these collective responses manifest in behavioural patterns within organizations?

3. How do visual and material artefacts (and the ideas they represent) take on a collective form?

Through visual and material objectification, innovative ideas can further impact the field level as local (re)actions crystallize into patterns of action, thought or interaction that other organizations can imitate. We invite papers on the following questions: How do audience (re)actions at the organizational level crystallize into collective patterns, such as established aesthetic styles and best practices that inspire other actors to adopt and reinterpret visual and material artefacts in their own organizational context? How do objectifications become arenas for competing interpretations of material and visual artefacts? And when do actors stop noticing taken-for-granted links between new ideas and their representation in material/ visual artefacts?

Deadline: Papers must be received by February 28th 2015.

Submissions

Please submit papers through the journal’s online submission system, SAGE track. To do so, please visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orgstudies, create your user account (if you have not done so already), and for “Manuscript Type” choose the corresponding Special Issue. All papers that enter the reviewing process will be double-blind reviewed following the journal’s normal review process and criteria. You will be able to submit your paper for this Special Issue through SAGETrack between the 1st and the 28th of February 2015.

For further information please contact one of the Guest Editors for this Special Issue:

Eva Boxenbaum ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Candace Jones ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Renate Meyer ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Silviya Svejenova ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

For administrative support and general queries, please contact Sophia Tzagaraki, Managing Editor of Organization Studies: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Posted on behalf of Niccolo' Gordini

Guest Co-Editors:

Niccolò Gordini, Lerong He, James Cordeiro

Purpose

This special issue is designed to spotlight contemporary research on corporate governance, with preference given to research emphasizing corporate governance in a global context and related issues such as the global financial crisis.

Previous research on corporate governance has been focused principally at the national level, with relatively limited consideration given to the role of corporate governance in global markets.  As business activities continue to expand globally, however, the relevance and implication of corporate governance theories, mechanisms and models that were originally developed, applied, and tested in an Anglo-American context merits revisiting, for example, in terms of the applicability and convergence of corporate governance models in non-Western contexts, and in terms of global events that provide valuable natural experiments such as the signature governance reforms in the recent past in China and India, and the global financial crisis.

The Special Issue provides an opportunity for contributors to spotlight their contributions to the broad fields of business and economics, political science, and law in terms of corporate governance. Within business and economics, contributions from the sub-fields of accounting, finance, economics, law, marketing, supply chain, international business and management are all welcome.

While a focus on corporate governance is a critical requirement, preference will be shown to research focused  on corporate governance in global markets, in terms of new perspectives, issues of applicability and convergence of Anglo-American corporate governance practices in new national contexts, the role governance plays in terms of promoting or retarding CSR efforts, and to corporate governance’s responsibility for and its role as an instrument to respond effectively to the global financial crisis.

Important Dates

Deadline for Submission of Papers: March 15, 2015

Notification of Decision: July 10, 2015

Final Papers Due: August 31, 2015

Expected Publication Date: December, 2015

Guest Co-Editors Contact Details

Niccolò Gordini, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Milan-Bicocca, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Lerong He, Ph.D., Associate Professor, State University of New York, College at Brockport, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

James Cordeiro, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, State University of New York, College at Brockport, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more information on research themes and guidelines for authors, please visit:

http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=5328

Special Issue of Journal of Social Entrepreneurship
Guest Editor: Scott L. Newbert, Villanova University
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2013

Social entrepreneurship has emerged as a field of considerable interest over the past two decades. However, its rapid growth has resulted in a rather fragmented body of literature that lacks a set of well-established theories by which to predict and explain social entrepreneurship and a generalizable set of empirical findings from which commonalities about it can be gleaned. In response, this special issue seeks manuscripts that build on extant research in the field and beyond in order to develop, apply, and/or test theory with the goal of improving our understanding of social entrepreneurship phenomena.

The following is a list of potential topics for the special issue:

• Application of extant theory from organization studies or other academic disciplines (i.e., economics, sociology, psychology, etc.) to predict and/or explain social entrepreneurship phenomena.
• Inductive or deductive approaches to developing new theoretical explanations of social entrepreneurship phenomena.
• Development of testable propositions articulating cause-and-effect relationships central to social entrepreneurship.
• Development of typologies/frameworks with which social entrepreneurship phenomena can be better understood.
• Exploratory or confirmatory empirical studies of theoretically-grounded models of social entrepreneurship phenomena.

These are just a sampling of the topics that could be addressed and submissions on other related topics are welcome. Regardless of the approach, submissions should seek to contribute to the collective understanding of social entrepreneurship via the production of new, generalizable knowledge. For submissions seeking to apply extant theory to new phenomena and/or develop new theoretical arguments all together, authors should take care to ensure their theoretical models represent conceptually sound, parsimonious  approximations of phenomena relevant to social entrepreneurs (Bacharach, 1989).

For submissions seeking to conduct empirical tests of theory, authors may rely on either qualitative or quantitative data; however, given that the majority of the empirical work in the field currently relies on descriptive techniques, authors should take care to subject their data to rigorous analytical methods. In all cases, submissions will ultimately be evaluated on the basis of whether they contribute meaningfully and substantively to the development of our understanding of social entrepreneurship phenomena. At the same time, however, given the pre-paradigmatic nature of the field, theorizing as a process is as important as theory as a product; thus, submissions representing “interim struggles” (Weick, 1995) along the way to good theory are encouraged.

Click here for complete details.

Scott L. Newbert, Guest Editor

Tags: call for papers | Special Issue

Organization Studies is calling for papers for the following Special Issues:

Organizations as Worlds of Work
Guest Editors:
Rick Delbridge, Cardiff Business School
Jeff Sallaz, University of Arizona, Department of Sociology
Deadline:  December 31st 2012

Trust In Crisis: Organizational and Institutional Trust, Failures and Repair
Guest Editors:
Reinhard Bachmann (The Management School, University of Surrey)
Nicole Gillespie (UQ Business School, University of Queensland)
Rod Kramer (Graduate School of Business, Stanford University)
Deadline: December 31st 2012

At a Critical Age: The Social and Political Organization of Age and Ageing
Guest Editors:
Susan Ainsworth, University of Melbourne
Leanne Cutcher, University of Sydney
Cynthia Hardy, University of Melbourne
Robyn Thomas, University of Cardiff
Deadline: January 31st 2013

The transformative and innovative power of network dynamics
Guest Editors:
Stewart Clegg  (University of Technology, Sydney)
Emmanuel Josserand (University of Geneva)
Ajay Mehra  (University of Kentucky)
Tyrone Pitsis (University of Newcastle Upon-Tyne)
Deadline: September 2013

New organizational perspectives on the study of politics and power in the multinational company
Guest Editors:
Mike Geppert (University of Surrey, UK)
Florian Becker-Ritterspach (German University in Cairo, Egypt)
Ram Mudambi (Temple University, USA)
Deadline for Submissions: November 30th 2013

Please submit papers through the journal’s online submission system, SAGE track (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orgstudies)

Tags: call for papers | Organization Studies | Special Issue

Standing Working Group 7 “Institutions and Knowledge”

EGOS Sub-theme CFP Montreal 2013  

An Institutional Family Reunion?

Bridging Ontologies, Levels and Methods

Conveners: Tammar Zilber, Mike Lounsbury and Renate Meyer

Institutions operate across social levels. Taken for granted beliefs and recipes for action (e.g. institutional logics) at the societal level materialize – through processes of diffusion and translation – in field-level and organizational-level structures, practices and world-views, as well as in individual cognitions and behaviors. Individual and collective actors' actions (e.g. institutional entrepreneurship, institutional work), in return, reflect back on organizations, fields and society at large in an on-going reciprocal process. Institutions, then, essentially link different levels; this ability to effectively bridge macro and micro levels, agency and structure, the individual and the social, is indeed the origin of their resilience and the foundation of their power.

Nonetheless, studies on institutions and knowledge generally focus either on the micro (organizational or individual levels) or the macro (societal or field levels). While the very rationale of institutional arguments lies in the interrelations between social levels, in most studies one level is relegated to the background, assumed but not explored. Micro and macro level studies usually differ in terms of their underlying paradigmatic stand as well. Most micro level studies reflect a constructivist paradigm, with relativist ontology and perspectivist depiction of knowledge, and use qualitative methods. Many macro level studies share a constructivist paradigm, but field-level analyses tend to take on a more structuralist flavor as a result of scholarly preferences for a wider historical gaze and use of quantitative methods to analyze the dynamics of more macro spatio-temporal objects of inquiry.  While not embracing realism or objectivism, most macro scholars are also uneasy with strong relativist and subjectivist positions.  Instead, a sort of critical realism or ontological skepticism pervades this work. Part of the problem is that instead of using methods as instruments to analyze specific research questions, we often view institutional processes and dynamics through the prisms of the methods we apply and ask the questions these methods allow us to ask.

We find this divide to be unfortunate and seek to foster a conversation that eschews this segregation of micro and macro. Montreal with its overall "bridging metaphor" as conference theme seems to be ideal to address these ontological, epistemological and methodological challenges in the study of institutions and knowledge. We aim at rethinking the micro-macro divide in institutional research, and hope the discussion will allow us to generate possible ways to re-connect varieties of institutional scholarship.

Some of the questions we hope to address in this stream are: How can we explore and explain micro-institutional processes while also connecting them back to the macro level? How can we explore and explain macro-level processes without loosing sight of their micro-level foundations and effects? How do studies of institutional work relate to those on institutional logics? What are the epistemological and methodological premises and consequences of such re-connections? Is it possible to do field-level ethnographies? Can we even explore institutionalization along time on the micro-level?

We invite papers that offer ways to bridge the divides within institutional theory, whether with a theoretical, conceptual, methodological and/or empirical focus. While these may include critical reviews of the literature, highlighting divides and charting new theoretical and methodological roads for paradigmatic integration, we are mainly looking for empirical works that exemplify such integration -- empirical works that draw upon multiple methods and engage cross-level processes, thus highlighting the bridging that we seek.

Tags: EGOS | institutional theory | Mike Lounsbury | Renate Meyer | Tammar Zilber

Call for Papers Special Issue

The MNE as a Challenge to Institutional Theory: Key Concepts, Recent

Developments and Empirical Evidence

Co-Editors:

Ayse Saka-Helmhout, Surrey Business School

Royston Greenwood, Alberta School of Business

Richard Deeg, Temple University

Submission Deadline 1 May 2013

MNEs pose an interesting context in which to study institutional stability and change. However, they have only recently assumed significance as a subject of study by neo? institutionalists whose focus has traditionally been on organizational fields. The recent upsurge of interest in how organizations respond to a multiplicity of institutional demands, however, points to MNEs as an exciting setting in which to develop ideas. These organizations operate in fragmented institutional contexts, face limited institutional isomorphism owing to multiple institutional pressures, and bring to light actors’ efforts to seek legitimacy through micro processes of agency. It is these processes that we are interested in unravelling.

By the same token, comparative institutional analysts argue that nation states can have distinctive and multiple institutional logics that result in heterogeneous forms of organizing and social agency in MNEs. They have come to acknowledge that increased international competition challenges the dominance of institutional arrangements in national business systems and the complementarity of distinctive national institutional features. Similar to neo?institutional studies, there is a need in comparative institutional analysis to address how institutional arrangements across national business systems influence organizational responses.

Although international business scholars have studied the MNE and the role of institutions, they view institutions largely as constraints on MNE activity. This literature recognizes that institutions do not fully determine action, but overall it remains focused on how institutions constrain strategic choice and does not consider how institutions shape and enable the capabilities of organizations. There is, however, a growing appreciation of the need for an alternative conceptualization of institutions where actors are both enabled and constrained by institutions.

Given these developments, this Special Issue encourages a dialogue on MNEs and institutions that highlights the challenges confronting MNEs as they manoeuvre through multiple institutional demands, and that explores the enabling, capability?building and change?facilitating nature of institutions. Its purpose is to advance both the institutional and international business literatures by exploring these research themes.

We invite conceptual and empirical studies that draw on different theoretical streams, adopt diverse research methodologies, and examine multiple levels of analysis. In order to be eligible for the special issue, papers must seek to advance understanding of how complex institutional arrangements are experienced, unfold, and resolved by MNEs.

We encourage papers that explore, but are not limited to, questions such as:

• What implications do multiple institutional environments have for social agency?
• How useful are existing conceptual ideas in institutional theory for studying MNEs and social agency?
• Under what conditions do institutionally?embedded MNEs engage in action towards strategic change and innovation?
• How does exposure by MNEs to nested relationships between institutions at several levels shape micro processes of agency such as sense?making, translation, and hybridization?

This Special Issue reaches out to institutional and international business scholars of any persuasion who see institutional complexity as central in their research, but also to scholars in management, sociology, and political science investigating forms of agency in MNEs. We are, in particular, interested in papers that encourage institutional and international business communities to engage in a dialogue on how multiple institutions shape organizational action, and seek a richer conceptualization of agency.

Papers should be submitted by 1st May 2013 by email to Miaevelyn at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Final decisions on submissions will be made in May 2014. Papers should be prepared using the JMS Guidelines. The editors welcome informal enquiries and can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Tags: call for papers | JMS | MNEs

Announcing a Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of Business Ethics
Sustaining Sustainability in Organizations

Guest Editors:
Timo Busch, ETH Zurich
Deborah E. de Lange, Suffolk University
Javier Delgado-Ceballos, University of Granada
Alfred Marcus, University of Minnesota
Jonatan Pinkse, University of Amsterdam Business School

With this call for papers, we invite research that advances a discussion that relates to how sustainability is developed and maintained (sustained) in organizations with a particular emphasis on international organizations, whether they are multinational corporations (MNCs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), or international governmental organizations (IGOs). Please see the cfp for full details.

To be considered for the special issue, “Sustaining Sustainability in Organizations,” full papers must be submitted by May 1, 2011. All submissions will go through a double-blind peer review process. Full papers should be submitted to Deborah E. de Lange at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Please send the paper as a Word or pdf document without identifying information and a separate cover page having identifying information in the same email to Debbie.

Tags: Alfred Marcus | call for papers | Deborah E. de Lange | Javier Delgado-Ceballos | Jonatan Pinkse | Journal of Business Ethics | sustainability | Timo Busch

Scholars interested in social studies of finance may want to consider the Performing (Financial) Markets track at the Critical Management Studies Conference in Naples, July 11-13, 2011. The track has been convened by Daniel Beunza, Fabrizio Ferraro and Luigi Moschera. The deadline for submission is November 30, 2010. For more details visit the Socializing Finance blog.

Tags: call for papers | Daniel Beunza | Fabrizio Ferraro | Luigi Moschera

Journal of Management Studies Call for Papers: Professions and Institutional Change

Guest Editors: Daniel Muzio (University of Leeds), David Brock (Ben-Gurion University) and Roy Suddaby (University of Alberta)

There is a growing awareness of the critical role that professions play in advanced economies. Professionals and professional service firms are key advisors, analysts, defenders and developers of the major institutions that underpin capitalist economies. As gatekeepers to key financial institutions, the professions influence both the success and failure of capital markets. Professional service firms are also powerful economic actors in their own right, contributing over 3 trillion (USD) to the global economy. Professions influence more than the market system, however. They are also key agents of social change. As Scott (2008: 219) observes, “the professions in modern society have assumed leading roles in the creation and tending of institutions. They are the preeminent institutional agents of our time.”

Tags: call for papers | Daniel Muzio | David Brock | institutional change | Journal of Management Studies | professions | Roy Suddaby