Apologies for cross-posting
Call for Papers
Organization Studies
Special Issue on
'Institutions and Work'
Guest Editors:
Tom Lawrence (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada)
Tammar Zilber (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Bernard Leca, (Rouen Business School, France)
Deadline: February 28th 2011
The notion of institutional work was introduced to embody and extend
several streams of research on institutional processes. Defined as "the
purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating,
maintaining and disrupting institutions" (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006: 215),
the idea of institutional work reflects a shift in focus from isomorphism
to change (Dacin et al., 2002), deterministic effects of structures to
actors' power and agency in manipulating and even transforming the
institutional order (Battilana & D'Aunno, 2009; Greenwood et al., 2008),
and large scale, macro-level inquiries which concentrate on structures and
practices to an interest in microlevel ideational dynamics (Zilber, 2008).
The concept of institutional work also holds promise by connecting to a
broader range of analytical tools and methodological avenues than have
traditionally been employed to consider institutional dynamics and effects
(Lawrence et al. 2009). In this special issue of Organization Studies we
want to focus on the relationship between institutions and work. Two sets
of questions in particular motivate this special issue
The consequences of applying the concept of work to the study of agency
and institutions. The concept of work invokes notions such as effort,
intentionality, coordination, roles, resistance, context and time. We aim
to explore the implications of this metaphor for understanding the
relationship between agency and institutions by addressing such question
as: What is institutional work? What are its limits? How does it interact
with that which is not workable? On which institutional levels does work
take place and how do they interact? Can "institutional work" be performed
toward any sort of institution, including those so naturalized that they
are 'taken for granted', and if so under which conditions? Most generally,
what are the costs and benefits of employing work as a metaphor to
understand the relationship between agency and institutions?
The relationship between institutional work and other forms of work, and
discussions and treatments of "work" in other contexts and disciplines.
Work has been a central topic of scholarly concern for a long time and
across a broad range of disciplines and approaches. We encourage research
that leverages and contributes to those traditions. How, for example, do
ideas such as identity work (e.g. Alvesson et al., 2008) and emotional
labor (Hochschild, 1983) connect to the concept of institutional work?
What can we learn from such literatures as labor process theory
(Braverman, 1974; Knights & Willmott, 1990), critical studies of work and
resistance (Jermier et al., 1994), studies of the experience of work
(Terkel, 1974), or gender studies and the treatment of
reproductive/maintenance work and how gender as an institution is
reproduced across life domains (e.g. West & Zimmerman, 1987), for example
through discursive work (Butler, 1993)? Can research on institutional work
learn from insights gained by looking at concepts close to the notion of
work such as bricolage (Levi-Strauss, 1966)? Exploring the relationship
between institutional work and others forms of work might also lead to
question what is distinctive about institutional work, and to which extend
it can be distinguished from other kinds of works and practices.
Our intention is not to embark on a colonial project. We do not assume
that all these can or should be conceptualized as forms of institutional
work. Rather, we are looking to use the concept of work to bridge between
institutional studies of organization and other intellectual streams,
which will help us further develop the concept of institutional work and
the broader domain of institutional theory. In particular, we are
interested in adding much needed critical reflections on the work of
institutions within society at large, and re-locating organizations in
their broad, societal and political contexts.
We welcome empirical research, as well as theoretical and methodological
discussions that touch upon the potential of institutional work to
reinvigorate institutional theory. We also encourage efforts to use the
notion of institutional work to bridge institutional theory with other
literatures and theoretical concerns within the discipline of Organization
Theory and beyond.
Submissions
Please submit papers as email attachments (Microsoft Word files only) to
the Editorial Office
osofficer@gmail.com, indicating in the e-mail the
title of the Special Issue. Please prepare manuscripts according to the
guidelines shown at
www.egosnet.org/os). All papers will be double-blind
reviewed following the journal's normal review process and criteria. Any
papers which may be accepted but will not be included in the Special Issue
will be published in an ordinary issue at a later point in time. For
further information please contact any of the Guest Editors for this
Special Issue: Tom Lawrence (Simon Fraser University
tom_lawrence@sfu.ca),
Tammar Zilber (Hebrew University of Jerusalem
mstbz@mscc.huji.ac.il) or
Bernard Leca (Rouen Business School
Bernard.Leca@groupe-esc-rouen.fr)
Literature
Alvesson, M., Ashcraft, K. L., & Thomas, R. 2008. Identity matters:
Reflections on the construction
of identity scholarship in organization studies. Organization, 15(1):
5-28.
Battilana, J. & D'Aunno, T. 2009. Institutional work and the paradox of
embedded agency. In
T. B. Lawrence & R. Suddaby & B. Leca (Eds.), Institutional work: Actors
and agency in
institutional studies of organizations: Cambridge University Press.
Braverman, H. 1974. Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in
the Twentieth
century. Monthly Review Press.
Butler, J. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex".
Routledge.
Dacin, M. T., Goodstein, J., & Scott, W. R. 2002. Institutional theory and
institutional change:
Introduction to the special research forum. Academy of Management Journal,
45(1): 45-56.
Greenwood, R., Oliver, C., Sahlin, K., & Suddaby, R. 2008. Introduction.
In R. Greenwood,
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1-46. Sage.
Hochschild, A. R. 1983. The managed heart: Commercialization of human
feeling. University
of California Press.
Jermier, J. M., Knights, D. & Nord, W. R. (Eds.). 1994. Resistance and
power in organizations.
Routledge.
Knights, D. & Willmott, H. (Eds.). 1990. Labor process theory. Macmillan.
Lawrence, T. B. & Suddaby, R. 2006. Institutions and institutional work.
In S. R. Clegg,
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Levi-Strauss, C. 1966. The Savage Mind. University of Chicago Press.
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they feel about what
they do. Pantheon/Random House.
West, C. & Zimmerman, D. H. 1987. Doing gender. Gender & Society
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Zilber, T. B. 2008. The work of meanings in institutional processes and
thinking. In
R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The Sage handbook
of organizational institutionalism: 151-169. Sage.