CALL FOR PAPERS
EGOS Colloquium 2019 (Edinburgh, July 4–6, 2019)
Sub-theme 25:
INSTITUTIONAL THEORY AND PROBLEM-DRIVEN RESEARCH:
THE CHALLENGE OF NORMATIVITY
Convenors:
Florian Überbacher, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Giuseppe Delmestri, WU – Vienna University of Economics and Business,
Austria
Emilio Marti, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The
Netherlands
Deadline for submission of short papers: 14 January 2019, 23:59 CET
Organization and management scholars increasingly recognize the need to
tackle grand societal challenges (e.g. Ferraro et al., 2015; George et al.,
2016), such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). An
international academic movement is on the way to advance responsible
research in business and management (RRBM, 2017). This debate has been
particularly intense in institutional theory, one of the dominant streams
of research in organization studies (Greenwood et al., 2017). Scholars are
increasingly calling for institutional research that is more problem-driven
(e.g., Amis et al., 2017; Davis & Marquis, 2005; Gehman et al., 2016) and
thus not only aims “to understand grand social challenges but to affect
them and in so doing change the world” (Hampel et al., 2017, p. 581). For
example, there is a need to say more about how to undertake institutional
reforms, how to design and defend institutional structures that protect
precarious values (Kraatz et al., 2010), and to give specific policy
recommendations (Scott, 2014). To advance problem-driven research,
institutional scholars have also called for new research methods, such as
“participatory action research” whereby the stakeholders affected by the
social problems under study are understood “as active, engaged, and equal
participants in the research process” (Dover & Lawrence, 2010: 307).
A key, yet underexplored issue within that debate is the question of
normativity. When aiming to tackle grand challenges, institutional scholars
venture into territories that are value-laden (see Ezzamel & Willmott,
2014; Marti & Scherer, 2016). However, institutional scholars remain
remarkably silent about what makes institutions good or bad in a
prescriptive, normative sense (Überbacher et al., 2018). Likewise, apart
from a few notable exceptions (e.g. Lok, 2017), institutional scholars
rarely reflect upon the normative foundations on which they build their
research (for a critique see Willmott, 2011). Yet, researchers who want to
engage in problem-driven research and address grand challenges must make
the normative assumptions and implications of their research explicit and
thereby actively deal with normativity. Otherwise, they risk making claims
and giving recommendations that are ill-founded and ultimately irrelevant.
We thus argue that a better understanding of the role of normativity is
critical to strengthen problem-driven research within institutional theory.
In this sub-theme, we create a platform where institutional scholars with
an interest in grand challenges, such as the SDGs, can further clarify the
normative dimension of their research. Thereby, the aim is to help them
develop institutional scholarship that is more problem-driven and that
matters more. Toward this end, we welcome two types of studies:
First, we welcome papers that use institutional theory for problem-driven
research on grand challenges. Researchers who submit a manuscript to the
sub-theme should reflect on the normative foundations of their case and/or
draw out the normative implications of their research for policy-makers and
other stakeholders. Participants could, for instance, reflect on one of the
following issues and questions:
Normativity of institutions: What role do values and moral emotions play
for institutions? What are the unintended normative consequences of
institutions?
Normativity of institutional work: What makes attempts to create,
maintain, or defend institutions good or bad? How do actors mobilize
normativity for institutional work?
Normativity of institutional fields: How should institutional fields be
organized so that SDGs can be productively addressed? How do
institutional fields influence the distribution of benefits and burdens
within society?
Second, we welcome papers that reflect on the meta-level on the role of
normativity within problem-driven institutional research. Historically,
institutional scholarship has been conceived of as theory-driven and
value-free. Here, we welcome papers that focus on how the institutional
community can productively engage with problem-driven and normatively
informed scholarship, and how it can rely on these adaptations to enlarge
the institutional paradigm. We thus invite contributions that address
questions such as:
Normativity and institutional theory building: How can we make theory
building in institutional research more normatively informed and
problem-driven? How can institutional theory building incorporate a more
explicitly normative stand-point?
Normativity and institutional research methods: How can research methods
in institutional analysis become more normatively informed? Which
research designs are best suited for normatively informed institutional
scholarship?
The purpose of the sub-theme is to help make institutional research more
engaged and relevant for society. By bringing together institutional
scholars who focus on grand challenges with institutional scholars who
reflect about normativity on a meta-level, we aim to foster a shared
understanding of how scholars can develop descriptive and normative
insights that are relevant for theory and practice.
References
Amis, J., Munir, K., & Mair, J. (2017): “Institutions and Economic
Inequality.” In: R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T.B. Lawrence & R.E Meyer (eds.):
The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism, 2nd ed. Thousand
Oaks: SAGE Publications, 705–736.
Davis, G.F., & Marquis, C. (2005): “Prospects for Organization Theory in
the Early Twenty-First Century: Institutional Fields and Mechanisms.”
Organization Science, 16 (4), 332–343.
Dover, G., & Lawrence, T. B. (2010): “A Gap Year for Institutional Theory:
Integrating the Study of Institutional Work and Participatory Action
Research.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 19 (4), 305–316.
Ezzamel, M., & Willmott, H. (2014): “Registering ‘the Ethical’ in
Organization Theory Formation: Towards the Disclosure of an ‘Invisible
Force’.” Organization Studies, 35 (7), 1013–1039.
Ferraro, F., Etzion, D., & Gehman, J. (2015): “Tackling Grand Challenges
Pragmatically: Robust Action Revisited.” Organization Studies, 36, 363–390.
Gehman, J., Lounsbury, M., & Greenwood, R. (2016): “How Institutions
Matter: From the Micro Foundations of Institutional Impacts to the Macro
Consequences of Institutional Arrangements.” Research in the Sociology of
Organizations, 48A, 1–34.
George, G., Howard-Grenville, J., Joshi, A., & Tihanyi, L. (2016):
“Understanding and Tackling Societal Grand Challenges through Management
Research.” Academy of Management Journal, 59, 1880–1895.
Greenwood, R., Oliver, C., Lawrence, T., & Meyer, R.E. (eds.) (2017): The
SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks:
SAGE Publications.
Hampel, C.E., Lawrence, T.B., & Tracey, P. (2017): “Institutional Work:
Taking Stock and Making It Matter.” In: R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T.B.
Lawrence & R.E. Meyer (eds.): The SAGE Handbook of Organizational
Institutionalism, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 558–590.
Kraatz, M. S., Ventresca, M.J., & Deng, L. (2010): “Precarious Values and
Mundane Innovations: Enrollment Management in American Liberal Arts
Colleges.” Academy of Management Journal, 53 (6), 1521–1545.
Lok, J. (2017): “Why (and How) Institutional Theory Can Be Critical:
Addressing the Challenge to Institutional Theory’s Critical Turn.” Journal
of Management Inquiry, first published online on October 6, 2017,
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1056492617732832.
Marti, E., & Scherer, A.G. (2016): “Financial Regulation and Social
Welfare: The Critical Contribution of Management Theory.” Academy of
Management Review, 41 (2), 298–323.
RRBM – Responsible Research in Business & Management (2017): Position
Paper: A Vision of Responsible Research in Business and Management:
Striving for Useful and Credible Knowledge,
https://www.rrbm.network/position-paper/.
Überbacher, F., Delmestri, G., & Goodrick, E. (2018): The Challenge of
Engaging with Grand Challenges: The Need for an Ethically Informed
Institutional Scholarship. Paper presented in sub-theme 29 at the 34th EGOS
Colloquium in Tallinn (Estonia), July 5–7, 2018.
Willmott, H. (2011): “‘Institutional Work’ for What? Problems and Prospects
of Institutional Theory.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 20 (1), 67–72.
Link to EGOS homepage
https://www.egosnet.org/jart/prj3/egos/main.jart?rel=de&reserve-mode=active&content-id=1539047741567&subtheme_id=1511424500060
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Dr. Florian Überbacher
Department of Business Administration (IBW)
University of Zurich
Universitätsstrasse 84
CH - 8006 Zurich
Tel.: +41(0)44-634-5307
Fax.: +41(0)44-634-5301
E-Mail:
florian.ueberbacher@business.uzh.ch
Homepage:
http://www.business.uzh.ch/de/professorships/as/team/staff/überbacher.html