Call for Papers

This sub-theme serves to continue and expand a conversation about the opportunities of a configurational, comparative perspective for disentangling complex social and organizational challenges. In recent years, researchers have aimed to account for such complexity with a theoretical shift toward understanding phenomena in a configurational manner (Fiss, Cambré & Marx, 2013; Misangyi et al., 2017; Campbell et al., 2016; Meuer and Fiss, 2020; Pattyn et al., 2022). At the same time, corresponding methodological developments have aimed at tackling causal complexity, most prominently the emergence of a set-analytic perspective (Ragin, 1987, 2000, 2008; Fiss, 2007, 2011). These developments present more than a resurgence of configurational thinking or a new methodological approach. They suggest the emergence of a neo-configurational perspective – a perspective that aims to understand social and organizational phenomena in set-theoretic terms, allowing for an analysis of specific causal complexities and intersectionality (Ragin & Fiss, 2017; Furnari et al, 2021; Gabriel et al., 2018; Meuer & Rupietta, 2017).
 
With this sub-theme, we invite papers that outline new approaches for studying both people in organizations (person-based as opposed to variable-based approach to micro scholarship), organizations (organizations as complex adaptive systems), and the context in which they are embedded (the role of time and space, including social and technological disruptions). Such new approaches include, among others, advancements in our scholarly understanding around the concepts of cross-roads, adaptive and resilient systems, as well as new forms of structuring through a configurational and intersectional perspective. We also see a need for clearer language and thought structure to conceptualize, theorize about, and explain complex phenomena across various levels of analysis, including – but not limited to – digital eco-dynamics, complex adaptive systems, and ecosystems. Complementing conceptual advancements, we also seek to expand the methodological toolkit that allows us to empirically study such new forms of structuring and creating new organizations and configurations.

This sub-theme particularly invites contributions that focus on one or more of the following issues:

• Theoretical connections: A better language and thought structure to make sense of complex configurational concepts (e.g., crossroads as (set) intersections and intersectionality). Such new theoretical connections may include conceptual approaches to describing, theorizing, and explaining phenomena such as digital eco-dynamics, complex adaptive systems, and other systems and structures that require non-linear approaches. They may also include conceptual innovations and creative approaches to theorizing that draw on the configurational perspective and set intersectionality more generally.

• Methodological innovations: New methodological approaches for researchers to analyze crossroads. These may include innovative measures to systematically analyze intersections as well as intersectional phenomena such as windows-of- opportunities, processes, and sequences. Methodological innovations may also include new methodological tools to disentangle causal complexity, new approaches to advancing the robustness of set-analytic and configurational analysis, and approaches that advance the complementarity of configurational methods with other approaches.

• Uncovering (category) intersectionality: One central feature of how organizations deal with future crossroads and disruptions across industry sectors and institutions is the interconnected nature of social categorizations (e.g., the trade-offs among social, environmental, and economic categories in the triple bottom line.) How can a neo-configurational perspective help us understand systems of reinforcing advantages and disadvantages? How can we better understand the interconnected nature of economic, social, and environmental choices facing organizations?

• Institutional complexity: Amid rapid technological change and growing social pressures, navigating institutional complexity and multiple intersecting logics is becoming a growing challenge for organizations. How might a neo-configurational perspective help us understand incompatible prescriptions from multiple institutional logics? What can it contribute to studying constellations of institutional logics? To what extent does a neo-configurational perspective advance our understanding of intersecting sectors, cross-sectoral technologies (e.g., solar, hydrogen, fuel cells, electric vehicles), intersecting regulations, and public institutions?

• Complex organizational forms: After a century of classic organizational forms and structures, new ways of organizing emerged, such as organizational networks, as well as virtual, platform, and hybrid organizations. How can a neo-configurational perspective clarify the processes and the complex conditions that make these forms (in-) effective? How can researchers contribute to the scholarly debate around multi-stakeholder alliances and alternative forms of global governance forms?

• Theorizing new forms of structuring: Complexity may weaken differences in type, suggesting the existence of hybrid solutions or recombination instead of discrete categories and positions. How do we theorize such organizational hybridity and fuzzy organizational boundaries? How does a configurational perspective contribute to the theorizing and exploration of dialectic situations (e.g., the dialectic human-technology interface)?

• Individuals as opposed to variables: After decades of studying individuals via a standard “all-else-equal” approach, whereby researchers attempted to quantify the incremental impact of a specific individual-level characteristic once other confounding variables have been accounted for, researchers are increasingly beginning to recognize that people are necessarily complex amalgams of a range of cognitions, traits, and experiences. How do individual characteristics combine and intersect to influence outcomes relevant to organizations and people working within them?

 
A special keynote will be presented by Peer C. Fiss, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.
 

References

• Campbell, J.T., Sirmon, D.G., & Schijven, M. (2016): “Fuzzy Logic and the Market: A Configurational Approach to Investor Perceptions of Acquisition Announcements.” Academy of Management Journal, 59 (1), 163–187.
• Fiss, P.C. (2007): “A set-theoretic approach to organizational configurations.” Academy of Management Review, 32 (4), 1180–1198.
• Fiss, P.C. (2011): “Building Better Causal Theories: A Fuzzy Set Approach to Typologies in Organization Research.” Academy of Management Journal, 54 (2), 393–420.
• Fiss, P.C., Cambré, B., & Marx, A. (eds.) (2013): “Configurational Theory and Methods in Organizational Research." In: Research in the Sociology of Organizations (Vol. 38). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
• Furnari, S., Crilly, D., Misangyi, V.F., Greckhamer, T., Fiss, P.C., & Aguilera, R.V. (2021): “Capturing Causal Complexity: Heuristics for Configurational Theorizing.” Academy of Management Review, 46 (4), 778–799.
• Gabriel, A.S., Campbell, J.T., Djurdjevic, E., Johnson, R.E., & Rosen, C. (2018): “Fuzzy Profiles: Comparing and Contrasting Latent Profile Analysis and Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis for Person-Centered Research.” Organizational Research Methods, 21 (4), 877–904.
• Meuer, J., & Rupietta, C. (2017): “Integrating QCA and HLM for Multilevel Research on Organizational Configurations.” Organizational Research Methods, 20 (2), 324–342.
• Meuer, J., & Fiss, P.C. (2020): “Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in Business and Management Research.” In: R. Aldag (ed.): Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Misangyi, V.F., Greckhamer, T., Furnari, S., Fiss, P.C., Crilly, D., & Aguilera, R. (2017): “Embracing Causal Complexity The Emergence of a Neo-Configurational Perspective.” Journal of Management, 43 (1), 255–282.
• Pattyn, V., Álamos-Concha, P., Cambré, B., Rihoux, B., & Schalembier, B. (2022): “Policy Effectiveness through Configurational and Mechanistic Lenses: Lessons for Concept Development.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 24 (1), 33–50.
• Ragin, C.C. (1987): The Comparative Method. Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Ragin C.C. (2000): Fuzzy-Set Social Science. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Ragin, C.C. (2008): Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Ragin, C.C., & Fiss, P. (2017): Intersectional Inequality. Race, Class, Test Scores and Poverty. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
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