Call for Papers

The way management ideas, such as management concepts, innovations, practices, standards, ideologies, and institutional templates, travel in time, space and people has been a persistent concern in management and organizational studies (Bendix, 1956; Guillén, 1994; Sturdy et al., 2019). Theorists have emphasized that specific ideas such as Lean and Agile but also ideas related to broader movements, such as CSR or corporate sustainability, have the potential to affect our working lives tremendously.
 
In understanding the way these ideas travel and may impact management and organizational practice, there has been increased an research interest into the processes and consequences of translation (Spyridonidis et al., 2016). During the last few decades studies have enhanced our understanding of how these ideas are dis-embedded from their original context, travel, and become re-embedded in different new contexts (Czarniawska & Sevòn, 1996). Particular attention has been paid to how these ideas become adapted during their travel (e.g. Ansari et al., 2010) and the role of agency in shaping the travel of ideas within and beyond organizational contexts (e.g. Van Grinsven et al., 2020; Boch Waldorff & Madsen, 2022).
 
An emerging stream of translation research has recently taken issue with the linear and chronological thinking that underlies much of the present theorizing. In particular, drawing on an ecological perspective, Wedlin and Sahlin (2017) have emphasized the importance of analyzing the interactions between translators, translations, and translation processes over time, which has spurred researchers to emphasize the significance of a focus on multidirectional idea traveling and the ‘reverse flow’ of models (e.g. Nielsen et al., 2022; Westney & Piekkari, 2020). Indeed, we know from prior studies that elements of same management idea may evolve in different directions throughout its biography including the possibility of decoupling (Heusinkveld et al., 2013; Piazza & Abrahamson, 2021; Røvik, 2011). Also, research has pointed to the occurrence of alternative histories of the evolution and impact of particular ideas and why these may occur (Benders & Stjernberg, 2022; Shenhav, 2000).
 
Yet, we argue that our knowledge about how and why possible pathways in the travel of ideas may take shape remains underdeveloped. Overall, we argue that critically interrogating the directionality in the travel of ideas can advance our conceptualization of key dimensions of (such alternative) translation pathways as well as the processes and conditions that define their shape but which have not been systematically explored yet. Studying new pathways in the travel of ideas requires scholars to embrace and address additional complexities and ambiguities. Indeed, studies going beyond a focus on idea traveling as an ‘one-direction movement’ may run the risk of getting dismissed on the grounds of relativism (anything goes). The need to address and fully embrace issues of multi-directionality in idea travelling calls for new perspectives and theories to trace different elements or directionality in the travel of ideas in time and space and conceptualize the role of agency in relation to ecologies of translation cf. Hultin et al., 2020). In addition, we are in need of new, innovative methodologies to grasp the complexity of multi- directional translation (Wedlin and Sahlin 2017).
 
Ultimately, we hope this sub-theme to advance knowledge of the social and relational aspects of translation in modern organizations and the broader ecosystems in which they co-exist. By a thorough examination of the theoretical and methodological difficulties associated with empirical research on directionality in idea traveling we hope to provide building blocks to guide future theory-building and research to better understand the way translation pathways may take shape. We invite both empirical, conceptual and methodological papers that deal with the topics listed above as well as the following, non-exclusive list:

• Interacting dimensions of directionality (abstraction, hierarchy, chronology) in relation to pathways of translation

• Different types of ideas (origins, ideology, popularity, materiality etc) in relation to pathways of translation

• Different simultaneous pathways of translation (frontstage/backstage) resulting in more or less successful translations

• The role of agency in relation to multi-directional translation or ecologies of translation

• The way prior translations are associated with - or may - influence different pathways of translation

• Different dimensions or aspects of temporality (clock time, embedded temporality, humanly relevant time through meanings assigned to events) prompting a broader consideration of pathways of translation

• New, different theories and methods that allow us to trace and make sense of the complexity of multidirectional idea travel

References

• Abrahamson, E., & Fairchild, G. (1999). Management Fashion: Lifecycles, Triggers, and Collective Learning Processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44 (4), 708–740.
• Ansari, S. M., Fiss, P. C., & Zajac, E. J. (2010). Made to fit: How practices vary as they diffuse. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 67–92.
• Benders, J., & Stjernberg, T. (2022). Cellular manufacturing at Scania-Vabis; continuity and discontinuity in management thought. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 28 (3/4), 175–189.
• Bendix, R. (1956). Work and authority in industry. Wiley.
• Czarniawska, B., & Sevón, G. (eds.) (1996). Translating Organizational Change. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
• Guillén, M. F. (1994). Models of Management: Work, Authority, and Organization in a Comparative Perspective. University of Chicago Press.
• Heusinkveld, S., Benders, J., & Hillebrand, B. (2013). Stretching Concepts: The Role of Competing Pressures and Decoupling in the Evolution of Organization Concepts. Organization Studies, 34 (1), 7–32.
• Hultin, L., Introna, L. D., & Mähring, M. (2021). The decentered translation of management ideas: Attending to the conditioning flow of everyday work practices. Human Relations, 74 (4), 587-620.
• Nielsen, J. A., Mathiassen, L., & Newell, S. (2021). Multidirectional Idea Travelling Across an Organizational Field. Organization Studies, https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840621998566
• Piazza, A., & Abrahamson, E. (2020). Fads and Fashions in Management Practices: Taking Stock and Looking Forward. International Journal of Management Reviews, 22 (3), 264–286.
• Røvik, K. A. (2011). From fashion to virus: An alternative theory of organizations’ handling of managementideas. Organization Studies, 32 (5), 631–653.
• Shenhav, Y. (1999). Manufacturing Rationality. The Engineering Foundations of the Managerial Revolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Spyridonidis, D., Currie, G., Heusinkveld, S., Strauss, K., & Sturdy, A. (2016). The Translation of Management Knowledge: Challenges, Contributions and New Directions: Translation of Management Knowledge. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18 (3), 231–235.
• Sturdy, A., Heusinkveld, S., Reay, T., & Strang, D. (Eds.) (2019). The Oxford Handbook of Management Ideas. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• van Grinsven, M., Sturdy, A., & Heusinkveld, S. (2020). Identities in Translation: Management Concepts as Means and Outcomes of Identity Work. Organization Studies, 41 (6), 873– 897.
• Waldorff, S. B., & Madsen, M. H. (2022). Translating to Maintain Existing Practices: Micro-tactics in the implementation of a new management concept. Organization Studies, https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406221112475
• Wedlin, L., & Sahlin, K. (2017). The Imitation and Translation of Management Ideas. In: R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. Lawrence, & R. Meyer (eds.): The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism. SAGE Publications, 102–127.
• Westney, D.E., & Piekkari, R. (2020). “Reversing the Translation Flow: Moving Organizational Practices from Japan to the U.S.” Journal of Management Studies, 57 (1), 57–86.
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