Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

This sub-theme brings together theoretical and empirical analyses of the link between technology and the organization of social fields. It addresses the role of technology in field constitution and change and the role of fields in the design, production, and use of technology.
 
The digital transformation has renewed scholarly interest in the mutual shaping of technology and society. Traditionally, organization scholars have mostly examined the relationship between technology and social relations on the scale of whole societies (e.g., Castells, 2010), or individual organization (e.g., Orlikowski, 1992). On the meso-level of analysis, they focused more narrowly on the role of technology in industrial transformation (e.g., Nelson, 1994) and economic value creation in ecosystems (e.g., Jacobides et al., 2018). As digital technologies increasingly shape all areas of social life, we propose that field theory promises broader insights into the transformation of social institutions and power relations. However, realizing this promise requires extending field theory to capture the role of technology and non-human agencies.
 
In organizational sociology, the field concept has been used to study meso-level social orders comprising heterogeneous actors such as individuals, business and state organizations, social movements, communities, and crowds. These social orders have been called fields (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), organizational fields (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), issue-based fields (Hoffman, 1999), or strategic action fields (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). Despite their differences (cf. Zietsma et al., 2017)., all these concepts refer to areas of social life in which the interrelated actions of heterogeneous actors generate and are governed by shared (albeit changeable and often contested) understandings about the field’s major purposes or issues, its actor positions and their power relations, and its relevant rules of legitimate action.
 
The organization of social fields has always been related to technology, although this has rarely been the focus of research, except in studies on fields that form around issues related to the development and production of technology (Garud et al., 2002) or around purposes that are heavily dependent on technology (Leblebici et al., 1991). However, we argue that the link between technology and field organization is much more general and further underlined by the digital transformation of ever more areas of social life. The control and use of certain technologies are linked to the constitution of field positions and power relations. Technical objects contribute to regulating social action, while themselves being subject to regulation. Technological infrastructures shape the interaction and mutual awareness between field actors, as they enable and partially regulate the flow of goods, people, money, and information across time and space. Due to this central role of technology in the organization of fields, the introduction of new technologies is often linked to field emergence and transformation, while new technologies tend to be shaped by existing field structures. Indeed, these dynamics are key to many aspects of the digital transformation ranging from the influence of digital platforms (Ametowobla & Kirchner, 2023; Seibt, 2024) to digital innovation (Hinings et al., 2018) and the rise of AI (Airoldi, 2021).
 
Despite the promise of the field concept for analyzing the link between technology and the organization of meso-level social orders, the topic is largely neglected by major field theories.
 
Bourdieu (1984) views fields as the materialized form of history, including the tools and machines used and the kinds of products consumed by actors in specific field positions. However, most work in this tradition focuses on actors’ control over, access to and dispositions towards technologies (Christin, 2017; Ignatow & Robinson, 2017; Sterne, 2003), neglecting the structuring role of technology and their specific material properties (but Airoldi, 2021).
 
Institutional field theories similarly neglect technology. DiMaggio and Powell (1983, p. 148) argue that organizational fields are constituted by actors producing “similar services and products”. However, analysis of the link between technologies and fields is curtailed by the focus on legitimacy (Meyer & Rowan, 1977) and mechanisms of isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). This is in spite of the argument that technology may itself be a source of isomorphism (Benders et al., 2006; Caplan & boyd, 2018) or even constitutive of organizational fields more generally (Dolata, 2009; Leblebici et al., 1991).
 
The concept of issue-based fields (Hoffman, 1999) does not include technology at all. However, it has been well-documented that the development, introduction, or breakdown of technologies often constitutes issues around which fields emerge or transform (Dahabiyeh & Constantinides, 2022; Garud, 2008; Windeler & Jungmann, 2023). Moreover, communication technologies clearly influence societal discourses and thus issue formation and transformation (Davis & Beck, 2023).
 
In their theory of strategic action fields, Fligstein and McAdam (2012) mention that technological innovations may constitute external shocks that trigger field transformation or enable the emergence of new social space. This influence of technology has been shown in studies on sustainable transitions (Hess, 2013), digital platforms (Kirchner & Schüßler, 2020; Seibt, 2024) or living labs (Canzler et al., 2017), but hardly been considered systematically.
 
This sub-theme aims to advance our understanding of the link between technology and the organization of fields (1) by systematically integrating research on technology in the various strands of field theory and (2) by using field theories to analyze key aspects of the digital transformation, such as platformization, datafication and the rise of AI. Empirical and theoretical contributions may address questions such as the following:

• How can sociological field theories be extended to analyze the relationship between technology and field organization?

• What do different field theories teach us about the influence of technology on field emergence, stabilization, and transformation?

• How are new technologies shaped by existing field structures and how do fields and their technologies co-evolve over time?

• How can theories from different theoretical traditions (e.g., sociology, science and technology studies, information systems) help us analyze the link between field organization and technology?

• How does technology shape fields that are not primarily focused on the development, production, or use of technologies?

• What is the role of taken-for-granted technologies and infrastructures in the organization of fields?

• How do major developments such as datafication, platformization, or the rise of artificial intelligence shape field formation and transformation?

• How can field theories contribute to an understanding of the digital transformation that takes into account institutionalized rules, norms, and power relations?

References

• Airoldi, M. (2021): Machine Habitus: Toward a Sociology of Algorithms. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Ametowobla, D., & Kirchner, S. (2023): “The organization of digital platforms: The role of digital technology and architecture for social order.” Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 52 (2), 143–156.
• Benders, J., Batenburg, R., & van der Blonk, H. (2006): “Sticking to standards; technical and other isomorphic pressures in deploying ERP systems.” Information & Management, 43 (2), 194–203.
• Bourdieu, P. (1984): Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992): An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Canzler, W., Engels, F., Rogge, J.‑C., Simon, D., & Wentland, A. (2017): “From ‘living lab’ to strategic action field: Bringing together energy, mobility, and Information Technology in Germany.” Energy Research & Social Science, 27, 25–35.
• Caplan, R., & boyd, d. (2018): “Isomorphism through algorithms: Institutional dependencies in the case of Facebook.” Big Data & Society, 5 (1), https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718757253.
• Castells, M. (2010): The Rise of the Network Society. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Christin, A. (2017): “Algorithms in practice: Comparing web journalism and criminal justice.” Big Data & Society, 4 (2), 1–14.
• Dahabiyeh, L., & Constantinides, P. (2022): “Legitimating digital technologies in industry exchange fields: The case of digital signatures.” Information and Organization, 32 (1), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2022.100392.
• Davis, D.J., & Beck, T.E. (2023): “How social media disrupts institutions: Exploring the intersection of online disinformation, digital materiality and field-level change.” Information and Organization, 33 (4), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2023.100488.
• DiMaggio, P.J., & Powell, W.W. (1983): “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review, 48 (2), 147–160.
• Dolata, U. (2009): “Technological innovations and sectoral change.” Research Policy, 38 (6), 1066–1076.
• Fligstein, N., & McAdam, D. (2012): A Theory of Fields. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Garud, R. (2008): “Conferences as Venues for the Configuration of Emerging Organizational Fields: The Case of Cochlear Implants.” Journal of Management Studies, 45 (6), 1061–1088.
• Garud, R., Jain, S., & Kumaraswamy, A. (2002): “Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Sponsorship of Common Technological Standards: The Case of Sun Microsystems and Java.” Academy of Management Journal, 45 (1), 196–214.
• Hess, D.J. (2013): “Industrial fields and countervailing power: The transformation of distributed solar energy in the United States.” Global Environmental Change, 23 (5), 847–855.
• Hinings, B., Gegenhuber, T., & Greenwood, R. (2018): “Digital innovation and transformation: An institutional perspective.” Information and Organization, 28 (1), 52–61.
• Hoffman, A.J. (1999): “Institutional Evolution and Change: Environmentalism and the U.S. Chemical Industry.” Academy of Management Journal, 42 (4), 351–371.
• Ignatow, G., & Robinson, L. (2017): “Pierre Bourdieu: theorizing the digital.” Information, Communication & Society, 20 (7), 950–966.
• Jacobides, M.G., Cennamo, C., & Gawer, A. (2018): “Towards a theory of ecosystems.” Strategic Management Journal, 39 (8), 2255–2276.
• Kirchner, S., & Schüßler, E. (2020): “Regulating the Sharing Economy: A Field Perspective.” In: I. Maurer, J. Mair, & A. Oberg (eds.): Theorizing the Sharing Economy. Leeds: Emerald Publishing Limited, 215–236
• Leblebici, H., Salancik, G.R., Copay, A., & King, T. (1991): “Institutional Change and the Transformation of Interorganizational Fields: An Organizational History of the U.S. Radio Broadcasting Industry.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 36 (3), 333–363.
• Meyer, J.W., & Rowan, B. (1977): “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology, 83 (2), 340–363.
• Nelson, R.R. (1994): “The Co-evolution of Technology, Industrial Structure, and Supporting Institutions.” Industrial and Corporate Change, 3 (1), 47–63.
• Orlikowski, W.J. (1992): “The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations.” Organization Science, 3 (3), 398–427.
• Seibt, D. (2024): “Platform Organizations and Fields: Exploring the Influence of Field Conditions on Platformization Processes.” Critical Sociology, 50 (7-8), 1323–1342.
• Sterne, J. (2003): ”Bourdieu, Technique and Technology.” Cultural Studies, 17 (3-4), 367–389.
• Windeler, A., & Jungmann, R. (2023): “Complex innovation, organizations, and fields: Toward the organized transformation of today’s innovation societies.” Current Sociology, 71 (7), 1293–1311.
• Zietsma, C., Groenewegen, P., Logue, D.M., & Hinings, C.R. (2017): “Field or Fields? Building the Scaffolding for Cumulation of Research on Institutional Fields.” Academy of Management Annals, 11 (1), 391–450.