Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

Cognitive scholarship has advanced our understanding of how processes of social perception and interpretation shape organizational outcomes (Kaplan, 2011; Walsh, 1995). This foundation has been enriched and extended by research on framing (Cornelissen & Werner, 2014; Heimstädt & Reischauer, 2019; Reischauer et al., 2025), managerial attention (Ocasio et al., 2023; König et al., 2024; König et al., 2020), sensemaking and sensegiving (Weber et al., 2019; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014), cognitive communities (Porac et al., 2011), and identities (Kammerlander et al., 2018; Altman & Tripsas, 2015), amongst many others.
 
However, as recently pointed out, cognitive perspectives on organization have almost exclusively assumed firms to be “Chandlerian”, that is firms with vertically integrated units (Ocasio et al., 2023; Wilden et al., 2023). This is problematic given that organizing and strategizing is increasingly shaped by “post-Chandlerian” forms. One such forms are platforms that facilitate interactions between two or more sides, enabling the sharing, pooling, and/or exchanging of resources as part of ecosystems (Gawer, 2014; Reischauer & Mair, 2018a, 2018b; Kretschmer et al., 2022). Another form are Artificial Intelligence (AI-)driven firms where decision making is automatized (Ocasio, 2025; Glaser et al., 2024; Curchod et al., 2019). Platforms and AI-driven firms alike often expand at unprecedent speeds with far-reaching impacts (Harracá et al., 2023; Zuboff, 2022; Reischauer & Fuenfschilling, 2023). This growth increasingly affects not only platform-native organizations but also established ones. Specifically, platforms and AI-driven firms challenge two fundamental assumptions in extant cognitive studies.
 
First, platforms and AI-driven firms – also referred to as “digital natives” (Subramaniam, 2020) – often focus not on resource combination that is characteristic for established organizations but on connecting various users and stakeholders with various preferences in a flexible way (Randhawa et al., 2018) requires convincing them to share or provide access to their resources. A notable cognitive challenge is the “chicken and egg” dilemma, where users on each side of a platform hesitate to join until the other side does. Scholars have started to examine when and how platforms navigate these issues, emphasizing the key role of narratives, frames, and discourses (Thomas & Ritala, 2022; Randhawa et al., 2024; Weber et al., 2019).
 
Second, when established organizations – notably corporations (Khanagha et al., 2022; Fraser & Ansari, 2021; Altman et al., 2022; Simsek et al., 2024) but also public administrations (Vith et al., 2019) – engage platforms and AI, they face distinct cognitive challenges. Recent studies highlight that these organizations require a nuanced understanding of how to cooperate – sometimes even with competitors (Reischauer et al., 2024; Reischauer & Hoffmann, 2023) – and adapt to platform-driven changes (Altman et al., 2022). Organizational identity and other cognitive processes are particularly relevant when incumbents navigate platform and AI transitions. Altering ones identity can be key to attract and grow users while convincing stakeholders (Thomas & Ritala, 2022; Altman & Tripsas, 2015). The media plays a key role in amplifying these identity shifts and transformation narratives (Lehmann et al., 2022; Graf-Vlachy et al., 2019). Moreover, recent advances point to distinct cognitive challenges related to attention allocation and sensemaking when organizations decide to participate in multiple ecosystems (Altman et al., 2022; Ocasio et al., 2023).
 
This body of work highlights the need to revisit the cognition-organization nexus, which is increasingly challenged by the ubiquity and attention dynamics of platforms and AI-driven firms. In this spirit, this sub-theme invites papers that examine when, how, and why platforms, AI-driven firms, and stakeholders interacting with them tackle cognitive complexities. We welcome papers employing various methodologies (including conceptual papers) and encourage submissions that leverage various cognitive perspectives within and beyond organization studies. Key questions of interest include, but are not limited to:

• How do platforms and AI-driven firms leverage frames to shape markets, fields, and/or ecosystems?

• How are cognitive and emotional framings of and responses to digital natives intertwined and altering organizational fields?

• How do platforms and AI-driven firms adapt their framing to address varying institutional complexities across fields?

• What framing contests arise from dynamics related to platforms and AI-driven firms, and how do they unfold?

• How does framing shape the identities of digital natives, their users, and non-platform competitors?

• How do platforms and AI-driven firms frame their activities to legitimate growth or justify exits?

• What role do cognitive processes play in firms transitioning into platform and AI-driven business models and forms of organizing?

• How do firms (re-)allocate attention as well as make and give sense when balancing traditional and digital business models?

• How do cognitive communities shaped by digital natives shift their attention over time?

• What is the role of managerial traits, such as narcissism, in shaping perceptions of and in platforms and AI-driven firms?

• How do digital natives shape, dominate, or disrupt discourses?

• When and how do firms, policy-makers, media, interest groups and/or other stakeholders leverage or alter discourses to oppose or support digital natives?

• What unique sense-making, -giving, and -breaking processes are observed among users and employees of platforms and AI-driven firms?

• How do actors make sense of and respond to the dark side of digital natives?

• How do users make and give sense to each other over time, and what are the consequences for users and digital natives?

References

• Altman, E., & Tripsas, M. (2015): “Product-to-Platform Transitions: Organizational Identity Implications.” In: C.E. Shalley, M.A. Hitt, & J. Zhou (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 379–394.

• Altman, E.J., Nagle, F., & Tushman, M.L. (2022): “The Translucent Hand of Managed Ecosystems: Engaging Communities for Value Creation and Capture.” Academy of Management Annals, 16, (1), 70–101.

• Cornelissen, J.P., & Werner, M.D. (2014): “Putting Framing in Perspective: A Review of Framing and Frame Analysis across the Management and Organizational Literature.” Academy of Management Annals, 8 (1), 181–235.

• Curchod, C., Patriotta, G., Cohen, L., & Neysen, N. (2019): “Working for an Algorithm: Power Asymmetries and Agency in Online Work Settings.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 65 (3), 644–676.

• Fraser, J., & Ansari, S. (2021): “Pluralist Perspectives and Diverse Responses: Exploring Multiplexed Framing in Incumbent Responses to Digital Disruption.” Long Range Planning, 54 (5), https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55376.

• Gawer, A. (2014): “Bridging Differing Perspectives on Technological Platforms: Toward an Integrative Framework.” Research Policy, 43 (7), 1239–1249.

• Glaser, V.L., Sloan, J., & Gehman, J. (2024): “Organizations as Algorithms: A New Metaphor for Advancing Management Theory.” Journal of Management Studies, 61 (6), 2748–2769.

• Graf-Vlachy, L., Oliver, A.G., Banfield, R., König, A., & Bundy, J. (2019): “Media Coverage of Firms: Background, Integration, and Directions for Future Research.” Journal of Management, 46 (1), 36–69.

• Harracá, M., Castelló, I., & Gawer, A. (2023): “How Digital Platforms Organize Immaturity: A Sociosymbolic Framework of Platform Power.” Business Ethics Quarterly, 33 (3), 440–472.

• Heimstädt, M., & Reischauer, G. (2019): “Framing Innovation Practices in Interstitial Issue Fields: Open Innovation in the NYC Administration.” Innovation: Organization & Management, 21 (1), 128–150.

• Kammerlander, N., König, A., & Richards, M. (2018): “Why Do Incumbents Respond Heterogeneously to Disruptive Innovations? The Interplay of Domain Identity and Role Identity.” Journal of Management Studies, 55 (7), 1122–1165.

• Kaplan, S. (2011): “Research in Cognition and Strategy: Reflections on Two Decades of Progress and a Look to the Future.” Journal of Management Studies, 48 (3), 665–695.

• Khanagha, S., Ansari, S., Paroutis, S., & Oviedo, L. (2022): “Mutualism and the Dynamics of New Platform Creation: A Study of Cisco and Fog Computing.” Strategic Management Journal, 43 (3), 476–506.

• König, A., Graf-Vlachy, L., & Schöberl, M. (2020): “Opportunity/Threat Perception and Inertia in Response to Discontinuous Change: Replicating and Extending Gilbert (2005).” Journal of Management, 47 (3), 771–816.

• König, A., Stöcklein, B., Hiller, N., Cooper, C., & Bong, D. (2024): “Good Fun or Laughingstock? How CEO Humor Affects Infomediaries’ Social Evaluations of Organizations.” Academy of Management Review, 50 (3), https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2020.0526.

• Kretschmer, T., Leiponen, A., Schilling, M., & Vasudeva, G. (2022): “Platform Ecosystems as Metaorganizations: Implications for Platform Strategies.” Strategic Management Journal, 43 (3), 405–424.

• Lehmann, J., Weber, F., Waldkirch, M., Graf-Vlachy, L., & König, A. (2022): “Institutional work battles in the sharing economy: Unveiling actors and discursive strategies in media discourse.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 184, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122002.

• Maitlis, S., & Christianson, M. (2014): “Sensemaking in Organizations: Taking Stock and Moving Forward.” Academy of Management Annals, 8 (1), 57–125.

• Ocasio, W. (2025): “Attentional Control: Institutions, Management, Organizations, and Algorithms.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 34 (1), 3–18.

• Ocasio, W., Yakis-Douglas, B., Boynton, D., Laamanen, T., Rerup, C., Vaara, E., & Whittington, R. (2023): “It’s a Different World: A Dialog on the Attention-Based View in a Post-Chandlerian World.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 32 (2), 107–119.

• Porac, J.F., Thomas, H., & Baden‐Fuller, C. (2011): “Competitive Groups as Cognitive Communities: The Case of Scottish Knitwear Manufacturers Revisited.” Journal of Management Studies, 48 (3), 646–664.

• Randhawa, K., Vanhaverbeke, W., & Ritala, P. (2024): “Legitimizing Digital Technologies in Open Innovation Ecosystems: Overcoming Adoption Barriers in Healthcare.” California Management Review, 67 (1), 45–68.

• Randhawa, K., Wilden, R., & Gudergan, S. (2018): “Open Service Innovation: The Role of Intermediary Capabilities.” Journal of Product Innovation Management, 35 (5), 808–838.

• Reischauer, G., Engelmann, A., Gawer, A., & Hoffmann, W.H. (2024): “The slipstream strategy: How high-status OEMs coopete with platforms to maintain their digital extensions’ edge.” Research Policy, 53 (7), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2024.105032.

• Reischauer, G., Engelmann, A., & Hoffmann, W.H. (2025): “Politicized Framing of the Future: Encouraging Innovation in Mature Ecosystems in the Face of Asymmetric De Alio Entrants.” Journal of Management Studies, first published online on June 8, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13253.

• Reischauer, G., & Fuenfschilling, L. (2023): “Digital Sustainability: Tackling Climate Change with Bits and Bytes.” In: M. Starik, G. Rands, P. Kanashiro, & J. Deason (eds.): Handbook of Multi-Level Climate Actions: Sparking and Sustaining Transformative Approaches. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 173–186.

• Reischauer, G., & Hoffmann, W.H (2023): “Digital Coopetition: Creating and Capturing Value with Rivals in the Age of Algorithms, Big Data, and Platforms.” In: C. Cennamo, G. Dagnino, & F. Zhu (eds.): Handbook of Research on Digital Strategy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 360–375.

• Reischauer, G., & Mair, J. (2018a): “How Organizations Strategically Govern Online Communities: Lessons from the Sharing Economy.” Academy of Management Discoveries, 4 (3), 220–247.

• Reischauer, G., & Mair, J. (2018b): “Platform Organizing in the New Digital Economy: Revisiting Online Communities and Strategic Responses.” Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 57, 113–135.

• Simsek, Z., Heavey, C., König, A., & Stam, W. (2024): “Leading Digital Transformation in Incumbent Firms: A Strategic Entrepreneurship Framing.” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 18, (1), 91–102.

• Subramaniam, M. (2020): “Digital ecosystems and their implications for competitive strategy.” Journal of Organization Design, 9 (1), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41469-020-00073-0.

• Thomas, L.D.W., & Ritala, P. (2022): “Ecosystem Legitimacy Emergence: A Collective Action View.” Journal of Management, 48 (3), 515–541.

• Vith, S., Oberg, A., Höllerer, M.A., & Meyer, R.E. (2019): “Envisioning the ‘Sharing City’: Governance Strategies for the Sharing Economy.” Journal of Business Ethics, 159 (4), 1023–1046.

• Walsh, J.P. (1995): “Managerial and Organizational Cognition: Notes from a Trip Down Memory Lane.” Organization Science, 6 (3), 280–321.

• Weber, F., Lehmann, J., Graf-Vlachy, L., & König, A. (2019): “Institution-Infused Sensemaking of Discontinuous Innovations: The Case of the Sharing Economy.” Journal of Product Innovation Management, 36 (5), 632–660.

• Wilden, R., Lin, N., Hohberger, J., & Randhawa, K. (2023): “Selecting Innovation Projects: Do Middle and Senior Managers Differ When It Comes to Radical Innovation?” Journal of Management Studies, 60 (7), 1720–1751.

• Zuboff, S. (2022): “Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy? The Death Match of Institutional Orders and the Politics of Knowledge in Our Information Civilization.” Organization Theory, 3 (3), https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877221129290.