The 6th and final meeting of our Scientific Network revolved around the association of field-configuring events with dynamics of creativity and innovation. We approached this connection from two ends: field-configuring events (and other forms of organized co-presence) are expected to bring about novelty and change, for instance in organizational fields; but the organizing of field-configuring (and other kinds of) events often also requires creativity, because such events are typically accompanyied by many surprises and high complexity. Our two international keynote speakers were Harald Bathelt (Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Toronto) and Martin Müller (Professor of Space and Organization at the University of Zurich). 

As usual, Elke Schüßler opened the meeting with some welcoming words, particularly introducing her new colleagues and guests from the JKU Linz where this meeting was held. Then, Jörg Sydow (together with Benjamin Schiemer and Elke Schüßler) introduced a new research project dealing with organized co-presence in the context of the DFG Research Unit "Organized Creativity". 

Our first keynote speaker, Harald Bathelt, presented a new research project concerned with forms of temporary market organization at the Canton Fair, a massive and traditional trade fair in China which he had long been fascinated to study. He and his coauthors identified four forms of temporary market exchanges unfolding at trade fairs, thus enhancing our understanding of the dynamics underlying temporary interactions at trade fairs.

After a coffee break, Robert Bauer and Thomas Gegenhuber presented their ongoing research on crowdsourcing platforms as intermediaries, thereby moving us to dynamics of organizing creativity in a virtual realm.

With this setting in mind, we visited the Tabakfabrik Linz, an ambitous urban development project focused on organizing physical copresence in the now empty building of a former tobacco production site designed by architect Peter Behrens, founder of the Bauhaus movement. 

The first day ended with a joint dinner in the old town of Linz.

On the second day, Martin Müller sketched out his ideas for a monography on organizing the Olympic Games as "liquid organizing". Complementing his talk, Joachim Thiel laid out a more pessimistic analysis on Olympic Games organizing by highlighting path dependencies and difficulties of learning and transferring knowledge over time. 

After lunch at the "Teichwerk", we split up into two work groups, one discussing the potential of the garbage can theory for understanding dynamics of temporary co-presence and creativity, and another discussing methodological opportunities for studying organized copresence in physical and virtual spaces. We concluded our workshop with a joint discussion.

(by Elke Schüßler)

Important Information

Agenda

How to get there

Presentations

Introduction by Elke Schüßler

Keynote by Harald Bathelt

Reflection on the Olympic Games by Joachim Thiel