International Summer School

On the logic of Self-reinforcing Processes

 in Organizations, Networks, and Markets

to be held at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, July 13 – 17, 2009.

Convenors: Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow (Freie Universität Berlin) in collaboration with Huseyin Leblebici (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

 

 

Call for Applications

 

Self-reinforcing dynamics have been identified as highly important drivers of technological and organizational standardization, of path dependence, of escalating commitment to problematic decisions, of regional clustering of industries, of organizational inertia and strategic persistencies, to name but a few. Patterns of self-reinforcement are set into motion through various forces such as increasing returns, continued self-justification, external network effects or complementarities. Once underway, these processes are difficult to stop and even more difficult to reverse into a different, more preferable direction. Although well-known phenomena up to now a dearth of attention has been given in research to self – reinforcing processes. The key objective of the Summer School therefore is to bring together researchers from different disciplines studying self-reinforcing phenomena and to elaborate jointly on their dynamics on different levels, on the individual, the organizational, the network or on the market level respectively. The Summer School aims at reaching a deeper understanding of the logic of self-reinforcing dynamics employing different theoretical perspectives and a variety of research methodologies.

 

The Summer School should be of interest to scholars from the field of business studies, of economic geography, economic history, organizational sociology, and political science. Only a small number of scholars will be accepted to present and discuss their work. The selection process will ensure that the participants will constitute a truly interdisciplinary group. The interdisciplinary approach is also reflected in the team of convenors and the visiting lecturers. Among the latter are Amalya L. Oliver of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and David Stark of Columbia University New York, and Gregory Jackson, University of Bath.   

 

The Summer School particularly invites contributions that focus on one or more of the following issues:

• The role of initial conditions for self-reinforcing developments;
• Dynamics of self-reinforcing mechanisms, and lock-in;
• Forms of path dependence and their development over time;
• Analysis of inter-organizational dynamics, focusing, e.g., on science-industry relations, global alliances, regional clusters, etc.;
• The interplay among self-reinforcing processes between different levels of analysis (individual, group, organizational, network, field, region, society);

 

Applications discussing such substantive issues, and possibly others, empirically or conceptually, comparatively or monographically, with regard to recent or more historical developments, are cordially invited.

The Summer School wishes to attract both high-quality contributions that are ready to be submitted to a research journal as well as research in progress that explores challenging issues in self-reinforcing dynamics. It seeks to provide an opportunity for engaging in constructive dialogue and to encourage mutual learning among the participating scholars. Papers will be distributed in advance of the Summer School. Interested participants should submit to an abstract to joerg.sydow@fu-berlin.de of no more than 1000 words for their proposed contribution by May 4^th, 2009.

 

The submission must be made via email and it must be a Word or PDF attachment. It should contain author’s CV incl. list of publications, institutional affiliation, email and postal addresses. Authors will be notified of acceptance or otherwise by May 18^th, 2009. Full papers would have to be submitted by June 30, 2009.

Those who will be accepted for presenting their research at the International Summer School will receive a grant covering travel and accommodation costs. These grants are awarded by the Centre for International Cooperation (CIC) of Freie Universität Berlin.

 

Curricula Vitae of the Convenors

Huseyin Leblebici is a professor of Organizational Behavior and the Head of the Department of Business Administration. He received his MBA and Ph.D. in organizational behavior from UIUC. He teaches courses and conducts research dealing with macro organizational behavior, particularly with organizational design, inter-organizational relations, and organizational forms. He has served on a number of editorial boards including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Journal of Management, Academy of Management Review, and Organization Studies and his work has appeared in journals such asAdministrative Science Quarterly, Social Forces, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. He is also the acting director of the Office of Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which focuses on the role of social and economic infrastructure that leads to business innovations and the development of high growth firms.

Address: Department of Business Administration, University Of Illinois, 308 Wohlers Hall

1206 S. Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820 USA; E-mail: hleblebi@uiuc.edu http://www.business.uiuc.edu/facultyprofile/faculty_profile.aspx?ID=92

 

Georg Schreyögg is a full professor of Organization and Leadership at Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests include strategic change, organizational capabilities and path dependency. He received his two doctorates in business administration from Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. He was an International Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) Research, UK, and Elected Fellow at German Research Foundation (DFG). He was President of the German Association of University Teachers for Business Administration (VHB): 2005- 2006.

 

He has been a member of the editorial board of several international journals and is co-editor of Managementforschung. He has published eight books, nine edited volumes and over 150 contributions, which have appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, Organization Studies, Organization, and in numerous other journals and volumes.

 

Address: Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Management, Garystrasse 21, D-14195 Berlin; Email: www.fu-schreyoegg.de

 

http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/institute/management/schreyoegg/index.html

 

 

Jörg Sydow has earned his doctorate and habilitation in business administration at the Freie Universität Berlin where he is currently a Professor of Management at the School of Business & Economics. and director of the doctoral program “Research on Organizational Paths”. Be­fore he held a chair for planning and organization at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, and was a visiting professor at Bentley College, the Universities in Inns­bruck and Vienna, the University of Arizona, and the University of Strathclyde. From 2004 until 2007 he was an International Visiting Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) in London. He has published in Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Organization Science, Journal of Management, and Regional Studies. Moreover, he is a founding co-editor of two leading German journals, Management­forschung and Industrielle Beziehungen – The German Journal of Industrial Relations, and a member of the editorial boards of Organization Studies, Organization Science and Scandinavian Journal of Management.

 

Address: Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Management, Boltzmannstr. 20, D-14195 Berlin; Email: joerg.sydow@fu-berlin.de;

http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/en/institute/management/sydow/index.html  

 

Hotel Reservation

A number of hotel rooms has been blocked for the conference participants.

Hotel	Single	Double
Harnack Haus	69,50 €	115,19 €
Haus Leopold	72,00 €	-

For your hotel reservation please use the following links:

www.harnackhaus-berlin.mpg.de

www.hausleopold.de

 

Conference Papers

 

You find the conference papers in the dowload center.