SWG 07 – Organizations and Place-Based Communities

 

Coordinators

Christof Brandtner, emlyon Business School, France
Laura Dupin, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Santi Furnari, Bayes Business School, United Kingdom
Markus A. Höllerer, UNSW Sydney, Australia
Suntae Kim, John Hopkins Carey Business School, United States
Silviya Svejenova, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

The overall aim of the SWG 07 "Organizations and Place-Based Communities" is to make a substantial advancement of an important, increasingly prominent, yet to date conceptually somewhat fragmented area within the research on organizations and place-based communities: how organizations and communities mutually influence each other, and what the organizational mechanisms and forms are that sustain flourishing and resilient communities.

The relationship between organizations and place-based communities, such as neighborhoods, cities, and regions, is a central topic in organization theory. Organizations and place-based communities both impact and are impacted by the ongoing transformation of technologies and broader local-global dynamics. While digital platforms and the internet have enabled remote- only, ‘place-less’ organizations (e.g., Davis, 2023), local communities around the world have become increasingly impoverished (e.g., Kim & Kim 2020; Edin et al., 2023) and depleted of their organizational, institutional, and mobilization capacities (e.g., McAdam and Boudet, 2012; Han et a., 2021; Putnam & Garrett, 2020). The climate crisis further stresses the role of community in organizing, for instance in the context of the responsibility of multi-national organizations operating in various local communities or the unequal diffusion of green technologies and practices among organizations located in different place-based communities (Shwom 2009; Marquis et al., 2013; Brandtner, 2022).

Empirically, these developments signal that new organizational forms, mechanisms, and phenomena emerge when organizations intersect with the place-based communities in which they are embedded. Place-based communities are often rich in cultural meaning, social networks, and physical infrastructure. We need to understand these dynamics if organization scholars wish to help address the grand challenges of our time – climate change, refugee crises, income inequality, and just transitions, to name a few. Theoretically, this observation requires a shift of interest from understanding how place-based communities influence organizations (e.g., Marquis et al., 2011) to re-focusing on the multiple and varied ways organizations and place-based communities mutually influence each other (e.g., Dupin and Wezel, 2023). This SWG encourages and invites research using various qualitative and quantitative methods that track both sides of the mutual relationship between organizations and place-based communities.


We believe now is the time to delve into these pressing questions:

  • How do organizations shape and maintain place-based communities?

  • What types of place-based communities are fostered and evolve through diverse organizational mechanisms and forms?
  • How is community-based organizing initiated and sustained?
  • How to theorize and empirically investigate the multi-dimensional disparities across different place-based communities?
  • What role do local-global dynamics and tensions play in shaping the relationship between organizations and place-based communities?
  • What are the physical, cultural, and institutional infrastructures that underpin thriving place-based communities?
  • What insights can organizational scholars offer on the renewed focus on place-based policies, industrial policies, and local entrepreneurship that are resurfacing across Europe and the world at large?
This SWG was conceived to expand, rejuvenate, and elevate organizational scholarship on organizations and place-based communities. The primary aim is to address the new empirical and theoretical developments that underscore the mutual influence between organizations and place-based communities. The SWG is not just a platform for scholarly contributions but a catalyst for new learning and insights into these crucial themes, bringing traditions in urban studies, urban planning, urban sociology, human and economic geography, architecture, and other studies of place, places, and territories to bear on cutting-edge questions in organization studies.

We invite researchers at all levels of familiarity with this broad, multi-disciplinary literature and the professionals that practice it every day, at all stages of their careers, and all sorts of scholarly and geographic experiences, to embark with us on a joint journey to create the kind of place-based communities we want to see in the world.

References

  • Brandtner, C. (2022): "Green American city: Civic capacity and the distributed adoption of urban innovations." American Journal of Sociology, 128, 627-679.

  • Davis, G.F. (2023): Taming corporate power in the 21st century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Dupin, L., &  Wezel, F.C. (2023): "Artisanal or just half-baked: Competing collective identities and location choice among French bakeries." Administrative Science Quarterly, 68, 867-909.

  • Edin, K.J., Shaefer, H.L., & Nelon, T.J. (2023): The injustice of place: Uncovering the legacy of poverty in America. New York: Mariner Books.

  • Furnari, S. (2014): "Interstitial spaces: Microinteraction settings and the genesis of new practices between institutional fields." Academy of Management Review, 39, 439-462.

  • Han, H., McKenna, E., & Oyakawa, M. (2021): Prisms of the people: Power & organizing in twenty-first-century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Jones, C., Maoret, M., Massa, F.G., & Svejenova, S. (2012): "Rebels with a cause: Formation, contestation, and expansion of the de novo category ‘Modern Architecture,’ 1870-1975." Organization Science, 23, 1523-1545.

  • Kim, S. & Kim, A. (2022): "Going viral or growing like an oak tree? Towards sustainable local development through entrepreneurship." Academy of Management Journal, 65, 1709-1746.

  • Klinenberg, E. (2018): Palaces for the people: How social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life. New York: Penguin Random House.

  • Marquis, C., Davis, G.F., & Glynn, M.A. (2013): "Golfing alone? Corporations, elites, and nonprofit growth in 100 American communities." Organization Science, 24 (1), 39-57.

  • Marquis, C., Lounsbury, M., & Greenwood, R. (eds.). (2011): Communities and organizations. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 33. Leeds: Emerald Publishing Limited.

  • McAdam, D., & Boudet, H. (2012): Putting social movements in their place. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Putnam, R.D., & Garrett, S.R. (2020): The upswing: How America came together a century ago and how we can do it again. First Simon & Schuster hardcover editions. Simon and Schuster.

  • Shwom, R. (2009): "Strengthening sociological perspectives on organizations and the environment." Organization & Environment, 22, 271-292.

Christof Brandtner is Associate Professor of Social Innovation at emlyon business school, a Fellow in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s program on Innovation, Equity, and the Future of Prosperity, and a co-founder of the Civic Life of Cities Lab. His research examines the emergence, diffusion, and implementation of social innovations – organizational practices and policies aimed at making cities and communities more sustainable and prosperous. This research has appeared in leading journals in organizational theory and sociology, including the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Organization Studies, the Journal of Business Ethnics, and Urban Studies and won multiple awards from the American Sociological Association. His book Cities in Action: Organizations, Institutions, and Urban Climate Strategies appears from Columbia University Press (2026).

Laura Dupin is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam. Laura’s research focuses on the interplay between sociocognitive and spatial features that affect organizations’ and entrepreneurs’ strategic behavior. She was a 2023-2024 fellow with the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study (NIAS) for her multidisciplinary project on The Built Environment and the Spatial Segregation of Neighborhood Organizations and Entrepreneurs and is currently co-editing a special issue for Urban Studies on Organizations and Urban Inequality. Her work has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, and Organization Studies.

Santi Furnari is a Professor of Strategy at Bayes Business School in London, a Senior Editor at Organization Studies, and a Visiting Scholar (non-in-residence) at Northwestern University. He studies how organizations and organizing impact local communities, for example by shaping the emergence of industrial clusters and civic places, such as widely embraced public parks. He is also an expert of configurational theorizing and methods. His research has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. Previously, he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, an Associate Dean at Bayes, and a Representative-at-Large of the Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division of the Academy of Management.
 
Markus A. Höllerer is Professor in Organization and Management at UNSW Sydney Business School, as well as Senior Research Fellow at WU Vienna, Austria. His scholarly work focuses on the study of shifting institutional arrangements, social change, collective action in crisis situations, novel forms of organization and governance, digital sustainability, as well as institutions as multimodal accomplishments. His research has been published in outlets such as Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Discoveries, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Organization Theory, Public Administration, Strategic Organization, and Urban Studies, as well as in books and edited volumes. Currently, he is also co-Editor in-Chief of Organization Theory.

Suntae Kim is Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He studies processes whereby new forms of organizing emerge in various contexts of adversity by employing primarily qualitative research methods, with a strong focus on unpacking and theorizing processes. His research has been published in outlets such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Annual Review of Sociology, Psychological Science, and Harvard Business Review.

Silviya Svejenova is Professor at Copenhagen Business School and holds a PhD in Management from IESE, Barcelona. Her research examines how creativity, innovation, and leadership contribute to sustainable futures and communities. Her work is published widely in leading journals and books, and has received, among others, the Roland Calori Prize and the EGOS Book Award. She has co-edited Organization Studies special issues on craft, creative industries, biomateriality, and the material and visual turn. She currently serves as Chair of SCANCOR’s Board, Program Chair of the Academy of Management OMT Division, and is a former Chair of EGOS and OS Senior Editor.