Mini conference themes
Mini-conferences are based around a selected number of focused themes, and have open submissions for panels, based on an extended abstract (approx. 1000 words). Each mini-conference will consist of 2 to 6 panels. Each panel will have a discussant, meaning that selected participants must submit a completed paper by June 1st. If a paper proposal cannot be accommodated within a mini-conference, organizers will forward it to the program committee, who will pass it on to one of the networks as a regular submission. See below for descriptions of each mini-conference theme.
1: The Global Rise and Spread of Consumer Financial Services
2: Global Value Chains: Comparing Sectoral Patterns and National Institutional Contexts
3: Evolutionary Regulation: Rethinking the Role of Regulation in Economy and Society
4: Organization Theory and Workplace Politics Under Globalization
1. The Global Rise and Spread of Consumer Financial Services
The last several decades witnessed the expansion of consumer financial services to wider segments of more affluent societies, a process often referred to as the “democratization of finance.” With globalization, many consumer credit and investment services are now also available in the developing world and emerging economies and they are becoming an increasingly pervasive force in the lives of households everywhere. The expansion brought about new financial products, such as interest-only mortgages, express loans, on-line person-to-person lending, and new investment options. These processes are also accompanied by the rationalization and routinization of lending transactions and investment decisions. We welcome papers that deal with various aspects of consumer finance expansion and financial innovation, either in the global or in a particular national context. We are interested in contributions that address the moving forces and institutional preconditions of this historic process, the social aspects of its technology, and the role of social and political intervention in maintaining and reproducing this new market. We are also looking for research focusing on the effects of the new financial services on social cohesion, social inequalities, predictability and governmentality, as well as on their role in transforming culture and social relations by altering notions of financial, social and personal responsibility, obligation, trust, rational calculation, and identity.
2. Global Value Chains: Comparing Sectoral Patterns and National Institutional Contexts
The revolution in information and communication technologies (ICT) and trade liberalization have created new possibilities for breaking up and integrating global value chains. While value chains in manufacturing have long since taken on global dimensions, knowledge-intensive business services (e.g. accounting & finance, engineering, IT, human resources, legal, R&D, etc.) are increasingly also managed in a value chain involving dispersed locations and ownership. This mini-conference aims to bring together social scientists interested in analyzing the causes and consequences of this offshoring-outsourcing phenomenon. In particular, in what ways might the global value chain framework be modified when applied to different sectors, such as knowledge-intensive services rather than manufacturing? Why are knowledge-intensive and professional services subjected to global delivery, and what is the impact of offshoring-outsourcing on the nature of professional work? We also welcome contributions on the influence of national institutional context on strategies of firms engaged in a global value chain. What are alternative strategies pursued by firms and nations for capturing profit and upgrading in these value chains? Papers may draw on a variety of disciplines including economic sociology, politics, and management (e.g. strategy), and may engage in analysis at the global, national, sectoral, or corporate levels.
3. Evolutionary Regulation: Rethinking the Role of Regulation in Economy and Society
Transformations driven by deregulation, technological change, financialization, and globalization, international accounting convergence, and the ongoing financial crisis have challenged our settled modes of regulation. They have provoked the development of disparate and even rival modes of regulation, and raised questions about received perspectives on the role of the state and the law. In regulatory evolution, intentional design, unintended consequences, learning, and dynamic adjustments interact, and every global or local regulator must settle the delicate balance between principles, norms and rules in this evolutionary context. This mini-conference aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on regulation and regulatory intervention in human affairs by shifting towards greater recognition of the fundamental implications of such evolutionary regulation embedded in economic and social systems. Scholars adopting different perspectives on these issues and coming from different disciplines are invited to share their views in order to generate ideas and suggestions for addressing the current impasse and rethinking the role of regulation in economy and society.
4. Organization Theory and Workplace Politics Under Globalization
In a context of global competition, internationalized production, and neoliberal state regulation, workplace politics have undergone profound transformations. The sociology of work (including labor process analysis, studies of occupations and professions, work redesign, and gender) has documented and theorized changing workplace politics under globalization. Meantime, organization theory has generated insights regarding routines, capabilities, institutions and organizational environments that can provide a powerful view of organizational change implied by globalization, but has largely failed to account for the operation of power relations within or between organizations under competitive pressures. A more explicit integration of the two broad disciplines – organization theory or sociology of work – offers a promise to better understand and explain the wide variation in work organization, relationships, and practices (e.g. reconciling the seemingly contradictory processes of upskilling or collaborative work in a context of ongoing pressures for cost cutting, externalization, work intensification, short-termism, etc). We invite contributions from scholars developing approaches that combine insights from different theoretical traditions of organization theory (e.g. new institutionalism, social-network analysis, sense-making, practice perspectives) with concerns about power and politics in shaping the worlds of work. Examples could range from qualitative research on particular workplaces to quantitative research on broader trends or forces shaping workplace change; from a focus on independent SMEs to firms (and unions) in global supply chains, to employment practices in multinational corporations. This mini-conference is open to a wide range of empirical foci so long as authors seek to integrate insights from organization theory with a focus on power and politics at work.