CALL FOR PAPERS: From Diffusion of Practices to Practices of Diffusion.

The following Conference Call for Papers, similar in many ways to the Juris Diversitas Conference just held, was just announced. SPD

From Diffusion of Practices to Practices of Diffusion: Workshop on the Circulation of Ideas, Procedures and Regulations in Culture, Law and Economy

Warsaw, 12-13 May 2014

Organizing Institutions: Polish Sociological Association: Sociology of Law Section & Warsaw Department

Key-note Speaker: Marie-Laure Djelic -- ESSEC Business School

Call for Papers: The problem of diffusion situates us at the junction of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches of various research fields in social sciences. The common tendency of recent sociological treatments of diffusion is the zooming in on the processes taking place when ideas and objects circulate – such as mobilization, adaptation, theorization, dis-embeddedness and re-embeddedness, construction, hybridization and editing. Such focus is considered to link diffusion with heterogeneity and to challenge the institutional isomorphism perspective which depicted it as leading to homogeneity in organizational fields. It is also an approach to diffusion which advances a deeper, more ethnographic and descriptive analysis of the phenomenon.

The Workshop depicts this theoretical turn as the evolution of research interest from the diffusion of practices to practices of diffusion. The formula is suggestive as it also catches the nowadays research interest in diffusion as a social phenomenon in itself, and not just as one of the stages within a sequential process. The Workshop wishes to discuss and reconsider these theoretical developments on the basis of diffusion studies pertaining to the circulation of ideas, rules, procedures, regulations, classification systems and standards in culture, law and economy. The research of practices diffusion across organizations and legal systems evolved from the study of diffusion paths and means to the content and form of the ideas circulating. In addition to these developments, the Workshop also aims to consider diffusion processes at various levels of formalization, unsuccessful circulation processes, as well as efforts aimed at curbing the spread of certain practices and regulations.

The Workshop welcomes papers dealing with such topics as:

• Theories and models of diffusion in social sciences;
• Mediation, abstraction, transformation and editing of ideas, procedures and regulations during their implementation phase;
• Diffusion of practices and the construction of cultural categories of adopters;
• Social and cultural embeddedness of diffusion processes;
• The relationship between diffusion and institutionalization;
• The relationship between diffusion and institutional isomorphism;
• Unsuccessful diffusion phenomena in legal, organizational and economic fields
• Anti-diffusion activities and processes in legal, organizational and economic fields.

Registration and Deadlines:

Deadline for submitting paper proposals - 15 December 2013

Notification of paper acceptance - 15 January 2014

Deadline for registration - 15 March 2014

Abstracts should be submitted to Adriana Mica (a.mica@uw.edu.pl)

Please provide your personal information and institutional affiliation along with your proposal.

  

Conference Fee:

Regular fee - 110 Euro

Members of Polish Sociological Association in good standing - 90 Euro

The conference fee covers lunch breaks, conference dinner in the evening of the first day of the conference. 

Venue: To be announced.

Organizing Committee:

Anna Krajewska (University of Warsaw)

Adriana Mica (University of Warsaw)

Rafał Wiśniewski (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw).