Research in the Sociology of Organizations

Submission guidelines

See our guidance on how to write a proposal

To submit a proposal to this series, please get in touch with the series editor via email:

Professor Michael Lounsbury
Alberta School of Business, Canada
[email protected]

Editorial team

About the Editor

Series Editor

Professor Michael Lounsbury
Research in the Sociology of Organizations
Canada Research Chair in Entrepreneurship & Innovation University of Alberta

RSO Advisory Board

Howard E. Aldrich, University of North Carolina, USA
Shaz Ansari, Cambridge University, UNITED KINGDOM
Silvia Dorado Banacloche, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
Christine Beckman, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Marya Besharov, Oxford University, UNITED KINGDOM
Eva Boxenbaum, Copenhagen Business School, DENMARK
Ed Carberry, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
Lisa Cohen, McGill University, CANADA
Jeannette Colyvas, Northwestern University, USA
Erica Coslor, University of Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Gerald F. Davis, University of Michigan, USA
Rich Dejordy, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Rodolphe Durand, HEC Paris, FRANCE
Robert Eberhart, University of San Diego, USA
Fabrizio Ferraro, IESE Business School, SPAIN
Peer Fiss, University of Southern California, USA
Mary Ann Glynn, Boston College, USA
Nina Granqvist, Aalto University School of Business, FINLAND
Stine Grodal, Northeastern University, USA
Markus A. Hoellerer, University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA
Ruthanne Huising, emlyon business school, FRANCE
Candace Jones, University of Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM
Sarah Kaplan, University of Toronto, CANADA
Brayden G. King, Northwestern University, USA
Matthew S. Kraatz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Tom Lawrence, Oxford University, UNITED KINGDOM
Xiaowei Rose Luo, Insead, FRANCE
Johanna Mair, Hertie School, GERMANY
Christopher Marquis, Cambridge University, UNITED KINGDOM
Renate Meyer, Vienna University, AUSTRIA
William Ocasio, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Nelson Phillips, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Prateek Raj, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, INDIA
Marc Schneiberg, Reed College, USA
Marc-David Seidel, University of British Columbia, CANADA
Paul Spee, University of Queensland, AUSTRALIA
Paul Tracey, Cambridge University, UNITED KINGDOM
Kerstin Sahlin, Uppsala University, SWEDEN
Sarah Soule, Stanford University, USA
Eero Vaara, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM
Marc Ventresca, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM
Maxim Voronov, York University, CANADA
Filippo Carlo Wezel USI Lugano, SWITZERLAND
Melissa Wooten, Rutgers University, USA
April Wright, University of Warwick, UNITED KINGDOM
Meng Zhao, Nanyang Business School & Renmin University, CHINA
Enying Zheng, Peking University, CHINA
Tammar B. Zilber, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ISRAEL

Indexing & metrics

This title is abstracted and indexed by

H index of 36
Ranked 29 out of 227 in journals in OB and HRM (highest ranking book series)
+++Indexed in the CABS (Chartered Assn of B schools (academic journal guide)

Calls for submissions

ISSN: 0733-558X

Aims and scope

Research in the Sociology of Organizations (RSO) is an established international peer-reviewed series that examines cutting edge theoretical methodological and research issues in organizational studies.

The series is especially concerned with specifying the unique contributions of sociological theories and research techniques to the analysis of organizations. In addition to publishing high-quality original research, each volume aims to foster debate about the value of new theories and research to the growing international community of organizational studies scholars.

Each volume is designed around carefully selected and interesting themes that aim to facilitate the development of new research communities and perspectives within the organizational studies field. All contributions are peer reviewed to ensure high quality and are individually downloadable through your library website enabling wide distribution and easy access.

Research in the Sociology of Organizations publishes provocative papers that push the frontiers of current conversations, that help to revive old ones, or that incubate and develop new perspectives. Given its successes in this regard, RSO has become an impactful and indispensable fount of knowledge for scholars interested in organizational phenomena and theories. RSO is indexed and ranks highly in Scopus/SCImago as well as in the Academic Journal Guide published by the Chartered Association of Business Schools.

As one of the most vibrant areas in the social sciences, the sociology of organizations engages a plurality of empirical and theoretical approaches to enhance our understanding of the varied imperatives and challenges that these organizations and their organizers face. Of course, there is a diversity of formal and informal organizations – from for-profit entities to non-profits, state and public agencies, social enterprises, communal forms of organizing, non-governmental associations, trade associations, publicly traded, family-owned and managed, private firms – the list goes on! Organizations, moreover, can vary dramatically in size from small entrepreneurial ventures to large multi-national conglomerates to international governing bodies such as the United Nations.

Empirical topics addressed by Research in the Sociology of Organizations include:

The formation, survival, and growth of organizations
Collaboration and competition between organizations
The accumulation and management of resources and legitimacy
How organizations or organizing efforts cope with a multitude of internal and external challenges and pressures.

Particular interest is growing in the complexities of contemporary organizations as they cope with changing social expectations and as they seek to address societal problems related to corporate social responsibility, inequality, corruption and wrongdoing, and the challenge of new technologies. As a result, levels of analysis reach from the individual, to the organization, industry, community and field, and even the nation-state or world society. Much research is multi-level and embraces both qualitative and quantitative forms of data.

Diverse theory is employed or constructed to enhance our understanding of these topics. While anchored in the discipline of sociology and the field of management, Research in the Sociology of Organizations also welcomes theoretical engagement that draws on other disciplinary conversations – such as those in political science or economics, as well as work from diverse philosophical traditions. RSO scholarship has helped push forward a plethora of theoretical conversations on institutions and institutional change, networks, practice, culture, power, inequality, social movements, categories, routines, organization design and change, configurational dynamics and many other topics.

Each volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations tends to be thematically focused on a particular empirical phenomenon (e.g., creative industries, multinational corporations, entrepreneurship) or theoretical conversation (e.g., institutional logics, actors and agency, microfoundations). The series publishes papers by junior as well as leading international scholars, and embraces diversity on all dimensions. If you are scholar interested in organizations or organizing, I hope you find Research in the Sociology of Organizations to be an invaluable resource as you develop your work.

Research in the Sociology of Organizations is a unique and valuable resource for organizational scholars. Each volume includes articles by top scholars organized around a central theme—the sociology of entrepreneurship, comparative studies of organizations, change in culture industries, the financial crisis—providing a single point of entry into findings and debates in the contemporary literature. I look forward to every volume

Jerry Davis,
Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, USA

Research in the Sociology of Organizations publishes some of the best state-of-the-art articles in the field, which tend to get much attention and to generate many citations. It is a publication that meets the highest standards of refereeing and that attracts the best scholars in the field. Adding it to the Web of Science would make the database a much stronger resource for scholars.

Mauro F. Guillen
Dean, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK

Research in the Sociology of Organizations brings together high quality contributions addressing important issues and topics in a coherent and well organised manner. Each volume constitutes a valuable resource for organizational scholars and provides a single, authoritative point of entry into findings and debates in the contemporary literature. By integrating substantive papers on a common theme, these books make significant contributions to the literature in organisation studies.

Richard Whitley
Professor of Management and Organization Studies, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK

I strongly believe that Research in the Sociology of Organizations belongs in the Web of Science because of its increasingly significant role as an important resource for organizational scholars. Since its inception, it has attracted top scholars who have published papers in volumes organized around central themes that have captured cutting-edge trends in the field of organization studies. You will be doing a valuable service to our field if you made it possible for scholars to track citations to their work in this series.

Howard Aldrich
Kenan Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Research in the Sociology of Organizations provides an important venue for organizational researchers located in sociology departments, business schools, and beyond. Because the volumes often develop out of small, intense conferences, they provide unusually current and coherent representations of the state of the field with respect to pressing contemporary topics and fundamental theoretical debates.

Elisabeth S. Clemens
William Rainey Harper Distinguished Serivice Professor of Sociology and the College, University of Chicago, USA

Formal organizations are the trademark of contemporary societies, and Research in the Sociology of Organizations collects works that throw light on this phenomenon. Sharp and incisive, the sociological eye pierces legitimate facades, and helps the reader understand organizational fashions, changes and developments. The series is a valuable edition to each library – institutional and private.

Barbara Czarniawska
Professor of Management Studies, Gothenburg Research Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Research in the Sociology of Organizations consistently selects the most interesting issues in the field of organization and publishes original essays by the field’s best known experts in each volume. The series meets a definite need in the discipline, enabling broader discussion of contributions on an impressive range of topics. Its volumes are scholarly, contemporary, and always of major interest to an influential readership.

Paul M. Hirsch
James Allen Professor of Strategy and Organization, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA

Extending over a period of more than twenty-five years, Research in the Sociology of Organizations (RSO) has become a central outlet for contemporary research and theory in organizational sociology. Its influence has grown in recent years with its successive focus on selected issues or topics, including deviance, networks, governance, and legitimacy processes. Under recent editors, RSO has been successful in attracting leading scholars in the discipline to publish their papers in this annual volume. It has become as central to macro-organization scholars as Research in Organizational Behavior (ROB) for scholars pursuing micro-organizational studies.

W. Richard Scott
Emeritus Professor, Stanford University, USA

Research in the Sociology of Organizations is a valuable source of original contributions on a wide variety of themes all highly relevant. Each volume sets the scene of current debates on a topical issue. I particularly appreciate the combination of breadth and depth that characterizes each volume. I find it very useful for my own personal work and I also regularly recommend volumes of this series to my PhD students as they look for an up-to-date, clear and comprehensive survey of a given theme.

Marie-laure Djelic
Director at Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland

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