ISA RC17 (Sociology of Organizations) invites abstracts for its upcoming mid-term conference on ‘Plurality, Diversity and Social Inequality in Organizations’, to be held on 16th and 17th March 2026, in Potsdam, Germany.
Organizations are confronted with a plurality of rapidly changing challenges to which they respond in various ways. Among these challenges are the organizational governance of claims for the recognition of group identities and differences, issues of sustainability, climate action, organizational responsibility, and the challenges posed by digitalization and generative AI. These processes of rapid change do not occur simultaneously across the world; they often begin in some countries or regions and are taken up elsewhere only after several years. When organizations adapt to such newly emerging challenges, their responses may remain superficial, or organizational changes may take so long that trends and socio-political discourses in the organizational environment shift before the changes are fully implemented. The organizers call for papers that address rapid and gradual, superficial and profound organizational changes, as well as organizational resistance to expectations of change, as well as organizational resistance to expectations of change, in the following three themes:
Submissions must relate to one or several of the themes and/or the Leitmotif of the conference. Submissions that address one conference theme are as encouraged as those that address several themes. Please submit an abstract of 600-1200 words (excluding references) by November 10, 2025.
Organizing Committee:
Maja Apelt, University of Potsdam, Germany
Nadine Arnold, University of Lucerne, Switzerland
Cristina Besio, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany
Michael Grothe-Hammer, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Marco Jöstingmeier, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany
Uli Meyer, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
Ines Michalowski, University of Münster, Germany
Kurt Rachlitz, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Joint Conference by:
Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam
https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/wiso/faculty/overview-of-the-faculty-of-economics-and-social-sciences
Section for Organizational Sociology of the German Sociological Association
https://organisations-soziologie.de/english/
Research Committee 17 “Sociology of Organizations” of the International Sociological Association
www.organizational-sociology.com
DFG-Network “Modes of organizational diversity: theories, methodologies and practices“
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/691274.html
“Organization & Society” Research Group at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU Trondheim
www.ntnu.edu/web/iss/organization-and-society
For details, see: https://icos2026.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/5