The Journal of Professions and Organization is inviting contributions for its upcoming Special Issue on “Networks of Expertise: New Approaches to Study Professions and the Social Organization of Expert Labor”. In recent decades, the study of professions and expert labor has taken a relational turn (Anteby et al. 2016; Emirbayer 1997; Huising 2015). Moving beyond the longstanding focus on boundary work and jurisdictional struggles, researchers began considering the myriad ways in which coordination across boundaries is necessary for the performance of expert tasks, and how expert tasks, problems, and solutions can emerge from unexpected and manifold connections and associations between diverse actors, institutions, and technologies.
Embracing the significance of these webs of relations calls for inquiries across multiple levels of analysis, bridging individual/group, micro/macro, human/material, and lay/expert dichotomous distinctions (Eyal 2013; Latour 1987; Irigaray 1977). In this vein, studies explore how groups of experts build such connections to one another (DiBenigno 2020; Jarzabkowski et al. 2015; Kellogg et al. 2006); the role played by clients and patients in the performance of professional tasks (Akrich and Rabeharisoa 2023; Elmholdt et al. 2025); how organizational structures facilitate or hinder such collaborations (DiBenigno and Kellogg 2014; Henriksen and Seabrooke 2016); the impact of new technologies on the organization of expert labor (Orlikowski and Barley 2001, Schubert 2011); and the historical and institutional contexts from which these connections emerge (Eyal 2013).
This special issue is dedicated to empirical and theoretical contributions that harness the innovative potential of the expanded lens of expertise networks. It particularly welcomes submissions that explore the specific contributions of this approach to the study of experts, professions, organizations, and past as well as ongoing shifts in the social organization of expertise. This includes contributions that elaborate, develop, apply, or critique the network of expertise approach and/or bring it into conversation with existing approaches to foster a deeper understanding of both continuities and discontinuities in the social organization of expertise. Contributions from varied national contexts, institutional and organizational settings, and types of expertise are equally encouraged. Questions of interest include, but are not limited to:
How do different groups of experts coordinate for approaching expert tasks and problems?
Under what conditions is trust in experts sustained or lost? Which types of performative work and expertise network structures are better suited to securing trust in expertise?
What are the societal preconditions and consequences of the changing nature of expertise?
How do organizations enable and constrain (alternative) expert performance, and what impact do new organizational demands and recent organizational forms, such as platform organizations, have?
What are the changes in the organization of expert labor following the introduction of new technologies (e.g., new energy sources and GenAI)? When is AI used to monitor or control expert work, when does it create new markets for expertise, and under what conditions does it become an alternative to professionalized expert opinion?
What theories help us to better grasp the phenomenon of networked expertise, and what potential does the study of expertise offer for theorizing (including theorizing from so-called neglected cases (Krause 2021, 2024)?
What methodological “tools of the trade” are helpful for comprehensively mapping networks of expertise?
Deadlines:
Abstract deadline: July 15, 2026 (1-2 pages)
Invitation from the special issue editors to submit full manuscripts: September 15, 2026
Full paper submission: March 15, 2027 (up to 10,000 words including all references, tables, and appendices)
Please submit abstracts to the special issue editors for initial review. When submitting full manuscripts, please follow the submission guidelines of The Journal of Professions and Organization and indicate that the manuscript is intended for the special issue “Networks of Expertise: New Approaches to Study Professions and the Social Organization of Expert Labor.”
For further information, authors are encouraged to contact the special issue editors:
Netta Avnoon (navnon@uwo.ca)
Désirée Waibel (desiree.waibel@unilu.ch)
Gil Eyal (ge2027@columbia.edu)
For further details, visit https://academic.oup.com/jpo/pages/cfp-networks-of-expertise?__cf_chl_f_tk=0SgVq_3A5ozL.Zex_szqRzp2MTcVBnTZzJ2BXpORFHk-1782989312-1.0.1.1-nrDylSahTnhQ7tvp7XRaHfLTUrJ6Js91XMkGQ1D3Wi0