About
Rationale: What is Process Organization Studies?
Process Organization Studies (PROS) is a way of studying organizations that is grounded on process metaphysics – the worldview that sees processes, rather than substances, as the basic forms of the universe. A process view:
-
Rests on a relational ontology, a performative epistemology, and a dynamic praxeology.
-
Focuses on becoming, change, and flux, and pays particular attention to forms of agency
-
Prioritizes process over outcome, activity over product, change over persistence, novelty over stasis, open-endedness over determination.
-
Invites us to acknowledge, rather than reduce, the complexity of the world and, in that sense, it is animated by what philosopher Stephen Toulmin called an “ecological style” of thinking
Purpose, Venue, and Organization
PROS is an annual event organized in conjunction with the annual series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies, published by Oxford University Press, and it takes place in a Greek island, in June every year. Topics have included: “Language and communication @ work: Discourse, narrativity and organizing”, “The emergence of novelty in organizations”, and “Organization routines: How they are created, maintained and changed” (details of all Symposia so far can be seen here).
The aim of the Symposium is to consolidate, integrate, and further develop ongoing efforts to advance a sophisticated process perspective in organization and management studies.
Perspectives on Process Organization Studies
This Series aims to explore research issues in organization studies from a process perspective. It is linked to the International Symposium on Process Organization Studies, which is an annual event, organized in June every year, in a Mediterranean island. P-PROS draws papers already competitively selected for the Symposium, some of which, after further double-blind reviewing, are published in an annual volume.
Editors in Chief
Ann Langley, HEC Montréal, Canada, ann.langley@hec.ca
Haridimos Tsoukas, University of Cyprus, Cyprus and University of Warwick, UK, process.symposium@gmail.com
Advisory Board
Hamid Bouchikhi, ESSEC Business School, France
Michel Callon, CSI-Ecole des Mines de Paris, France
Robert Chia, University of Strathclyde, UK
Todd Chiles, University of Missouri, USA
Barbara Czarniawska, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
François Cooren, Université de Montréal, Canada
Martha Feldman, University of California, Irvine, USA
Raghu Garud, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Silvia Gherardi, University of Trento, Italy
Cynthia Hardy, University of Melbourne, Australia
Robin Holt, University of Liverpool, UK
Paula Jarzabkowski, Aston Business School, UK
Sally Maitlis, University of British Columbia, Canada
Wanda Orlikowski, MIT, USA
Brian T. Pentland, Michigan State University, USA
Marshall Scott Poole, University of Illinois, USA
Georg Schreyögg, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Kathleen Sutcliffe, University of Michigan, USA
Andew Van de Ven, University of Minnesota, USA
Karl E. Weick, University of Michigan, USA
Editorial Officer & Process Symposium Administrator
Sophia Tzagaraki, process.symposium@gmail.com