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”.

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

Haridimos Tsoukas, University of Cyprus, Cyprus and University of Warwick, UK

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