New Essay in »Digital Responsibility: Building Bridges Between Organization Theory and Information Systems« in SBUR

Cover of SBUR journal

In the wake of a workshop on “Digital Responsibility” at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Professors of Business Administration (VHB) at Leuphana University Lüneburg that brought together scholars and perspectives from organization studies (OS) and information systems (IS), the workshop organizers Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich, Markus Zimmer and Stefanie Habersang edited a curated essay collection to be published in Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (SBUR).

Together with Elke Schüßler and Maren Gierlich-Joas, I contributed one such essay offering “Interdisciplinary Theoretical Reflections On Digital Responsibility”. It is summarized in the introducation as follows:

Essay 1 situates the first and second fault line in OS and IS scholars ongoing discourses on theory. The authors distinguish three views of theorizing that we can find in both disciplines. They highlight that OT and IS scholars often draw on the same theories, which provides a basis for interdisciplinary research into digital responsibility. Offering a vantage point, they present avenues for such research by their three views of theorizing.

The whole essay collection is available open access over at SBUR.

Digital Democracy Day 2025: Interview und Impuls

Screenshot Online-Impuls im Rahmen des Digital Democracy Day 2025

Am 6. November 2025 fand in Berlin zum ersten Mal der #DigitalDemocracyDay2025 statt. Ich durfte mit einem kurzen Online-Impuls zum Thema “Von Wikipedia für Digitale Demokratie lernen” mit dabei sein (Slides). Bereits vorab hat Bernhard Seiler für SWR Aktuell Radio mit mir zum Thema gesprochen – das Interview findet sich hier zum Nachhören:

Die Aufzeichnung des Livestreams der Veranstaltung ist bereits online, mein Beitrag beginnt ungefähr bei 1h40 Minuten:

Im Folgenden meine Vortragsnotizen für all jene, die lieber lesen als schauen:

Continue reading “Digital Democracy Day 2025: Interview und Impuls” →

Call for Submissions: 3rd Open Strategy Workshop at University of Innsbruck

Location of the 3rd Open Strategy Workshop in Innsbruck (Credit: Leonhard Lenz, CC0)

After the first two workshops gathering Open Strategy scholars took place in Zurich (2024) and Oxford (2025), we are excited to announce the 3rd workshop will be hosted by University of Innsbruck on June 25-26, 2026. The call for extended abstracts is already live. Your extended abstract should align with the general theme of Open Strategy and must not have been previously published. Authors of accepted abstracts will have the opportunity to attend the two-day workshop in person and apply for poster presentations. To ensure high-quality exchanges and foster meaningful connections, on-site participation is limited.

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New Article in Journal of Business Ethics: »Parrying Diversity-Hostility and Ethical Dilemmas of Organizing Inclusion«

various covers of journal of business ethics

It is not a coincidence that organizational efforts to support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are in the eye of the neofascist storm that is currently devastating US-based institutions and has already begun to reverberate globally. The hostility toward DEI results from the fact that such initiatives not only seek to broaden participation, but also unsettle entrenched hierarchies and cultural privileges. This makes them an obvious target for movements aiming to restore exclusionary orders under the guise of tradition, merit, or freedom of speech. Yet, despite their centrality to current political contestations, organizational approaches to DEI remain ill-prepared to address the growing intensity of diversity-hostile communication.

In the article “Parrying Diversity-Hostility and Ethical Dilemmas of Organizing Inclusion” co-authored by my sister Laura Dobusch, Milena Leybold and me, we explore ‘parrying’ diversity hostility as an increasingly necessary DEI practice (in addition to traditional orientations of promoting inclusion and preventing discrimination). The case we are looking at is that of the controversy around the so-called ‘Google Diversity Memo’ by James Damore, which eventually led to the author’s dismissal. Check out the abstract below:

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PhD Position in the area of Management Control at the Department of Organization and Learning

Logo University of Innsbruck

There is currently an open PhD position at the Department of Organization and Learning. The position is in the area of management control (Supervisor: Professor Martin Messner). Application deadline is August 22, 2025. For more information on how to apply, please see: https://lfuonline.uibk.ac.at/public/karriereportal.details?asg_id_in=12684

Call for Papers: Special Issue in Business & Society on »Collective actorhood and organizationality: Recalibrating responsibility in business-society relations«

Logo of the journal "Business & Society"

Ten years after Dennis Schoeneborn and I had introduced the idea of ‘organizationality’ to conceptualize organization as a matter of degree in our joint article “Fluidity, Identity and Organizationality”, we have teamed up with Héloïse Berkowitz, Frank de Bakker and Consuelo Vásquez for a special issue on “Collective actorhood and organizationality: Recalibrating responsibility in business-society relations” (PDF of the Call) to be published in Business & Society. We will be supported in the editorial work by consulting editor Devi Vijay as well as Business & Society editor Colin Higgins. Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2026. Please check out the full call for papers below:

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Pre-Conference Post: The First Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Europe

Picture of a souvenir shop ft. "Hygge" in Copenhagen
The first word I encountered right out of the Metro is, of course, “Hygge”.

In previous years, I have only blogged after attending international conferences such as the Academy of Management Annual Meeting. However, to some degree, a pre-conference posting might be much more helpful for people who want to meet up. So, having already arrived in Copenhagen, let me briefly and chronologically list sessions and other occasions I will be involved in at this year’s Academy of Management Annual Meeting – the first ever to be hosted outside of North America:

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New Article in R&D Management: »Anticipating Knowledge Applicability in Open Science Through Recycling, Mimicking, and Shortcutting«

Figure 1: Model of anticipatory applicability throughout the R&D process.
Model of anticipatory applicability throughout the R&D process.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, several ventures tried to develop vaccines that are not protected by patents and could be fast and easily distributed acround the globe. In the course of the research project “Organizing Creativity under Regulatory Uncertainty: Alternative Approaches to Intellectual Property” (funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF and the German Research Foundation DFG), we collected data on such alternative, more open approaches to pharmaceutical R&D.

It is with great pleasure that a paper comparing five such cases has now been published in the journal R&D Management. Check out the abstract of the article entitled “Anticipating Knowledge Applicability in Open Science Through Recycling, Mimicking, and Shortcutting” and co-authored with my former PhD student Milena Leybold and long-term collaborators Konstantin Hondros and Sigrid Quack below:

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Open Strategy Workshop: From Oxford 2025 to Innsbruck 2026 [Update]

Group photo of participants at Open Strategy Workshop 2025 in Oxford

For two days, scholars from around the world gathered for the 2nd Open Strategy Workshop hosted at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. The local organizing team, spearheaded by Robin Engelbach and Winky Wu under the guidance of Eero Vaara, Richard Whittington and Violetta Splitter did a fantastic job. Looking back, I am still stunned how much program they managed to fit into just two days.

And a workshop full of highlights ended with a bang, when Julia Hautz, Thomas Ortner and I, representing Universität Innsbruck, met Benjamin Grossmann-Hensel, David Seidl and Theresa Langenmayr from UZH Chair of Organization and Management in an Oxford Union Style debate. As for the outcome of this battle, I let the pictures speak for themselves.

Debate Stage at Open Strategy Workshop 2025 in Oxford
Debate Trophy at Open Strategy Workshop 2025 in Oxford
Speaking at Open Strategy Workshop 2025 in Oxford
Winning Team Open Strategy Workshop 2025 in Oxford

Given that the next iteration of the workshop will be hosted by University of Innsbruck, my colleagues and I were not just impressed, but also a bit intimidated by the standards established this year’s organizing team. A steep hill to climb – but luckily, climbing hills is what Tyroleans are best at.

For those interested in the 3d Open Strategy Workshop, save the date (June 25-26, 2026) and register for the event newsletter to receive updates.

[Update, August 5, 2025] In the meantime, recordings of the Oxford Open Strategy Workshop have been made available at the University of Zurich Mediaspace.