Organization Studies: Moving Entrepreneurially Ahead

We write this editorial at a time of transition for Organization Studies (OS). The journal has now moved to a model of overlapping terms for Editors-in-Chief (EICs). Trish Reay has been serving as EIC (together with Frank den Hond and Robin Holt) for two years, and at this time Daniel Hjorth has begun his term as EIC, coinciding with the conclusion of Robin’s and Frank’s terms. This model of shared editorship is now in place for the foreseeable future, setting up OS with a model of leadership that provides both continuity and ongoing potential for innovation. We (Daniel and Trish) see ourselves as both entrepreneurs and stewards of Organization Studies, and begin these two years of working together with both enthusiasm for the future and respect for the past. We know that we stand ‘on the shoulders of giants’ who have set high standards for stewardship and integrity. We also see that they have set the stage so that we can move entrepreneurially ahead. What we mean by ‘moving entrepreneurially ahead’ is that we will respect the well-developed highway of OS that has developed over time, and we will also engage with opportunities to explore the roads less travelled, and the roads that do not yet exist. Moving entrepreneurially thus means we are taken into new places, and that we will get there by creatively and collectively organizing how we move. Previous Editors have guided the journal with care, creativity and enthusiasm – consistently growing the readership, submissions and impact over the years. We see our mandate as continuing to reinforce the strong foundations built by others while also making modifications in novel ways. We will engage in creative developments that we believe will make a difference for Organization Studies by cultivating its entrepreneurial sides while remaining grounded in the long-standing principles of OS to focus scholarly attention to ‘organizations, organizing and the organized in and between societies’. We see that we are engaged in a process of creative becoming that is relationally bound with this belonging (Massumi, 2002) to the long-standing profile and aims of OS. As part of this approach, we stress that an important element of OS’s identity is its capacity and tendency to continuously invent new ways of becoming. We thus remain committed to the profile and aims of the journal as stated in similar ways by Editors before us. This means that OS should be seen as a leading journal that publishes papers that help to create engaging, relevant, insightful, bold and complex knowledge that deepens our understanding of organizations as social, cultural, historical and political phenomena in societies. OS papers are typically engaged in a broader social sciences and humanities agenda and therefore often draw on knowledge from other disciplines to enrich our focus on organizations, organizing and the organized. Questions of what organizations are, how they are created, how people organize in and through them, and how they are shaping and being shaped by societies are central to studies published in this journal. We believe OS should be early in tackling new questions as well as being a source of renewal in its approach and ways of addressing questions in daring and playful ways. 749677OSS0010.1177/0170840617749677Organization StudiesEditorial research-article2017