Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

In recent years, the concept of craft has re-emerged in organization studies as both a context and as a unique theoretical perspective on work (Bell et al., 2018; Kroezen et al., 2021; Ravasi et al., 2025). Here, craft is increasingly defined not based on the unique outputs (such as handmade objects) but on the unique processes of making that distinguish human-engaged craft work from mechanical alternatives. This sub-theme intends to build on this by adopting an expansive view of craft that includes, but also deliberately goes beyond artisanal production. We are open to exploring craft in any occupational setting and discovering “the games or plays” involved in any type of craft.

While craft can be considered a timeless approach to work and production, its meaning is historically and contextually contingent. In post-industrial society, craft can be seen as an act of defiance against mass-consumerism (Crawford, 2009; Suddaby et al., 2017), a nostalgic connection to the past (Bell et al., 2021; Holt & Yamauchi, 2019), or a form of creative artistic expression (Holt & Wiedner, 2024). Importantly, contemporary scholarship increasingly understands craft not only as a set of traditional artisanal practices but as a broader mode of situated practice, involving skilled and attentive engagement with work (Sennett, 2008; Yamauchi & Hjorth, 2024). This allows us to extend the concept of craft into non-stereotypical domains, such as services, knowledge work, care work, digital production, and other emergent occupational settings, where craft attitudes are central to doing the work well. As such, modern configurations of craft are often depicted as standing in opposition to the prevalence of rationalization in organizational society and therefore are often associated with the search for meaningfulness in work and the potential to re-enchant work and organizing in a time where motivation at work represents a global crisis (13–14% of European workers are ‘engaged’; Gallup, 2025).

However, as the new wave of research on craft has highlighted, craft ventures need to reconcile many tensions and challenges (e.g., Ganzin et al., 2024). For example, on the one hand, craft can yield creativity and improvisation (Yamauchi & Hjorth, 2024); on the other hand, it might be bound by strict institutional prescriptions, standards, and rules that protect its authenticity and community survival. As such, it appears that in post-industrial society, “the games” craft makers, surrounding communities, and organizations play involve intersections of rules and improvisations, playfulness and serious stakes, simultaneous possibilities for infusion of work with deeper meanings and for its commodification or marginalization. Here we are interested in different facets of modern craft, craft organizing and the dualities such an approach and work entail.

First, post-industrial crafts often entail playful making. As the return to craft becomes fashionable and modern craft practices are surrounded by an “aura of coolness”, we observe the rise of what Gandini and Gerosa (2025) describe as ‘neo-crafts’. Playfulness in such contexts is not limited to “traditional,” manual or object-focused crafts; attentive improvisation and exploratory making also characterize a range of professional and organizational practices, from culinary and service work to software creation, scientific experimentation, and artistic or design-based problem solving. These more “playful forms of craft” practices often involve higher levels of innovativeness, improvisation, and creativity than more traditional craft approaches. Similarly, exploring the intersection of digitalization and craft and craft-AI collaborations can offer valuable insights into how algorithmic tools reshape skilled judgment, how artisans negotiate boundaries between human and machine agency, and how hybrid human-AI practices generate new forms of creativity, authorship, and aesthetic value. It also allows us to investigate critical questions around deskilling, protection, authorship, and value of human- versus algorithmically produced work. Diving deeper into the dynamics of “playful making” in modern forms of craft allows us to explore novel questions: How can craft contribute to introducing play into organizing? How do improvisational or experimental craft practices function as a mode of playful organizing? How do maker spaces, FabLabs, digital craft, or hybrid craft-AI collaborations reshape creativity and organizational meaning-making? Play is a deeply social human activity (Huizinga, 1950/1962) and craft is in this sense part of de-individualizing work again, disclosing its deeply social ways (Sennett, 2012).

Secondly, while modern crafts can be playful, they can also have very serious stakes and strict rules associated with them. Prior research showcases how craft can be an important lifeline for its practitioners, affording the important connections between them and their heritage and cultures (e.g., Sasaki et al., 2019). Such stakes also apply in occupational contexts beyond traditional crafts, where embodied expertise, vocational meaning, and professional identity play central roles. Sometimes, craft can be a source of empowerment for politically silenced groups, offering important aid in emotional hardship (Alkhaled & Sasaki, 2022). In such cases, craft is more than a mere hobby or a more meaningful mode of engaging with production. For such communities, craft is a matter of economic and emotional wellbeing and community building. Serious stakes in craft can also refer to the delicate process of negotiating rules of craft work. This applies not only to artisanal or heritage crafts but equally to emergent fields where tacit knowledge, embodied skill, and shared standards of excellence develop over time. The common tension between tradition and innovation in craft can be an illustrative example (Yamauchi & Hjorth, 2024). How the rules surrounding consistency of the craft are enforced can have implications not only for the perceptions of authenticity of the craft but also for its long-term survival.  Moreover, too strict of an enforcement of such rules may also reproduce exclusion and police authenticity in ways that marginalize less-resourced or non-traditional makers and communities. Exploring who makes the rules surrounding engagement with craft can open fruitful avenues for researching issues of inequality and marginalization. We are therefore interested in exploring the following questions: How do rules of craft get negotiated, challenged or become institutionalized across traditional and emerging fields? Which actors claim authority to define “authentic craft” and with what consequences? 

Finally, the playful and serious sides of craft relate to the search for a deeper sense of meaning derived from craft work. These dynamics extend beyond material production to practices where skilled judgment, attentiveness, and embodied know-how shape how workers navigate technological change and seek meaningful engagement with their tasks (e.g., Rostain & Clarke, 2025). Playful experimentation and improvisation, as well as strict rules derived to protect tradition, are different facets of individuals and communities searching for re-enchantment of work. As digitalization and AI act as increasingly influential forces in the modern workplace, the search for meaningful human-centered engagement with work becomes increasingly important. We are therefore interested in how the craft games we play enchant, re-enchant and disenchant work, make work more or less ‘fabulous’ (Hjorth, 2013). What are the possibilities of restoring meanings through craft and playful making and serious stakes and rules in and around organizations? (Vesa, 2021) What are the risks of contributing to commodification, automation and marginalization of craft? We also welcome critical approaches that explore exploitation, appropriation, and sustainability of craft across Global North and South contexts. By doing so, in this sub-theme, we seek to develop insight into different facets of craft, their meaning, and its role in post-industrial society.

We welcome papers dealing with different aspects of the above dynamics and involving different methodological approaches.

The list below might serve as a useful starting point for topics of interest:

• Craft and meaningful work Craft and creativity

• Craft and tradition

• Craft and re-enchantment

• Marginalization and inequality in craft

• Craft-based values and identities

• Craft in non-traditional occupational contexts (e.g., design, software, scientific practice, care work, service work)

• Alkhaled, S., & Sasaki, I. (2022). Syrian women refugees: Coping with indeterminate liminality during forcible displacement. Organization Studies, 43(10), 1583–1605.
• Bell, E., Dacin, M. T., & Toraldo, M. L. (2021). Craft imaginaries–past, present and future. Organization Theory, 2(1), Article 2631787721991141.
• Bell, E., Toraldo, M. L., Taylor, S., & Mangia, G. (2018). Introduction: Understanding contemporary craft work. In E. Bell, M. L. Toraldo, S. Taylor, & G. Mangia (Eds.), The organization of craft work (pp. 1–19). Routledge.
• Crawford, M. B. (2009). Shop class as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work. Penguin.
• Kroezen, J., Ravasi, D., Sasaki, I., Żebrowska, M., & Suddaby, R. (2021). Configurations of craft: Alternative models for organizing work. Academy of Management Annals, 15(2), 502–536.
• Gallup. (2025). State of the global workplace 2025. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
• Gandini, A., & Gerosa, A. (2025). What is ‘neo-craft’work, and why it matters. Organization Studies, 46(4), 577–595.
• Ganzin, M., Chirico, F., Kroezen, J. J., Dacin, M. T., Sirmon, D. G., & Suddaby, R. (2024). Craft and strategic entrepreneurship: Exploring and exploiting materiality, authenticity, and tradition in craft-based ventures. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 18(4), 671–685.
• Hjorth, D. (2013). Absolutely fabulous! Fabulation and organization-creation in processes of becoming-entrepreneur. Society and Business Review, 8, 205–224.
• Holt, R., & Wiedner, R. (2024). Material expertise: The case of the craft entrepreneur Lucie Rie. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 18(4), 686–712.
• Holt, R., & Yamauchi, Y. (2019). Craft, design and nostalgia in modern Japan: The case of sushi. In E. Bell, M. L. Toraldo, S. Taylor, & G. Mangia (Eds.), The organization of craft work [Flag: page numbers missing]. Taylor & Francis.
• Huizinga, J. (1950/1962). Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture (3rd ed.). Beacon Press.
• Ravasi, D., Svejenova, S., Kroezen, J., Sasaki, I., & Suddaby, R. (2025). Rediscovering craft in organization studies: Perspectives and pathways. Organization Studies, 46(4), 445–469.
• Rostain, M., & Clarke, J. (2025). Meaningful work through craft: How workers in low-skilled roles engage in anomalous craft to gain autonomy and receive recognition. Organization Studies, 46(1), 7–34.
• Sasaki, I., Ravasi, D., & Micelotta, E. (2019). Family firms as institutions: Cultural reproduction and status maintenance among multi-centenary shinise in Kyoto. Organization Studies, 40(6), 793–831.
• Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. Yale University Press.
• Sennett, R. (2012). Together: The rituals, pleasures & politics of cooperation. Penguin.
• Suddaby, R., Ganzin, M., & Minkus, A. (2017). Craft, magic and the re-enchantment of the world. In [Flag: Editors missing] (Eds.), Management research (pp. 41–72). Routledge.
• Vesa, M. (Ed.). (2021). Organizational gamification: Theories and practices of ludified work in late modernity. Routledge.
• Yamauchi, Y., & Hjorth, D. (2024). Tradition, entrepreneurship, and innovation: The craft of Japanese fine dining. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 18(4), 841–862.