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Industry Studies Association

Context Matters:

Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Industrial Policy

in the New Era of Geopolitics

The ISA invites you to join us in 2025 when we return to MIT, an initial grantee of the 1990-2010 Sloan Foundation’s $100 million industry studies program and the progenitor of the ISA. The Sloan Foundation funded MIT’s five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program research program. The IMVP, one of 26 Sloan-funded industry studies, which also included Wharton’s banking and Berkeley’s semiconductor studies, pioneered the broad yet deep comparative research that illuminate the systemic and organizational challenges facing industry transformation. It demonstrated how the collaborative, multi-disciplinary nature of industry studies exposes issues often hidden to solely disciplinary work. Among many papers, the IMVP resulted in the book, “The Machine that Changed the World” that popularized ‘lean manufacturing’ .

With the rise of geopolitical shifts, climate, energy, health care challenges and increasing economic nationalism, the need for continued collaborative industry research is greater than ever.  The ISA is well-placed to help understand and advance solutions to these challenges. As an example, ISA members and conference attendees have held and currently hold prominent policy positions in consecutive White House administrations.

MIT is at the epicenter of one of largest entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world. MIT alumni have founded over 30,000 active companies with revenue in excess of $1.9 trillion and employ 4.6 million people. Boston and Cambridge also form one of the largest medical and biopharma clusters in the world. In 2025, we take this remarkable ecosystem as a starting point for our conference. Come to Cambridge June 4-6th and experience this unique environment yourself.

JOhn gray

Welcome from John Gray
ISA President

 Welcome to the website of the Industry Studies Association! We are happy you are here. Please browse this website to see our board, our mission, a recap of our 2024 conference, our 2024 award winners, a preview of our 2025 conference at MIT in Cambridge, MA, and more!

 We are an offshoot of the highly impactful Sloan Foundation Industry Studies, whose grantees included MIT’s automobile studies (which resulted in, among other things, The Machine that Changed the World), Wharton’s banking studies, and UC-Berkeley’s semiconductor studies.

 Currently, we exist to promote such Industry Studies research—research that is grounded in the details of the industry, often cross-disciplinary, and relevant to practitioners and policymakers alike. That is, research that has impact. We promote such research in several ways.

 Our biggest activity is our annual conference, which in 2025 will be held at MIT in Cambridge, MA, from June 4 to June 6. The conference gathers researchers, policymakers, and thought leaders from a broad range of disciplines committed to a deep understanding of the role that context – industry, location, and organization—plays in phenomena. The conference will include a Professional Development Workshop (PDW) for students and junior scholars, engaging plenaries, and opportunities for interesting site visits. For an idea of what our conferences have entailed, please see the 2024 Sacramento and 2023 Columbus recaps! We expect the MIT conference to be even bigger and better.

 Stay tuned to this website in general, and the conference page specifically, for updates as we pull together the 2025 program. We are also in the early planning stages of our first-ever international (mini)-conference, in Oxford, UK, in Sept 2025.

 Beyond the conference, we support the collation of policy work to enable connections between researchers and policymakers. You can sign up to receive the Federal Industrial Policy & Strategy Update, compiled by board member Andrew Reamer. This weekly e-mail promotes researcher ties to policymakers—and vice versa—by collating, organizing, and disseminating public policy-related announcement and news. Simply e-mail Andrew at [email protected] to sign up.

 We also promote Industry Studies scholarship, by encouraging the creation of Industry Studies departments at top journals such as the “Public Policy and Industry Studies” Department at the Journal of Operations Management and the “Industry Studies and Public Policy” department at the Production and Operations Management journal. We also annually give out the Ralph Gomory award for the best published Industry Studies paper in Industry Studies award, selected from papers published in ten top journals across different disciplines.

 I encourage you to get involved in ISA. If you intend to join us at MIT, or if you just want to support and be involved in what we do, become a member now! If you’re inspired to do so, donate!

 Soon, the submission site will open for the MIT 2025 conference, with a deadline in mid-January for submission. Please start planning now to submit a paper abstract or a panel description. Or, offer to be involved in—as a mentor or mentee—our PDW . E-mail board member Jeff Furman at [email protected] to express interest in the PDW.

 I look forward to your engagement, and to seeing you at MIT in early June!

  

ISA's 2024 Award Winners

In 2024, ISA welcomed a new award -- the Babbage Best Paper in Industrial Innovation -- created through the generous gift of the Cambridge (UK) Institute for Manufacturing under the leadership of Sir Mike Gregory.  Sir Mike joined us in Sacramento to give the award to first-time winner Prof. Canberk Ucel (now at HEC in Paris).  Many winners of our other awards (Dissertation, Giarratani Rising Star, Ralph P. Gomory Best Industry Studies Paper, and Best Paper in Innovation and Entrepreneurship) were also in Sacramento to receive their awards from President Tonya Boone, President-Elect John Gray, and Past President John Paul MacDuffie.  Congratulations to all the award winners for your impressive research and amazing accomplishments!

Conference Best Paper in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Stream Award

WINNER:

Demand-Driven Innovation and Spillover Effects on Adjacent Technological Domains: Evidence from Electric Vehicle Technologies

Jino Lu (University of Southern California)

RUNNER-UP: You've Got Mail! The Late 19th Century US Postal Service Expansion, Firm Creation, and Firm Performance

                   

Maria Roche (Harvard)

Astrid Marinoni (Georgia Tech)

Dissertation Award

WINNER:

The Transparency Dilemma: Competition, Innovation, and Organizational Performance with Corporate Transparency

Shirley (Xiaoli) Tang, Ph.D.
(from Washington University, now at Bocconi)

RUNNER-UP: Craft Knowledge and the Advancement of Science: The Role of Scientific Support Occupations in Shared Research Facilities

Danielle Bovenberg, Ph.D.
(from UC Santa Barbara, now at Yale SOM)

Babbage Best Paper in Industrial Innovation 

WINNER: The Value of Advice: Evidence from Thousands of Smallholder Farms in the Philippines

                                       

Canberk Ucel (Bilkent University; now HEC)                     KC Diwas (Emory University)

 

Giarratani Rising Star Award 

WINNER: Sharing Solutions without Spilling Secrets: The Role of Technicians in the Diffusion of Knowledge at Innovation Frontiers

Danielle Bovenberg (Yale University)

RUNNER-UP (Tie): Unpacking the Expat Gap: Why and How Local Entrepreneurs Nonetheless Persist in Developing Countries Moral Markets

Diana Jue-Rajasingh (Rice University)  

The Folding Effect: The Role of Reframed Distance in Organizational Search

Sukhun Kang
(University of California – Santa Barbara) 

Ralph P. Gomory Best Industry Studies Paper Award

WINNING PAPER:

People, performance and transition: A case study of psychological contract and stakeholder orientation in the Toyota Australia plant closure

Journal of Operations Management

                            

Daniel Samson (University of Melbourne)

Morgan Swink (Texas Christian University)

RUNNER-UP:

Exploring the structure of internal combustion engine and battery electric vehicles: Implications for the architecture of the automotive industry 

Industrial and Corporate Change

                    
Johann P. Murmann                                            Benedikt A. Schuler

(University of St. Gallen)