Industry Studies Association

Welcome Tonya Boone
ISA President 


Welcome to the Industry Studies Association! We are a professional organization of researchers committed to research grounded a deep understanding of the role that context – industry, location, and organization, plays in understanding phenomena. ISA includes scholars from a wide range of disciplines - management, economics, engineering, law, sociology, and public policy, which focus on many different industry sectors. ISA members often gather data through direct engagement with workplaces and primary informants, e.g., managers, policy makers and employees.

Our annual conference facilitates dialogue among the many disciplines represented within our membership. We believe these interactions motivate high impact, creative research which advances knowledge and impacts practice and policy.

I encourage you to get involved - join us at the annual conference, which offers an opportunity to network with researchers and practitioners from the various disciplines represented in ISA. Sign up and attend a webinar which feature lively discussions among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners on important contemporary topics.

I look forward to seeing you.

Industry Studies Association Annual Conference

Theme: Reconceptualizing Competition: Nation, Region, Firm, and Individual

The Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University

May 31- June 2, 2023 | Columbus, OH, USA

We are excited to welcome you to Columbus, Ohio for the 2023 Industry Studies Association conference. Far more than a college town, Columbus is a dynamic metropolitan area of two million people. Columbus is an important player in many industries, including automotive, pharmaceuticals, insurance, retail, logistics, hospitality, and—coming in 2024 with Intel’s planned $20 billion investment—semiconductors. And, yes, Columbus is home to The Ohio State University, a leading research institution with an enrolment of over 60,000 students, making it among the very few largest universities in the U.S.; often the largest when only considering on-campus students.

We are excited about this year’s theme: Reconceptualizing Competition: Nation, Region, Firm, and Individual. Nations, regions, firms and individuals are perhaps forever changed by the pandemic. The global order seems to be changing, with decoupling of major powers being discussed. We have many plenaries in the works. We have confirmed that we will have a session on Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), the opaque middlemen of the drug supply chain that have been blamed for many of the problems of the supply chain. We are hoping to land representatives from JobsOhio, who was partially responsible for attracting Intel to Columbus. We expect to be able to visit Honda of Marysville, the oldest Japanese automotive plant in the U.S. (built in 1982). We also hope to visit a large generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, and maybe the U.S. headquarters of a Scottish brewery. We welcome thoughts from members for any special sessions—book authors, specific topics, etc.

We are also excited to showcase the city of Columbus. The conference will be hosted on the campus of the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, a five-building complex which includes its own hotel, which will be the conference hotel. Our Wednesday night opening will be across the street in Ohio Stadium (also called The Horseshoe, or The ‘Shoe), an iconic stadium that seats over 100,000 people. Our Thursday reception will be a few miles away on a rooftop adjacent to the Short North, a vibrant arts district just south of campus (and just north of downtown, hence the name).

Formal conference activities will begin around 1pm on May 31st, and end after lunch on June 2nd. The Professional Development Workshop (PDW) will be the morning of May 31st. Excursions (likely Honda, Hikma, and Brewdog) will be the morning of May 31st and/or the afternoon of June 2nd.

Click the link below for more information on dates, venues, excursions, and plenaries as plans come together. We can’t wait to see you again!

Learn More Here