The Industry Studies Association (ISA) cordially invites submissions of abstracts for individual papers and panels for the 2025 ISA Annual Conference. While the ISA welcomes papers and panels related to the conference theme, a tie to theme is not mandatory. Any papers or panels that build upon the ISA’s foundational interest in organizations and industries are welcome.   

ISA’s annual conference provides a forum to share industry studies research with fellow researchers, industry leaders and policy makers; provoke dialogue on industry challenges and opportunities; and form new collaborations. We welcome research that incorporates an industry focus from all disciplines; we regard the multi-disciplinary mix of scholars as one of the greatest strengths of our conference. ISA is especially interested in organized panels and papers that emphasize observation and insight into a particular industry or that consider how knowledge gained in studying one industry can provide insights into other industries.

2025 Conference Theme

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.

While the ISA encourages papers and panels related to the conference theme, a tie to theme is not mandatory. Any papers or panels that build upon the ISA’s foundational interest in organizations and industries are welcome. 

The deadline for all submissions is Friday, January 24, 2025.  

Please feel free to contact the Conference Program Co-Chairs listed below with questions.

• Hiram Samel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [email protected]
• John Paul Helveston, George Washington University, [email protected]
• Anant Mishra, University of Minnesota, [email protected]