Rediscovering Craft in Organization Studies: Perspectives and pathways
2025/02/27 by Davide Ravasi, Silviya Svejenova, Jochem Kroezen +2 · 1 voice · 9 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · #Art #Craft #Epistemology #Management and Organizational Studies #Organization studies #Philosophy #Sociology #Visual arts
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/01708406251326739
published in Organization Studies 46(4), 445-469 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2025/02/27 · openalex created_date 2025/03/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract
While craft has long lived in the margins of organizational research, mostly as a context for advancing more general theories, it has recently become the object of dedicated study and theorization. In this Introduction, we first highlight and synthesize key insights from three perspectives (phenomenological, social constructionist, and essentialist) that prior research has adopted to analyze craft. These three perspectives understood craft as an artisanal mode of production, a socially constructed characterization of productions, producers and products, and a distinctive approach to work and organizing, respectively. We position the articles and media reviews in this special issue in relation to the three perspectives and show how they advance understanding of new and emerging manifestations of craft in and around organizations. We conclude by outlining pathways for further research on craft as a complex, multifaceted and constantly morphing social and organizational phenomenon.
Citations
- Ethics, politics and embodied imagination in crafting scientific knowledge
- Artificial Intelligence and Management: The Automation–Augmentation Paradox
- Meaningful Work Through Craft: How workers in low-skilled roles engage in anomalous craft to gain autonomy and receive recognition
- The Affective Micropolitics of Craftivism: Organizing social change through the minor gesture
- Resisting the Algorithmic Management of Science: Craft and Community After Generative AI
- Media Review: Crafting Traditions and Speculative Imaginaries Atmospheres of CraftPalazzo Sturm, Bassano del Grappa, Italy, 27/05 to 30/06/2023, created and curated by D20 (MarchesiniSergioRiviRaffaella)SemblanceRöhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2/05 to 10/05/2024, curated by KettleAliceJensenJokum LindCurranRobBrave New WorldA travelling exhibition held in Dals Långed (Sweden), Bornholm (Denmark) and Venice (Italy) since May 2024, and will be held in Bologna (Italy) in 2025, created and curated by D20
- Transient craft: reclaiming the contemporary craft worker
- Managing the Tradition and Innovation Paradox in Family Firms: A Family Imprinting Perspective
- Relational Encounters and Vital Materiality in the Practice of Craft Work
- An identity perspective on coopetition in the craft beer industry
- What is ‘Neo-Craft’ Work, and Why it Matters
- ‘Making it Easy to Do Hard Things’: How experts help novices perceive craft as accessible
- Days of Future Past: The tradition–novelty paradox and the endurance of heritage crafts
- Media Review: Consecrated Craft and its Dialectic GelbDavid, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Magnolia Pictures, 2011
- Media Review: Arts and Crafts House Museums and the Organization of History and Society ManorKelmscott, Lechlade Emery Walker’s House, London
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