PhD Oral Exam - Hami Yousefdehi, Management

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

This dissertation contributes to advancing a comprehensive framework for understanding the socio-materiality of fields and their dynamics. The first article explores the co-evolutionary dynamics between technology trajectories and institutional pathways, emphasizing the temporal dimension of change, specifically the pace of change. In the second article, the focus shifts to the de-settlement of cross-sector partnerships within a technology field, highlighting how framing contests at the project level, coupled with partnership-level strategies, paradoxically escalate tensions in pathways and lead to cross sector partnership de-settlement. The third paper delves into the co-evolution of place trajectories by examining the interplay between imagination and emotional work. Collectively, these papers address two fundamental dimensions of change: materiality, represented by technology (papers 1 and 2), and place (paper 3), and temporality, specifically the pace of change (paper 1). While the first paper offers a framework for understanding the pace of change through the co-evolution of technology and institutional logic in field emergence and transformation stages, the second and third papers zoom in on the change trajectory during the decline/de-settlement stage, an area less studied in institutional change scholarship. These papers complement each other by focusing on temporality and dynamics while also considering durability and stability in the change process.