Field-configuring events: Arenas for innovation and learning?

Field-configuring events and their impact upon organizations, networks and organizational fields have become an important focal point for research. Since the coining of the term (Meyer, Gaba, and Colwell 2005; Lampel and Meyer 2008), the body of research on events such as trade fairs, conferences, or festivals has grown in different disciplinary contexts, particularly management and organization studies and economic geography. The general gist of these studies is that interactions at temporally and spatially bounded sites are marked by “predictable unpredictability” (Lampel 2011) and “allow disparate constituents to become aware of their common concerns, join together, share information, coordinate their actions, shape or subvert agendas, and mutually influence field structuration” (Anand and Jones 2008, 1037).