Workshops & Presentations
Every IDeaS conference
IDeaS has met seven times since 2019, in Canada and the United Kingdom. Each event is recorded here with its theme, program, and participants.
Interpretive and Political Approaches to Information Systems and Algorithmic Assemblages
Imperial Business School, London · April 20–21, 2026
The political turn: who shapes, controls, and benefits from algorithmic organizing. Read more
2025Assemblages, Ecosystems, and Fields
Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa · April 30 – May 2, 2025
The first event outside Edmonton, and the start of the rotating-host model. Read more
2024Qualitative Studies of Algorithmic Organizing
University of Alberta, Edmonton · March 20–23, 2024
Twenty-four papers across eight themed sessions. The format scaled up. Read more
2023Ethnographic Studies of Data, Algorithms, and Decision-Making
University of Alberta, Edmonton · March 13–15, 2023
The relaunch, and the pivot to the ethnography of algorithms. Deliberately small. Read more
2022IDeaS 2022 Conference
Venue not recorded · May 6–7, 2022
The post-pandemic reconvening, and the most UBC-centred event in the community's history. Read more
A second workshop, planned for Imperial College London, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was finally held in 2026.
Interpretive Approaches to Data Science in Management Research
University of Alberta, Edmonton · October 25–26, 2019
The founding workshop. Fifty scholars, two keynotes, and six mentored roundtables. Read more
Before IDeaS had its own event
The standalone IDeaS conferences grew out of a series of professional development workshops at the Academy of Management, listed below. Together with the group's involvement in EGOS, these were the community's prehistory.
- AOM 2017 — Topic Modeling in Quant and Qual Research: A Hands-On Approach
Jennings, Kaplan, Hannigan, Haans, Wang, Tchalian & Vakili
This PDW engaged participants in the theory and practice of topic modeling using a hands-on approach. Participants were guided to run pre-built programs based on standard unstructured topic modeling routines in R — applied to various textual datasets — and then delved into the principles behind such analyses. - AOM 2018 — Topic Modeling — A Hands-on Approach to Analysis and Theory Building
Hannigan, Haans, Tchalian, Vakili, Glaser, Wang, Kaplan & Jennings
Whereas the 2017 PDW focused primarily on the technique and details of topic modeling, this one focused on types of topic modeling, specific applications, and building theory from them. It discussed topic modeling as a non-linear process in which the researcher iterates between rendering corpora, rendering topics, and rendering theoretical artifacts. - AOM 2020 — Topic Modeling Advances — Curating Corpora, Using Structured Models, and Theorizing with Visuals
Hannigan, Haans, Tchalian, Valadao, Glaser & Jennings
Built on the 2017 and 2018 PDWs and offered in real-time mode at the virtual 2020 AOM. The workshop focused on building theory with visual artifacts created from topic modeling methods. In our view of an interpretive approach to rendering data, models and theory, visual artifacts are boundary objects central to the process.