This Special Issue is devoted to interpretive approaches to studying algorithmic assemblages constitutive of and by fields, ecosystems, and platforms and combining research from an organizational and information systems view about such organizing features and their dynamics. Information technologies have progressively enabled a shift in the locus of value creation, capture, and resource orchestration and the processes they entail from within organizations to more loosely coupled and emergently structured sociotechnical systems. The interpretive approach stems from the relational turn in organization theory and considers assemblages and algorithmic organizing as views of key constructs and their associated processes.
To date, there has been less theory-building and empirical research connecting macro constructs with the micro-dynamics of these systems. It is particularly unclear how algorithmic technologies enable the interconnections of organizational ecosystems and facilitate legitimacy dynamics of institutional fields. Furthermore, it is not clear how algorithmic technologies circumscribe meanings across global fields and societies. The call for theory and research relies on relational approaches coming from both organization theory and information systems.