Each year the “Wissenschaftliche Kommission Organisation” (WK ORG), a section of the “Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft e. V.” (VHB) organizes a workshop allowing research scholars in the field of organizations and management to present and to discuss their latest findings. The 39th workshop of the WK ORG took place on 12–13 February 2015 at the University of Zurich under the organisation of Andreas Georg Scherer. In total 70 papers were submitted, among which 36 were chosen through a review process featuring 143 reviewers. This Special Section includes a selection of three articles that were submitted to Schmalenbach Business Review. These are: “Third Parties and Specific Investments”, by Gerald Eisenkopf and Stephan Nüesch, “A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The Role of Artifacts in Interpretive Schema Change”, by Stefan W. Konlechner, Barbara Müller, Wolfgang H. Güttel, Irina Koprax, and Karin Link, as well as “Stories of Adoration and Agony: The Entanglement of Struggles for Recognition, Emotions and Institutional Work”, by Gabriele Fassauer and Ronald Hartz. The latter could not be presented at the workshop due to an unexpected ailment of the authors.

The three articles bear witness to the diversity of theories and methods that are currently discussed in research on organizations. We want to thank the authors and reviewers for their effort as well as the Schmalenbach Business Review for the publication of these papers.