Workshop report from 09.09.2025/10.09.2025
University of Lucerne
Anja Wohlgemuth, Vanessa Leutner and Janna Muff (all University of Lucerne)
Lucerne – a relatively small city by international standards located on a lake with magnificent views and home to a small but fine sociology department.
And on September 9 and 10, 2025, it was the venue for another EC/SC workshop. With around 50 participants, and one dog, the workshop entitled “Doing neopragmatist research – Using and reflecting methods and methodologies in convention theory” took place at the University of Lucerne. Over two days, ten sessions, 27 presentations, four coffee breaks and two dinners, a wide range of topics were explored and discussed. The afternoon before, a pre-workshop was held to discuss the application of multiple correspondence analysis in convention theory, with a following pre-workshop dinner.

Picture 1: Everyone listens eagerly to Laurent Thévenot’s keynote speech
Tuesday 9th
After a warm welcome by two of the organizers, Rainer Diaz-Bone (University of Lucerne) and Kenneth Horvath (Zurich University of Teacher Education), the workshop opened with an insightful keynote speech by guest speaker Laurent Thévenot (EHESS). The presentation introduced the history of EC/SC, illuminated influential trends, and examined methodological innovations and problems. Laurent Thévenot highlighted the importance of examining the various forms of spaces, as well as the role of capacity, power, agency, and personal identity—and the malleability of personality. Another topic that was covered discussed the statistical chain, which is currently undergoing change in the age of big data and deep learning that requires critical examination. Finally, the “method of stranger” was explored, which plays a significant role in comparative methods in EC/SC: by seeking to take advantage of the shocks and misunderstandings of estrangement, the reflexivity of the researchers can be promoted.
The focused and interested atmosphere of the audience – not even interrupted by minor microphone problems – led to a lively and stimulating discussion afterwards. This opening summed up the entire essence of the workshop quite well and ensured an excellent start.

Picture 2: The presentation by Laurent Thévenot.
After an initial coffee break, the workshop continued with the first two sessions – where participants had the difficult task of choosing between AI and machines or educational research.
Session one
Guy Schwegler (University of Lucerne) kicked off session one with his presentation: A convention-theorist critique on the usages of AI. He examined how scientists used AI in coding and wanted to investigate the moment when scientists were confronted with AI. The audience asked critical questions, specifically about whether AI has any interpretative power at all. However, Schwegler emphasized that his work was not about the quality and functioning of AI, but about how scientists use AI, frame its output, and make sense of it. In other words, a neopragmatic perspective on methodology in which the research process itself becomes the subject. He himself used a grounded theory approach, which includes interviews and autoethnographic protocols, among other methods of data collection.
The presentation and work of Liv Nøhr (University of Copenhagen) was particularly striking due to her exciting method. For her dissertation, she filmed young people in a laboratory (LIFE) and used a convention theory approach to examine how the young people organized themselves. The following discussion concerned the ethical dimensions of research projects. How can videos be used as a method while respecting privacy? The topic of ethics ran through the entire workshop and was also discussed at the beginning by Laurent Thévenot.
Session two
At the same time, the second session took place in the next room: Researching Education. Pierre-Yves Bernard (Nantes University) spoke about how convention theory broadens our understanding of educational institutions. He distinguished between general models of conventions and institutional models of conventions. While the former can be generalized to any coordination situation, the latter is present in specific fields. In his case study on the use of civic service as an instrument to combat school dropout, Pierre-Yves Bernard showed how both models can be encountered: While the school institution and its legitimacy are based on an institutional convention, criticism and responses to it are based on general models of convention, but manifest themselves in the form of compromises and local arrangements.
Jan Frode Haugseth (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) followed him by proposing a methodological framework for examining a fundamental link between education, doubt, and belief. He demonstrated how this framework provides a situated approach to understanding engagement as lived coordination between self and world. By emphasizing the shaping and inhibition of diverse forms of investment, his work contributes to a better understanding of doubt and belief in education and to the development of an empowering educational environment.
Posterwalk
After this first round of sessions, participants followed Valeska Cappel (University of Lucerne) to the poster walk organized by her and Karolin Kappler (Catholic University of Applied Sciences Nordrhein-Westfalen). The posterwalk presented selected student research projects developed in two advanced seminars held at the University of Lucerne under the theme “Health – Digitalization – Conventions”. The diversity of research approaches underscored the methodological openness of convention theory and the ways in which students applied and further developed EC/SC. This sparked discussions about empirical strategies, challenges in operationalizing EC/SC concepts, and the potential of convention theory for investigating health and digitalization.
Following the posterwalk, and a lunch to recharge everyone’s batteries, the day continued with the next difficult task: choosing between session three and four.
Session three
The former focused on researching HRM and accounting. Through a critical examination of the concept of sociomateriality in e-HRM from the perspective of convention theory, Sabine Boesl (University of Innsbruck) and Marilyn Poon (University of Salzburg) argued that sociomateriality studies prioritize human agency, while the materiality of e-HRM technologies is under-theorized. They proposed convention theory as a valuable extension to the concept of sociomateriality in e-HRM. This allows technologies to be understood as carriers of conventions, while the conventions inscribed in them do not have to be realized, but can be. In this way, e-HRM technologies can be studied as material entities with agency and their relational nature can be examined.
Laverne Iminza Chore (University of Innsbruck) then presented her research on skill development programs in Kenya. Opening up research on skill formation beyond the Western context, she focused on participants’ evaluation of reskilling programs. Drawing on a methodological situationalism lens, she additionally explored how actors establish coordination and what forms of coordination unfold in an institutional context filled with uncertainty.
Last but not least, Anna Schneider (University of Innsbruck) presented her study of multiple entire inclusive recruitment processes to understand the role different orders of worth play in the evaluation of candidates and in the final decision-making. While inclusive recruitment processes are said to bring several orders of worth into a compromise, diverse orders of worth become salient and influential for the next subsequent recruitment step in the process as well as for the final outcome. Using a process perspective in the study, she discussed how this perspective could shed new light on compromises.
Session four
The very interesting fourth session started with the topic about “Using Online Data”. Hence, it was about how convention theory can methodically deal with the increase in online data. The methods ranged from analyzing comment sections under articles about paternity leave to applying NLP techniques (– with an LLM called CamemBERT –) to examine messages between (Uber) drivers and users.
Mathilde Abel’s (ENSAE – Institut polytechnique de Paris) contribution referred to her analysis on where cognitive power is located in the platform economy. Her empirical approach aimed to investigate how coordination between users is organized by digital platforms. Applying a mixed-methods approach and focusing on agency as a text-based signal, she was able to capture the mechanisms from which cognitive power asymmetries arise. The research approach demonstrates the possibility of combining statistical methods and EC/SC. During the discussion, the main focus was on the legitimacy of the natural language processing (NLP) technique used regarding the black box problem. It was explained that this is not the case, as despite the algorithm, all parameters and data are known and transparent, and the results were validated by a sample of workers.
Marlene Schuster (University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt) presented her dissertation project, in which she read the comments sections of various Austrian media outlets. Her topic was how people feel about paternity leave and how they justify their opinions. For her, comments are good data material for the EC/SC. They are an interesting arena of justification due to their independent and unfiltered expression. Her main research question was: Why does an inequality in the ratio between fathers and mothers taking paternity leave exist? With her dissertation, she also wants to build a bridge: to bring EC/SC as a methodology into family sociology and gender studies.
Eeva Luthakallio (University of Helsinki) introduced another methodological concept: holistic analysis. For her book “Doing Society” she used ethnography, interviews (200 of it!), big data, and computer analysis with different observational distances. With this approach, she pursued the empirical goal of understanding the current political culture and the participation of young people.
Session five

Picture 3: Christian Schneijderberg presenting.
Kathryn Telling (University of Manchester), Christian Schneijderberg (University of Kassel), Ann Vogel (University of Applied Sciences Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) and Alan Shipman (The Open University Milton Keynes) contributed to session five with presentations on the theme “between institutions and conventions”. Kathryn Telling opened her inspiring presentation with the suggestion that comparative research should not be limited to national comparisons: Using a comparison of different serious leisure sites, she showed how judges refer to different conventions and compromises when making fair judgments and suggested comparing this with fair university admissions. Christian Schneijderberg, on the other hand, compared the EC/SC itself with sociological neo-institutionalism along a theoretical continuum and discussed the peculiarities of axioms and orders of worth. Ann Vogel and Alan Shipman, in turn, looked at the process by which economists convert “real” flows into financial terms, whereby accounting conventions come into play. They pointed out that this conversion often leads to economic models neglecting a variety of aspects and, as a consequence, failing. Furthermore, the implications of such cases were discussed. Particularly with regard to sustainability as well as the potential of convention theory to capture these accounting conventions.
Session six

Picture 4: Raschko also took part in the workshop.
Session six focused on neopragmatism’s methodologies and perspectives. Kenneth Horvath opened the session by referring to John Dewey’s pragmatist epistemology propounded in “Theory of Inquiry” as a silent but under-recognized heritage for designing, doing, and reflecting research – especially in the field of EC/SC. Dewey’s pragmatist epistemological thinking can be conceived as a productive foundation for convention theorists’ methodology. Discussing five key tenets that connect EC/SC and Dewey’s “logic” reveals a potential for reflecting on the complex interiority (i.e., political, methodological, and personal) of conducting research. As such, Dewey’s pragmatic thinking invites and empowers to go beyond the application of canonical and orthodox methods and to enter in a thoughtful and coherent engagement with methods and methodologies. A specific type of data was the focus of the next contribution.
Guillemette de Larquier (University of Lille) discussed the analysis of job ads from both a historical and disciplinary perspective. She drew on a current study conducted together with Géraldine Rieucau (Université Picardie Jules Verne). With the rise of job advertising platforms, job ads as data have been used not only by economics and sociology of conventions but also by mainstream economics. The latter studies exploit job ads as sources to build indicators for quantifying, documenting, and evaluating labor markets. In contrast, job advertisements in EC/SC are not understood in terms of quantifying skills, but rather as “discourses” of actors.

Picture 5: Guillemette de Larquier in session six on analyzing job ads.
By analyzing local authority jobs an EC/SC perspective contributes to the investigation of the plurality of describing work and jobs and the coordination of various actors, especially with regard to professions that are not yet stabilized as the so called “green jobs”. The problem of the methodological position of worlds – especially scientific worlds – was the focus of Rainer Diaz-Bone’s contribution. Although work in EC/SC focuses on data worlds, in particular on data qualities and categorization, there is a lack of systematic exploration and understanding of EC/SC’s own world(s) and scientific practice and their methodological foundation. Rainer Diaz-Bone proposed the work of American neo-pragmatist Hilary Putnam. As such, there is potential for EC/SC to analyze its own plurality of scientific practices and data worlds. This can contribute to enhancing EC/SC as a reflexive approach and methodologically integrate its own research practices. Putnam’s work offers a crucial perspective for reflecting on EC/SC with regard to its coherence, potential, deficits, and prospects.
The inspiring first day of the workshop ended with a dinner in the city, where participants had the opportunity to continue their discussions and get to know one another better.
Wednesday 10th
The second day of the workshop started with a round table discussion with Julia Brandl (University of Innsbruck), Guillemette de Larquier, Kenneth Horvath and Rainer Diaz-Bone. After a brief introduction to the questions of who they are as researchers and teachers and how they are related to methods, the presentation moved on to the core topic of the workshop. The focus was on how research has been conducted within the EC/SC tradition to date and how its methodological perspective, the application of methods, and research practice in general are interrelated.

Picture 6: The roundtable with Guillemette de Larquier, Rainer Diaz-Bone, Julia Brandl and Kenneth Horvath.
The roundtable discussion examined the role of methods from various perspectives. For Julia Brandl, methods are tools that help answer research questions and capture different social realities. Kenneth Horvath, on the other hand, emphasizes that methods are not fixed within a particular discipline, but can be used appropriately depending on the subject area.
For Guillemette de Larquier, it was important that methods are not only used for quantification, but can also open up new ways of questioning quantification itself; here, too, the keyword is reflexivity. She also finds convention theory brings up exciting perspectives and methods for economics – having the potential of opening up more conservative realms.
Rainer Diaz-Bone emphasized once again the connection between pragmatism and EC/SC. Its strength lies in analyzing how people act in concrete terms and shape their world(s). This raises key methodological questions: What is the surplus value of EC/SC, how do we operate EC/SC, and finally, the question already raised by Kenneth Horvath: How do we communicate and teach convention theory?
The term “convention” was also critically examined during the discussion. It was described as too rigid and therefore appearing stable even though this is not the case. Instead, more dynamic terms such as criticism and justification could build the starting point. They appear less fixed and more open-ended.
Finally, the handling of artistic practice was emphasized. While Laurent Thévenot discussed learning from artistic perspectives, Rainer Diaz-Bone highlighted the importance of still being a researcher and not shifting too much into the artistic field. Another topic was the often-mentioned openness of EC/SC, which – while convention theory is a liberal approach especially to methods – still needs some framework that synthesizes the value of EC/SC.
After the roundtable, there was a coffee break where the outstanding issues and questions could be discussed.
Session seven
Frithjof Nungesser (University of Graz) started the following session seven by presenting his ongoing research project: Livestock production conflicts in Germany over the last 50 years are examined from three perspectives: synchronous, diachronic, and contextual. However, examining the spectrum of justifications in these debates also raises questions, and he successfully demonstrated that a wide variety of aspects must be considered: Various concepts for relating justifications were discussed, such as complementarity and alignment. The structuredness of different justification arenas, their differences and methodological implications (such as accessibility, potential archives, and more), possible transfers between the arenas, and muted justifications – connected to possible power relations – were also highlighted. Finally, Frithjof Nungesser asked whether the EC/SC is bound to a specific political and normative background and how comparisons can be made when the context shifts. This opened the discussion on possible regime shifts when contexts change – especially in non-democratic times –, national differences in the study of the past, and appropriate methods.
Following the rich discussion, Alfredo Grattarola (City St. Georges University of London) presented a typology of research practices and methodological tasks based on a review of organization and management literature that mobilizes the EC/SC. Among other things, he showed how different concepts of EC/SC (such as orders of worth or critiques) are linked to methodological choices. He emphasized the unexploited potential for theorizing organizations and suggested using analogies of “system” instead of “toolkit,” encouraging organization and management researchers to engage more comprehensively with the economies of worth and to expand methodological repertoires.
Session eight
The thematic focus of session eight was on games and vignettes. The contribution by Léonie Bisang (University of Lucerne) addressed the lack of theorization and empirical investigation on how actors act in and shift between different registers. She presented an analytical strategy for exploring situational constellations that lead to changes in registers. In her empirical work, she examines access to higher education institutions using a game-based research tool. Relating to her dissertation project she discussed analysis strategies and how shifts between registers can be captured.
Carsten Damm (University of Erfurt) introduced his doctoral thesis, which takes an empirical approach to social theory debates on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s late philosophy using vignette-based research. A research design was applied to realize language games as vignettes. The aim was to document the politicizing use of economic model worlds, which can be evaluated by analyzing the moves of players through an online survey. As such, the approach can serve as a methodological example to provide further possible EC/SC research formats. Following this, Thomas Grunau (University of Bremen) rounded off session 6. He also picked up on the subject of vignettes and presented the approach of his postdoctoral project, which examines different social worlds in which and through which childhood is produced. Referring to the EC/SC’s studies on education and development issues related to childhood, he addressed the scarcely analyzed phenomenon of (early) childhood in order to examine how this institution is coordinated, organized, and secured in specific situations. In his contribution, he discussed methodical challenges that arise when analyzing this subject area.
Session nine
Session nine was devoted to situational analysis and situationalism. Helena Geisler and Miriam Grønning (Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training) started the inspiring session by proposing using reflexive thematic analysis to construct analytical situations as a meaningful research unit for convention theory. While recruiters construct applicants’ suitability for the job by relying on various conventions, supported by investment in forms such as credentials and formalized processes, they showed how hiring situations differ in the (de)construction of meaning of credentials. Using the development of four different types of these hiring situations, they showed how these types of situations correspond to firm and occupational characteristics. On the other hand, Simon Schrör (Weizenbaum Institute Berlin) and Anna Maria Wittorf (University of Applied Science Reutlingen) both highlighted the suitability of situational analysis in their research projects. Simon Schrör proposed a neopragmatist adaptation of situational analysis, expanding its applicability to the study of coordination processes in situations of uncertainty. He showed how the mapping of coordination situations helps to trace how conventions, coordination mechanisms, intermediaries, and worlds interact within economic and legal conflicts concerning intellectual property rights. Anna Maria Wittorf, in turn, showed how combining discourse analysis with mapping techniques can be used to uncover how leadership legitimacy is constructed in different organizational settings.
Session ten

Picture 7: Sheena F. Bartscherer started with session 10.
In session ten, entitled “beyond orders of worth”, Sheena F. Bartscherer (Humboldt University Berlin) introduced her self-developed Neopragmatic Discourse Analysis (NPDA), which integrates emotions and suggestive actions toward alternative regimes (like the regime of violence or love) into the analysis of orders of worth in discourses. Using her analysis of the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaigns of Trump and Clinton, she presented the application of NPDA and thereby drew conclusions about argumentative structures, strategies, patterns, and argument formation. This opened up a discussion about the emotionality of orders of worth, an irrationality blindness in EC/SC, as well as structuralist and pragmatic approaches to analyzing the situation.
Valeska Cappel continued the theme of regimes (and regime shifts) and showed how classifications in health apps influence user behavior and how users can resist this. She successfully highlighted how a regime perspective reveals everyday tensions that users face as they constantly switch between regimes – within seconds. It became clear that these new technologies do not determine how users interact with them. Rather, users can actively shape how they use health apps.
Meg Holden (Simon Fraser University Vancouver) – the only participant who flew across the Atlantic to attend the workshop – showed how an intersectional layering of an analysis of translanguaging pathways with convention theory analysis should enable a nuanced understanding of the conditions necessary for constructive public debate on aspects of the common good in conditions of radical diversity, inequality, and change. Using examples from a variety of cities, she presented the use of different orders of worth in similar discussions, demonstrating how language and culture influence this usage.
Workshop outcomes and final discussions
While session ten concluded the session rounds, the day was far from over: Guy Schwegler and Léonie Bisang prepared and coordinated one final discussion and presented workshop outcomes. They organized questions that all participants were able to submit during the workshop along two axes: one dimension ranging from “EC/SC specific” to “social sciences in general”, the other opposing “concrete/method/technique” to “abstract/methodology/epistemology”. The questions covered topics such as how to methodically grasp processes, how to move beyond a mere deductive description of conventions, the possible advantages of multimodal analysis in EC/SC and introducing reflexivity into methods.

Picture 8: The final discussion moderated by Léonie Bisang and Guy Schwegler.
The lively discussion that arose further explored the possible binding of orders of worth to a specific context, and whether and how an analysis of other contexts would be possible. In line with this, Laurent Thévenot also brought the learning of conventions to attention, for example with the question of when children begin to refer to conventions. The possibility of sharing results as interactive web apps was also raised, as was a discussion about systematizing the existing literature using keywords and a simplified search function on the EC/SC website. This would help scholars to quickly look for previously used methods, similar topics, and reflections, for example.
After two exciting and intense days, the official part of the workshop ended with words from Rainer Diaz-Bone. He emphasized how impressed he was by all the participants and their work. He expressed his special thanks to Laurent Thévenot for all his work, to Julia Brandl and Guillemette de Larquier, and to the entire organization team, including Guy Schwegler, Kenneth Horvath, Léonie Bisang, and Monika Sy.
Finally, attention was drawn to the next workshop in Innsbruck in February 2027. More information to follow.
A last engagement at the workshop was offered by an aperitif and dinner on a ship, where participants could once again enjoy the beautiful view and get involved in the EC/SC gathering.

Picture 9: Final remarks from the workshop on the ship Wilhelm Tell.














































































