During the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, professor Tine De Moor moderated the paper session Institutions, Legitimacy and Change on Sunday 27 July. During this sessions, she presented the paper ‘Contagious Institutions? A Longitudinal Study of Institutional Spill-Over of European Guilds‘, co-authored with Fijnanda van Klingeren. Their paper delves into the spread of guilds across Europe over 600 years, offering fresh insights into the spatial and temporal factors influencing their proliferation.

For this paper, De Moor and Van Klingeren have been honoured with the Journal of Management History Award for Best International Paper. The award announcement was during the Management History Business Meeting, which took place on Monday, July 28.

Their research offers new perspectives on the factors influencing the proliferation of guilds, emphasizing institutional diffusion over traditional explanations such as urban growth. By examining data from the 12th to 19th century across four European countries, the authors provide valuable insights into the historical development of guilds.

Tine De Moor: “Our research gives an alternative view on the spread of guilds as a coordination mechanisms. Neighbouring regions influence each other heavily in the implementation of new institutions. These insights help us to understand how modern institutions for collective action, formed from the bottom-up, are adopted by other regions and how an institutional model can scale over time. Receiving this award gives a great boost to showing how historical, longitudinal insights can contribute to understanding the development of grassroots organisations today.”