Konstantin Hondros, Helmut Schmidt University

Leonhard Dobusch, University of Innsbruck

Astrid Mager, Austrian Academy of Sciences Vienna

Patricia Aufderheide, American University Washington

Patrick Cohendet, HEC Montréal

Creativity refers to the generation of novel and valuable ideas and artifacts and is central to the management and organization of innovation. Mimicking creativity, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technology rapidly generates potentially novel and valuable content such as text, images, music, or video. The multiple implications of GenAI for the management and organization of creativity and innovation are exemplified in the burgeoning literature on creative problem solving, the organization of creative and knowledge-based work, employee creativity, and human-nonhuman interaction in creative processes.

Running through organizational discussions of GenAI and creativity, but often not made explicit, are copyright issues, such as rights management of training data or ownership of generated content. Copyright refers to the legal framework that protects but also delineates ownership of creative content. GenAI, and digitization more broadly, is moving copyright from the legal niches of the creative industries to the center of practices and routines in organizations and everyday digital life. Any activity related to GenAI requires the management of copyright within and across organizations. Yet an in-depth discussion of the interrelation between creativity and copyright in the context of GenAI is missing from management and organization studies, as well as social science at large.

This Call for Papers suggests that the accelerating developments of digitization and GenAI call for more attention to the interrelation between creativity and copyright in organizations. At the same time, this provides a unique opportunity to study how organizations deal with regulatory uncertainty due to rapid technological developments. Such a mismatch between technology and regulation opens up all kinds of opportunities and challenges for creative organizing and organizing creativity alike.

We particularly encourage studies that use empirical methods to explore everyday practices of dealing with GenAI and copyright within and beyond organizational contexts, but conceptual submissions are also very welcome. Empirically, we invite contributions from all kinds of fields potentially affected by GenAI and its relationship to copyright – from the creative industries and journalism to online platforms and services, to research and science itself. We welcome contributions from different disciplines interested in the empirical analysis of technology and innovation – ranging from organization and management studies, media and communication studies, cultural studies, information studies, sociology, political science, history, science and technology studies, musicology, to activist research and practice-based approaches.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide fundamental insights in the management and organization of the interrelation between copyright and creativity in the context of GenAI. We will achieve this by showcasing how this interrelation unfolds in various creative and innovative arenas, such as creative industries, journalism, digital platforms, and open science. We expect contributions to make copyright a more accessible research topic across disciplines and contexts by fostering an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary community around the topic of copyright and creativity in organization and management. Through this special issue, we aim to occupy a central position in the discourse about organizing and managing creativity in the context of GenAI and emerging digitalization.

Potential topics

• Creativity in the shadow of GenAI: GenAI crucially transforms creative practices and knowledge production that we only start to understand, particularly regarding the interrelation between creativity and copyright. How does GenAI affect the creation and management of creative content? How do creative, artistic practices change through the use of GenAI? What role does copyright play in creative transformations and organizational changes co-produced with GenAI?
• Doing copyright: A practice lens of 'living copyright' is missing in much of the organization and management literature in the context of creativity, but also in other contexts and fields. How does GenAI foster practices related to copyright within and across organizations? Who are the actors and actants doing copyright in the context of GenAI? How are these new practices shaping the organization of creativity? How is emerging regulation of GenAI affecting organizations and organizational creativity?
• Conflicts over copyright: Organizations are involved in many conflicts over copyright that touch upon creativity in multiple ways, but we know little about them. How do conflicts over copyright foster or impede with creativity and the generation of creative content? What is the role of digitization in these conflicts, and how are these conflicts evolving with GenAI? How do these conflicts affect creativity in organizations? How do conflicts over copyright and AI relate to managing technological innovation?
• Inequality and copyright: Copyright plays an important role in distributing access to creative content and to knowledge in global economies more broadly. How does GenAI affect access to knowledge within and across organizations? Who actually owns copyright and how does GenAI influence ownership structures? What are the conventions and managerial practices for allocating copyright among actors and agents in organizations? What are the consequences of copyright inequality for creativity?
• Alternatives to copyright: Commons-based creation and knowledge-sharing approaches have proven invaluable for creativity in many organizations, especially in the context of digitization. What are the alternatives to exclusive copyright regimes in the context of GenAI? How do alternatives to copyright provide counter-imaginaries in digital environments? How do such approaches challenge or facilitate the management and organization of creativity in the context of GenAI?
• Researching copyright: Copyright is ubiquitous, yet highly abstract and complex, both in its legal structure and in its real-world impact on creativity. Making copyright-sensitive creativity and innovation research more accessible to the discourses of management and organization is also a methodological issue. What are methodologically promising ways to investigate the interrelation between copyright and creativity in organization and management? What are the specific obstacles in the context of GenAI?

Timeline

• January 25, 2026: Deadline for abstract submission for paper development workshop
• February 27, 2026: Online paper development workshop
• September 30, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline