A Lasting Legacy: Celebrating Paul DiMaggio’s Contributions to Scholarship and Mentoring

Few sociologists have influenced as many areas of inquiry as Paul DiMaggio. Across organizational sociology, culture and cognition, economic sociology, networks, inequality, political sociology, and methodology, his work has repeatedly reshaped research agendas. Just as importantly, generations of scholars have carried those ideas forward, extending them into new domains and developing them in unexpected directions.This issue brings together papers by Paul’s former students to celebrate both his scholarly contributions and his lasting legacy as a mentor. When we began organizing the volume, we contacted former students without regard to specialty area, method, or seniority. The response was immediate and overwhelmingly enthusiastic. People were eager to participate and quickly committed to the project. Had time permitted, the volume could easily have been twice as large. The collection includes work in the domains of organizational sociology; economic sociology; networks, diffusion, and inequality; culture and cognition; and political sociology. While, remarkably, Paul has contributed to even more areas than this, such a list is already incredibly impressive in its breadth. Using his own concepts, we could say that Paul is an institutional entrepreneur who reshaped many academic organizational fields. A common thread running through much of Paul’s work is the conviction that theoretical and methodological innovation are inseparable. He coined the term “theorodology” to express the idea that behind every difficult theoretical problem lies a methodological challenge, and behind many methodological innovations lies an effort to answer an important theoretical question. This perspective appears repeatedly throughout the volume. The contributors employ a striking range of methods, but they share a commitment to using those methods in the service of substantive sociological questions rather than treating methodology as an end in itself.