International Center for Research in Organisational Discourse, Strategy & Change

The 24th annual ERU Conference will be hosted in 2009 by the Cardiff Organization Studies Research Group (CORGies) at Cardiff Business School. This conference presents an opportunity to discuss emerging and future trends within organization theory and analysis. In welcoming contributions that explore the diverse avenues that emerge from this theme we seek to reflexively challenge the ways in which we study organizations. We are especially interested in papers considering:

New directions in organization theory that attempt to develop existing approaches or integrate multiple perspectives. Co-ordinators: Prof. Martin Kitchener Kitchenermj@Cardiff.ac.uk and Dr Tim Edwards Edwardstj@Cardiff.ac.uk
New directions in understanding the nature, implications, and management of work. Co-ordinators Dr Sarah Jenkins JenkinsSL@Cardiff.ac.uk and Dr Sarah Hurlow HurlowS@Cardiff.ac.uk

The conference will begin with a keynote address from Professor Royston Greenwood (University of Alberta) and the dinner will be held in the spectacular Cardiff Millennium Centre. The conference concludes with a plenary session led by CORGies professors including: Hugh Willmott, Robyn Thomas, Mike Reed, Rick Delbridge, Annette Davies, Martin Kitchener, Emmanuel Ogbonna and Jonathon Morris.

CORGies brings together researchers based at Cardiff Business School who share an interest in developing critical organization research. The members have a strong research programme in the areas of organizational culture, discourse, identity, organizational and institutional change, organizational control and emotional labour. The aim of CORGies is to facilitate collaborative research activities and new research initiatives, support early career researchers, and to provide an arena for seminars and other research activities

Submissions

Abstracts of 500 words are invited for three types of presentation: (1) full papers, (2) roundtable sessions involving 4-6 named participants, and (3) PhD student/early career posters.

Early career sponsorship. The Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) is sponsoring an early career track for the 12 PhD students and academics with up to three years' post-doctorate experience who submit the best abstracts. Sponsorship will cover conference costs (accommodation and registration fee). Please indicate sponsorship application on abstract.

Abstracts should be sent as Word attachments in email messages to: Julie Mein (Conference Manager) at meinja@cardiff.ac.uk

Timescale: Deadline for submission of all abstracts 1 February 2009; Notification of acceptance 6 March 2009; Full papers 6 August 2009.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CALL FOR PAPERS: SPECIAL TOPIC FORUM OF ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW ON THEORY DEVELOPMENT

WHERE ARE THE NEW THEORIES OF ORGANIZATION?

Due Date: April 30th, 2009

GUEST EDITORS:
ROY SUDDABY (Alberta), CYNTHIA HARDY (Melbourne) & QUY NGUYEN HUY (INSEAD)

This call renews the AMR focus on theory development inaugurated in the special issues published in October 1989 and October 1999. Whereas the prior calls focused attention on such basic questions as "what is theory?" and "how is good theory developed?" the current call challenges the field to renew the stock of theories we currently employ.

We detect a growing disaffection with the existing set of theories that dominate the study of organizations and organizational behavior. Some scholars advocate shifting away from theory-driven work toward problem-centered research, whereas other scholars call for a focus on theoretical mechanisms rather than on derivations from the limited set of theoretical options. The estrangement toward theory seems to have spread even to traditional organizational scientists who increasingly voice their preference for ‘models,’ ‘perspectives’ and ‘empirical puzzles.’

Is the mine of organization theory nearing exhaustion? That organizational researchers continue to draw from the same stock of theories while expressing growing discomfort with the need for theory forms the motivation for this Academy of Management Review Theory Forum. We ask, with full intent to provoke and challenge, “Where are the new theories of organization?”

The aim of this Theory Development Forum is to first, provoke debate about the relevance of theory in organization studies and, second, to articulate new and emerging theoretical approaches to studying organizations. We seek papers that identify new and important but understudied aspects of organizations. We encourage submissions that expand the scope and range of theory. We encourage submissions that adopt a view of theory development beyond ‘normal science’ and that extend the central questions and assumptions of management and organization theory. Together with the traditional inspiration from the root domains of psychology, economics, sociology and anthropology, we encourage the development of indigenous theories of organization inspired by contemporary organizational conundrums. Above all, we seek papers which extend the tradition of past Theory Development Forums in the Academy of Management Review by incorporating new intellectual currents and emerging social phenomena into organizational research.

Contributors may wish to consider (but are not limited to) submission on the following topics or questions:

Theories for "new" phenomena – what aspects of the organizational world are not well covered by theory and how can we theorize more effectively about them? Must theory continue to focus on the cognitive and the behavioural? Is there a need for new forms of theorizing to accommodate the material, spatial, bodily, and aesthetic aspects of organizations and organizational artefacts?
Theories for the 21st century – as the contemporary world struggles to deal with problems such as climate change, the growing tensions between the have and the have-nots, the clashes between different belief systems (e.g., Christian versus non-Christian ideologies, capitalistic versus more social-egalitarian thinking), and global terrorism, are our organizational theories up to the challenge? How well does organizational theory allow us to address social problems and engage in effective problem-solving?
Re-examining assumptions -- one of the assumptions of organization science is that organizations are dominant institutional structures in society rivalling the influence of other institutions such as the state, the family, and religious institutions such as the church. Is this assumption valid, or are organizations increasingly to be regarded as epiphenomena? What theories of organization account for the changing relationship between organizations and other social institutions?
Papers on post-theoretical theorizing – what are the opportunities for a post-theoretical world? Are there alternative ways of theorizing and would they help gain a better understand of management? Do ‘models’, ‘perspectives’, and ‘empirical puzzles’ represent a different approach or are they simply theories under another name?
Critiques of theory – papers that locate the production of theory in its institutional context. What has previous theory done for (and to) the discipline? And what has the discipline – the way that it is organized – done to theory? How can we talk about theory – as knowledge – without power? What are the unstated or hidden assumptions and biases of our current portfolio of academically ‘legitimate’ theories, and how do these make us blind to other important phenomena? Do the institutions and stakeholders that make up our discipline affect the ways in which particular theories emerge and gain credibility?

In sum, we are interested in critically re-examining the role of theory in organizational scholarship and highlighting new theoretical horizons that might better inform future research. To handle such a broad range of topics we have assembled a diverse set of editors for the Forum: Roy Suddaby (roy.suddaby@ualberta.ca), Cynthia Hardy (chardy@unimelb.edu.au) and Quy Nguyen Huy (quy.huy@insead.edu).

Submissions
To be considered for publication in this Special Topic Forum, manuscripts must be received by April 30th, 2009. (Please do not submit papers for this Special Topic Forum prior to April 13th, 2009.) Manuscripts should be submitted through the Manuscript Central submission system (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amr/). From there, you can follow the Web site directions to submit your manuscript for this special topic forum issue. Details concerning AMR's procedures and evaluation criteria are available online and are printed in all issues of the journal in a section titled Information for Contributors. Instructions for manuscript preparation are provided in the Style Guide for Authors, printed online and in each January issue of the journal. Authors must consult both documents for information concerning page length and other important guidelines and follow these guidelines when submitting manuscripts.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

24TH EGOS COLLOQUIUM, JULY 10–12, 2008, VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM

SUB-THEME 36: IDENTITY WORK AND ORGANIZATION

This stream focuses on the dynamic interactions between organization and individual 'identity work' and sees the relationship between the two as complex and multi-directional. This approach conceptualizes identity as an ongoing accomplishment, and sees organizations as important sites and resources for this identity work. Organizations and individuals are mutually constituted through on-going and dynamic negotiations around the creation of a sense of self. This approach also recognizes that identity can be a 'disorganized' phenomenon as a result of the diverse and contradictory ways in which actors engage with multiple others; and it acknowledges that identity work can be a form of resistance to the organization (or disorganization) to which individuals are subjected. We are also particularly interested in papers that go beyond simply describing identity work in order to conceptualize how identity work has been influenced by upsetting practices employed in an organization and/or how identity work contributes to and enacts upsetting practices.

We hope to explore organizational practices that are upsetting to individuals as well as the processes whereby individuals try to upset existing practices in attempts to bring about various forms of organizational change or other outcomes. In referring to practices, we include the following: daily activities (work practices), interactions with other individuals and groups in the organization (interactive practices), interactions with individuals outside the organization (boundary-spanning and public-private practices) and non-human objects (technological practices).

We encourage the submission of papers on the following research themes:

Upsetting practices: for example situations where unethical behaviour has become the norm, resulting in identity work on the part of individuals as they try to cope with these practices or identity work by external stakeholders – such as customers or shareholders – in the form of activism and resistance in relation to upsetting practices in an industry or sector (e.g., the tobacco firms, the armaments trade).
Upsetting identities: the identity work that arises from being categorized by others as having an upsetting identity (i.e., having identity markers that are not the ‘norm’) which, in turn, may bring about changes to organizational practice.
Maverick identities: identity work on the part of individuals who deliberately construct themselves as having upsetting identities in order to produce organizational effects (e.g., individuals who construct themselves as mavericks to resist organizational authority or to bring about change).
Change and identity: how organizational change can upset existing conceptualizations of self by, for example, triggering identity work by individuals as they attempt to accommodate and adapt to it (e.g., the introduction of new technologies which require fundamental changes in how people work may also mean that they think differently of themselves); as well as changes in existing industry or societal categories of identity that result in people having to reinvent their identities or take alternative actions, such as leaving the organization, in order to retain their sense of self (e.g., downgrading of categories from nurse to care worker).

Workshop Format:
We will be using an interactive approach in this sub-theme, and not the normal paper presentation format. Presenters will have a maximum of ten minutes to present the key points of their paper and to pose three questions for subsequent discussion in small groups. In order to ensure that this process is successful, accepted participants will need to submit their final paper by the due date and to have read the other participants' papers in advance of the conference.

For details on submitting abstracts, please see:
http://egos.cbs.dk/conferences/subthemes/groups.php?conf_id=6

Convenors:

Cynthia Hardy
University of Melbourne (Australia)
chardy@unimelb.edu.au

Steve Maguire
McGill University in Montreal (Canada)
steve.maguire@mcgill.ca

Leisa Sargent
University of Melbourne (Australia)
lsargent@unimelb.edu.au

Robyn Thomas
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University
thomasr4@cardiff.ac.uk

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ORGANIZATIONAL DISCOURSE:

TRANSLATIONS, TRANSFORMATIONS AND TRANSGRESSIONS

London, Wednesday 23rd July-Friday 25th July, 2008
Queen Mary, University of London: Mile End Campus

Following two successful events in Amsterdam, the Conference is returning to London in 2008. It will be hosted by the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary, University of London and organized under the auspices of the International Centre for Research in Organizational Discourse, Strategy and Change (ICRODSC).

Prospective contributors interested in presenting a paper should send an abstract of approx. 1,000 words to the conference organisers by 11th January 2008. Notification of acceptance of papers will be given by 3rd March 2008. Copies of submissions should be sent as an email attachment (saved as a Word document or a text file) to Cliff Oswick at: sbm-discourse08@qmul.ac.uk

For more information, please see the attached flyer (315KB PDF).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------