International Center for Research in Organisational Discourse, Strategy & Change

At this workshop, Graham Sewell presented his research on institutionalization as a form of re-enchantment. His work examines the Weberian concept of disenchantment - a generalised process of secular rationalization invloving the progressive displacement of magical or supernatural explanations of cause and effect by scientific alternatives - and applies it to developments in management knowledge, using the concept of "re-enchantment". In this way, he accounts for the durability of some institutional features of contemporary organisations because they align with modern myths - i.e., enduring allegorical narratives based on the extended use of a compelling metaphor. Marcos Bosquetti - a visiting doctoral student from the University of São Paulo then presented his proposed study of the discourse of climate change and its effects on the energy industry. The study will examine how the "grand" discourse of climate change constructs this problem (e.g., whether it frames it as an individual versus a collective problem and whether it is a problem that is "out there" versus a problem which is indivisible from human activity) and the effects this has on the energy industry in different countries.

2007

Melbourne Workshop on Identity, Boundary Objects
November 2007

A visit by Robyn Thomas from Cardiff Business School provided an opportunity for another ICRODSC seminar. Professor Thomas presented her research, which she is conducting with Leisa Sargeant and Cynthia Hardy, on how boundary objects are produced through the negotiation of meaning and the role played by power in this process. The study explores the use of a boundary object - a culture toolkit for developing a new customer oriented culture - by managers in a telecommunications company. The study shows that this artifact was developed and maintained as a boundary object only through the interatctions of a range of actors as they collectively negotiated its meaning; and further, that power played an important role in these negotiations, especially in relation to vertical relations among participants. In addition, two of our doctoral students presented their work. Dinuka Wijetunga spoke about the role of marketing, consumption and artifacts in social shaping of Technology. Lauren Gurreri presented her doctoral work on the construction of "cool" identities.

Melbourne Workshop on Identity
May 2007

A visit by Caroline Essers from the Nijmegen School of Management provided an opportunity for an ICRODSC seminar on identity. Dr. Essers presented a paper on her research project on The identity constructions of Female Entrepreneurs of Moroccan and Turkish Origin in the Netherlands. This study examines how the discourse on entrepreneurship constructs a heroic archetype, which is also gendered and ethnocentrically determined. It shows how women of Moroccan and Turkish origin deal with various demands concerning their female ethnicity to come up with "enterprising" identity strategies. In addition, two of our doctoral students presented their work. Steve Jaynes presented his study, which uses a discursive approach to study strategic change. It examines how employees engaged in identity work in a large bank in resoponse to a major strategic initiative. Primo Garcia presented his doctoral work on identity work in universities in response to recent higher educational reforms.

Melbourne Workshop Discourse and Technology
February 2007

ICRODSC members at the University of Melbourne hosted an international workshop on Discourse and the Fate of Technologies, attended by 27 academics and doctoral students from Australia and overseas.The first day of this workshop included papers on a range of different technologies. Papers were presented on: genetic modification by Bill Doolin, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand; DDT by Steve Maguire, McGill University, Canada; the Israeli high-tech industry by Tammar Zilber, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; nanotechnology by Mike Lounsbury, University of Alberta, Canada; global financial markets by Marc Ventresca, Oxford University, England; web-based portals by Zelinna Pablo, University of Melbourne, Australia; and Enterprise Resource Planning by David Grant and Richard Hall, University of Sydney, Australia. The second day started with a debate concerning: The future of organizational discourse in the study of organizations: what can it contribute? This was followed by a question and answer panel discussion as doctoral students put questions to the panel on: That first job: What I'd like to know .

2006

AIM London Workshop on Developing Publishing Skills
November 2006

Professors Cynthia Hardy (University of Melbourne and AIM International Visiting Scholar), Rick Delbridge (Cardiff Business School and AIM Senior Fellow) and Robyn Thomas organized under the auspices of AIM (Advanced Institute of Management Research and ICRODSC) in London. The workshop provided an opportunity for early career researches to exmplore the different stages involved in reviewing and publishing an article in an international journal. In addition, participants were able to discuss their research and publishing ideas with academics experienced in publishing in leading Eropean and US Journals.

Cardiff Business School Workshop on Organizational Discourse: Why It Matters to Managers
November 2006

Julia Balogun (CASS), Paula Jarzabkowski (Aston Business School) and Robyn Thomas (Cardiff Business School), all AIM Ghoshal Fellows, organized an international workshop on the practical aspects of organisational discourse. Faclitated by Professors Cynthia Hardy (University of Melbourne and AIM International Visiting Fellow) and Steve Maguire (McGill University and Interantional Visiting Fellow), the workshop provided the opportunity for practising managers, drawn from a wide range of public and private sector organisations, to explore the role that language plays in management - not simply as a form of communication but also through the way it can construct our understanding of organisational change. During the workshop participants were introduced to the concept of organisational discourse, with its relevance in practice being illustrated through a number of case studies from international research. Participants then considered the main discourse affecting their own management experience to develop insights about how they might manage them, as well as how they can use discourse to manage collaboration across departments, paternerships, alliances, and networks.

Cardiff Business School Workshop on Discourse and Research Methods
November 2006

This workshop was organized in association with AIM, Cardiff Business School and ICRODSC by Julia Balogun (CASS), Paula Jarzabkowski (Aston Business School) and Robyn Thomas (Cardiff Business School), all AIM Ghoshal Fellows. It focused on PhD students and early career researches interested in using critical disciourse methods in their research. The aim of the event was to explore various approaches to discourse analysis, as well as to reflect on the implications of its use in mangement and organization research. Methodological approaches covered in the workshop included critical discourse analysis, (Cynthia Hardy, Melbourne University and Steve Maguire, McGill University, both AIM International Visiting Fellows); narrative analysis (Andrew Brown, University of Bath and Nic Beech, University of St Andrews, AIM Associate); Laclau & Mouffe's discourse analysis (Hugh Wilmott, Cardiff Business School); and reflexiivity (Robyn Thomas, Cardiff Business School, AIM Ghoshal Fellow).

The 7th International Conference on Organizational Discourse: Identity, Ideology and Idiosyncrasy
July 2006

The conference was again hosted by the Department of Culture, Organization and Management at the Vrije Universiteit (Free University), Amsterdam. And, once again, the conference theme was designed to accommodate a wide range of papers and presentations. There were some 130 participants and the plenary speakers included René ten Bos, Radboud University , The Netherlands, Wanda Orlikowski, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carl Rhodes, University of Technology Sydney . A Special Issue of the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy is in preparation and another special issue is being negotiated. A list of accepted papers can be found at: http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/discourse2006/

2005

Sydney Workshop on Organizational Discourse Methods
December, 2005.

ICRODSC members at Sydney University hosted an international workshop on Organizational Discourse Methods. The aim of this interactive two-day event was to explore various approaches to discourse analysis, as well as to reflect on the implications of its use. Methodological approaches covered in the workshop included critical discourse analysis (Cynthia Hardy, Melbourne University and Steve Maguire, McGill University); narrative (Andrew Brown, University of Bath); Laclau & Mouffe's discourse analysis (Hugh Wilmott, Judge Busines School, University of Cambridge); reflexivity (Robyn Thomas, Cardiff University); micro-level analysis (Arlene Harvey, University of Sydney), and multi-modality (Rick Iedema, University of New South Wales). In addition to the invited speakers and PhD students from a range of Australian universities, other invited participants included Stefan Sveningsson (Lund University), Chris Wright (University of New South Wales) and Bill Harley and Leisa Sargent (University of Melbourne). Highlights of the workshop were the interactive panel discussions and the PhD forum, which provided students with an opportunity to meet with leading scholars in the area of organizational discourse and discuss their PhD research.

Melbourne Workshop on the Study of Identities and Resistance
November 2005

Dr Robyn Thomas, from Cardiff Business School, led a workshop that examined how the study of identities could be conducted with a critical, reflexive approach in mind. Dr Thomas presented a paper co-authored with Annette Davies on: What Have the Feminists Done for Us? Feminist theory and Organizational Resistance. This paper examines how, in developing our understandings of resistance, both organization theorists and feminist theorists have struggled with issues of the subject and object of resistance. In particular, attention has been focused on an adequate theorizing of resistance that can offer a detailed and varied understanding of the different motivations of individuals and groups to transform dominant norms. This paper draws on the tensions and debates within feminist theory, to argue that feminist theory problematizes but ultimately enriches and revitalizes conceptualizations of resistance within organization studies. The paper focuses on three tensions within resistance studies, namely: the subject of resistance, what 'counts' as resistance, and when resistance counts. The paper illustrates how feminist theory has worked through these tensions in maintaining a practical politics of change and transformation whilst avoiding the problems of universalism, essentialism and privilege. Feminism, in attending to these tensions, offers a contingent politics of constant vigilance within power relations. The paper has been published in Organization 12(5): 711-740, 2005. The paper has been published in Organization 12(5): 711-740, 2005. Dr Thomas holds a Ghoshal fellowship from the prestigious, UK-based Advanced Institute of Management Research and is working with members of the Centre on a study of identities.

Melbourne Seminar on A Discourse Analysis of Speakable Emotions in a College of Further Education
April 2005

Dr Christine Coupland, from the University of Nottingham gave a seminar on a research project using discourse analysis to examine Speakable Emotions in a college of further education. The project examines accounts or stories of emotional experiences in one organization by interviewing across a range of employees. The findings suggest that, rather than an institutionally held level of appropriate articulations of emotionality, there appears to be a role-related rule system. This has been made visible through an examination of the participants' positioning strategies as they describe emotional experiences. Our approach has focused on the language of emotion used to recreate emotional experiences. Rather than working from the assumption that the interview transcripts reveal emotion, we suggest that they construct it according to tacitly understood rules surrounding appropriate levels of emotional display in a shared context. By taking the perspective that statements about emotions do not simply describe behaviour they interpret it, are judicial as well as a descriptive acts, we can consider informally defined social orders and patterns of emotion rules. Three distinct groups' strategies have emerged which are closely linked to the individuals' work roles; lecturers, senior managers and administrative employees. The former group's members acknowledge and upgrade labelled emotions while the latter two groups deny and downgrade accounts of emotional experiences. This is performed through positioning and distancing through constructions of the organization, self and other.

Melbourne Seminar on Sense-making, Organization and Time
April 2005

Dr Ida Sabelis from the Department of Culture, Organization and Management at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands gave a seminar on her current research project on Sense-making, Organization and Time. Acceleration, global speed, compression and the ongoing strive for efficiency, parallel to world-wide competition and the urge for ever faster 'growth', pose problems for people's orientation in life and, reflexively, for the working of organizations. By being able to do more in less time, technological and policy developments in organizations have not provided more 'free time', but boosted stress to the extent that many people are swept out (or fear to be) of the mainstream device of daily life, i.e. working and living in the context of organized and organizational settings. Among scholars of organization and management, it becomes increasingly accepted that one of the reasons for the paradoxical development of the striving for control and the simultaneous loss of it by increased attempt to structure organization processes, analytically can be linked to the use and perception of time/s in organizations. One of the objectives of the project is to explore temporalities in and beyond organizational settings and to examine how time regimes function in the expansion of clock time orientation, especially beyond the boundaries of organization, i.e. in terms of workload, burnout related issues and work - life balance.

Melbourne Seminar on Managing Risk in Organisations
February 2005

Professor David Wilson from Warwick Business School (UK) gave a seminar on Managing Risk in Organisations: Beyond Regulation, Examples from the Leisure and Travel Industry, which presented findings from a study of seven organisations. The first case presented the perspective of an agency that conducts international risk analysis. The other six cases were drawn from the leisure and travel industry. The data provide insights into both the nature of the different types of risk faced in the leisure and travel sector and how individual organisations manage risk. Analysis revealed patterns in the data indicating that risk in this context falls into two groupings. First, the globalisation of risk has created significant challenges for all the sample organisations since global flows and networks impact centrally upon their domestic and overseas operations. This is particularly the case with regard to terrorism. Secondly, all these organisations are exposed to risks that extend significantly beyond the capacity of regulations to handle them (in this case in industries that are highly regulated). The data show that the nature of risk varies across organisations and, hence, presents challenges for ways in which such organisations might manage such risks. The findings also challenge conventional classifications of risk in management theory which tend to assume a homogenous organisational context and risk as predominantly economic

Melbourne Doctoral Seminar on Surviving the PhD: Answering All the Questions You Never Thought to Ask
February 2005

David Wilson who is a professor in strategic management at Warwick Business School, England held a seminar for doctoral students designed to help them identify some of the more challenging aspects of conducting doctoral studies. Having published eight books and over fifty articles in refereed journals on a variety of aspects of Management, as well as holding a variety of leadership roles in the discipline -- he is currently President of EGOS (European Group on Organization Studies), as well as a former president of the British Academy of Management and a former Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies - David Wilson is well qualified to provide doctoral students with sound advice on surviving and excelling in the PhD. In this workshop, he responded to students' concerns and questions regarding a range of issues that affect their doctoral studies: from conducting fieldwork to writing up a thesis to publishing from it. Doctoral students from all Areas in the Department attended this seminar to participate in the discussions around these themes.

Melbourne Seminar on Ironies and Dualities in the Discursive Struggles of Pilots
February 2005

Professor Linda Putnam from Texas A&M University gave a seminar on Ironies and Dualities in the Discursive Struggles of Pilots Defending the Profession. This presentation examined the discursive forms of resistance used by a splinter group of a United States airline pilots' union in its campaign against a contract settlement supported by union leaders. Forms of resistance included oppositional tensions, military metaphors, and dualities that surfaced in the central themes of the campaign. These discursive strategies revealed ironies of advocating unity while promoting division and arguing for a two-tiered pay scale while supporting class distinctions between pilots. These tactics were similar to as well as different from the approaches that oppositional groups within conventional unions typically used. Overall, these strategies pitted pilots against pilots, professions against professions, union against union and suggested that organized resistance is constructed discursively and ironically and in tandem with routine resistance practices.

Melbourne Workshop on Developing Publishing Skills
February 2005

Using a model that formed the basis of earlier publishing workshops held in 2001 and 2004, Cynthia Hardy, Bill Harley and Leisa Sargent facilitated a third workshop in 2005. Over 20 PhDs and early career academics from all Areas in the Department participated in the workshop. In addition, four leading international scholars: Professor Mats Alvesson, Lund University, Sweden; Professor Joanne Martin, Stanford University, USA; Professor Linda Putnam, Texas A&M University, USA; and Professor David Wilson, Warwick University, UK attended as experts with extensive experience in publishing, as well as in reviewing and editing for leading Management journals. Together with Cynthia Hardy, they made presentations to the workshop and then worked with smaller groups on a published paper and its reviews, following the process from submission to acceptance. This provided the opportunity for participants to explore the different stages involved in the reviewing and publication of an individual article, while at the same time being able to discuss their ideas and questions with experienced academics. Feedback from the participants indicated that they found the workshop a very useful experience - they learned a lot of new insights from working with the various stages of a paper and greatly appreciated the opportunity to work with leading researchers from both Europe and the US.

Melbourne Seminar on Identity Research
February 2005

A workshop on Building a Research Program on Identity was held with three co-directors of ICRODSC: Professors Mats Alvesson (Lund University), Linda Putnam (Texas A&M) and David Grant (Sydney University). The workshop outlined a international research project on studying identity, which is being coordinated by the University of Lund in collaboration with other leading identity researchers from Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S. In Australia, researchers at both Sydney and Melbourne are involved and they presented four case examples of managerial identity work at the workshop. These cases were carefully analysed and discussed among the 15 workshop participants (including seven PhD students). The session generated some interesting themes for future managerial identity research which will be conducted as part of this collaboration.

2004

Melbourne Workshop on Institutional Entrepreneurship
December 2004

A two-day workshop on Institutional Entrepreneurship brought leading international scholars to Melbourne. They included Barbara Czarniawska (University of Gothenburg), Raghu Garud (New York University), Susse Georg and Peter Karnoe (Copenhagen Business School), Paul Hirsch (Northwestern University), Petter Holm (University of Tronso), Michael Lounsbury (Cornell University), Frank Mueller (St Andrews University) and Trevor Pinch (Cornell University). Visiting ICRODSC members included David Grant and Nick Wailes (University of Sydney), Steve Maguire (McGill University) and Nelson Phillips (University of Cambridge), while Leisa Sargent, Bill Harley, Cynthia Hardy and a number of doctoral students from the University of Melbourne also participated. The aim of the workshop was to set the stage for a special issue of Organization Studies on institutional entrepreneurship, which is to be co-edited by Raghu Garud, Cynthia Hardy and Steve Maguire. The participants made a number of presentations on their theoretical and empirical work, including the narrative of entrepreneurship, the role of discursive legitimacy in change, the danger of focusing on the institutional entrepreneur as hero, and the use of technology to overthrow conventions. In addition, a range of methodological issues were considered, such as the use of discourse analysis to study institutional entrepreneurship, the problems of quantitative and qualitative research, the need to examine timing and to track emergent processes, and the differences between historical methods and institutional theory.

Sydney Workshop on Managing ERPs: Organizational Implications
November 2004

As this project has developed and four major case studies have been completed, it was decided that it would be of value to hold another workshop to share our ideas with other key researchers in the field. The ERP project team met with 25 other academics from a range of Australian Universities who were all studying ERPs from a variety of different perspectives. The brief was to focus on post-implementation issues with particular reference to organizational impacts. Speakers included: Peter Seddon , Department of Information Systems, Melbourne University; Nasrin Rahmati , School of Business, Monash University; Sue Williams and Catherine Hardy, Business Information Systems, University of Sydney; Guy Gable, School of Information Systems, Queensland University of Technology; Madhavan Thiruvenkatachari, Business Information Systems, University of Sydney. Further presentations from the ERP Project team were made by Richard Hall, Kristine Dery and Nick Wailes, Work and Organizational Studies, University of Sydney. Each of the presentations are linked to the presenters name(s).

The day concluded with a practitioner panel to discuss the day's presentations from a practitioner perspective and also to get their views on the measures industry uses to determine ERP success. The panelists were Nick Kovari, IT Manager, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney; Virginia Rice, Consulting Director, Cubic Consulting; and Jeff Stewart, Business Solutions Manager, Dairy Farmers.

Each presenter has been invited to submit a paper for a Special Issue of Strategic Change for 2005, which will also include a summary of the Panel discussion.

Melbourne Workshop on Renewing Research Practice
May 2004

A workshop on Renewing Research Practice for doctoral students was held at the University of Melbourne in May 2004, with Professor Peter Frost. Peter held the Edgar F. Kaiser Chair in Organizational Behaviour at the University of British Columbia. He was an Elected Fellow of the Academy of Management, a renowned educator who has won a number of teaching awards, and a leading international researcher in the area of OB and HRM. He is also a keen observer of academic research practice. He was a co-author of Doing Exemplary Research (Newbury Park, C.A: Sage) in 1992, which has become a survival guide for many doctoral students around the world. This workshop was based on his most recent collaboration with Ralph Stablein called Renewing Research Practice (to be published by Stanford University Press). Sadly, Peter has since died and leaves behind many saddened friends and colleagues. For those wishing to remember Peter, please see http://isr.sauder.ubc.ca/peterfrost/peter.asp

Melbourne Seminar on Toxic Emotions at Work
May 2004

Peter also gave a departmental seminar on Toxic Emotions at Work. This was based on his recent book Toxic Emotions at Work: How Compassionate Managers Handle Pain and Conflict (HBS Press: 2003). The book won the Academy of Management's 2003 George R. Terry Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of Management Knowledge. In his presentation, Peter discussed the nature and effects of emotional toxicity in the workplace. He explored the various sources of this toxicity and described the role of 'toxin handlers' in organizations and the impact of their work on the organization and on themselves. He illustrated how managers and leaders can recognize and support 'toxin handlers' at work and, importantly, what they can learn from these individuals to enable them to take on the critical role of emotional management themselves. He also outlined some of the ways that companies can develop and formalize constructive responses to emotional toxicity in the workplace.

Melbourne Workshop on Organizational Ethnography
May 2004

A workshop on Organizational Ethnography was held for doctoral students at the University of Melbourne in May 2004, led by Professor James Barker. Jim is Professor of Organizational Theory and Strategy in the Department of Management at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and is currently on sabbatical at Waikato University, New Zealand. The workshop discussed ethnographic techniques in organizational research. Jim shared his experiences from his seven-year period of study in 'ISE Communications' - a North American electronics manufacturer that was engaged in an extended program of organizational change. Jim has used this method to explore his interest in the development and analysis of participative control practices in technological and knowledge-based organizations. His 1993 paper in the Administrative Science Quarterly was the recipient of the journal's Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution. He is also the author of the best-selling book, The Discipline of Teamwork (Sage: 1999).

Melbourne Seminar on Team Communication
May 2004

Jim also gave a departmental seminar on How Swift Starting Action Teams Get Off the Ground: What Airline Flightcrews Can Tell Us About Team Communication. This presentation revisited United Airlines Flight 232 which, in 1989, survived a catastrophic inflight engine explosion due, in part, to the crew's ability to communicate while under crisis conditions. Drawing on the experience of Flight 232 and using other flightdeck crew research, Jim and his co-authors have developed a descriptive theory of the communication process dynamics found in such swift starting action teams. The presentation discussed the communication dynamics of swift starting action teams and the implication of considering such teams in future research.

Melbourne Workshop on Effective Reviewing
April 2004

A workshop on Effective Reviewing was held at the University of Melbourne in April 2004, as part of a visit by Professor Gibson Burrell (Leicester University). Gibson Burrell, Carol Kulik and Cynthia Hardy gave presentations about both what makes for effective reviewing and understanding the reviewing process from an organizational perspective. The presenters have considerable editorial experience: Gibson is founder editor of Organization; Carol is senior associate editor of Journal of Management; and Cynthia is co-editor of Organization Studies. Following the discussion, participants had the opportunity to work on a review of a paper that had been submitted to (and was subsequently accepted by) the Academy of Management Review in small groups, as well as reflect on the reviews that were actually submitted.

Melbourne Seminar on Twentieth-Century Quadrilles
April 2004

Gibson also gave a departmental seminar on Twentieth-Century Quadrilles: The Aristocracy, Owners, Managers and Professionals. Within a broad historical sweep, this seminar looked at the development of the professions and professionalism. Concentrating on the Anglo-American experience, this presentation took as its stage the whole of the twentieth century and its dramatis personae as key groups associated with the rise of the professions. It asked what relationships might be discerned between the professions and each of the following: managers, owners, and aristocracy. It also addressed the question of whether the dynamic and content of such relationships had changed over the century, and if so why? It concluded that these quadrilateral relationships might be thought to represent a 'quadrille', a structured set of relationships that transforms significantly but not unrecognizably, over time.

Melbourne Seminar on Self-Service: Retail, Shopping and Personhood
April 2004

Professor Paul du Gay, from Open University in the UK, gave a departmental seminar at the University of Melbourne on Self-Service: Retail, Shopping and Personhood. His work examines self-service shopping technologies in British retailing from the period directly after World War II. Despite the crucial role in revolutionising the conduct of shopping and practices of consumption routinely allotted to self-service by industry commentators and social scientists there remains a dearth of empirical evidence concerning how, practically, self-service actually was put to work and what its effects were. The presentation discussed some historically grounded thoughts concerning the relationship between retail techniques and devices, shopping practices, and the constitution of persons, specifically the retail consumer and the shop-worker.

Sydney Workshop on Resistance and Discourse
February 2004

Melbourne and Sydney collaborated on a workshop held in Sydney in February 2004 on Resistance and Discourse. It involved the participation of members of other partner institutions including Dan Kärreman (Lund) and Linda Putnam (Texas A&M). In addition, Dennis Mumby (University of North Carolina) and Karen Ashcraft (University of Utah) both attended. Dennis and Karen regularly work on research related to resistance and discourse. They have recently published a book together on Reworking gender: A feminist communicology of organization published by Sage. Other participants came from New Zealand - Ralph Stablein and Craig Pritchard (Massey University) and Deborah Jones and Brad Jackson (Victoria University). A special issue of the journal Management Communication Quarterly which will contain papers from the workshop has been commissioned. This is to be guest edited by Sydney and Texas A&M members of ICRODSC and is due to appear in 2005.

2003

Sydney Workshop on Ethical Investment and Corporate Social Responsibility
December 2003

A research workshop on Ethical Investment and Corporate Social Responsibility, sponsored by ICRODSC, was held at the University of Sydney on December 6th 2003. The aim of the workshop was to bring together fund managers, those involved in screening companies, corporate managers, stakeholder groups and academics from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds to discuss various aspects of ethical investment and its connections to corporate social responsibility. The symposium attracted interest from the Journal of Business Ethics and the Australian Accounting Review which commissioned special issues based on the symposium themes to be guest edited by Sydney based members of ICRODSC.

Melbourne Workshop on Publishing
October 2003

The aim of this workshop was to discuss some of the ways in which researchers can successfully develop a publishing strategy and prepare publishable papers. It had presentations, small group discussion, as well as comments from Professor Hari Tsoukas (Alba, Greece, and Editor-in-Chief of Organizational Studies) and David Grant (Sydney), both of whom have extensive publishing and editorial experience. Nick Wailes (Sydney) also attended this workshop as a discussant.

Melbourne Workshop on Knowledge Management
October 2003.

Building on the work of Hari Tsoukas (Alba, Greece, and Editor-in-Chief of Organizational Studies), the workshop examined what a social constructionist view of knowledge involves and explored the implications of this approach for both research and teaching.

Sydney Workshop on Enterprise Resource Planning
February 2003

The workshop brought together consultants, practitioners and academics to discuss the technological and cultural impacts of ERP implementation on Australian business. Speakers included: Len Augustine, SAP Australia, Bryce Thompson (Accenture), Damien Deguara (Ernst & Young), Rainer Vogel (DA Consulting Group), Ross Kuhn (University of Sydney), and Fred Bertram (ANZ). The final session comprised a panel discussion and included contributions from Professor Michael Vitale, Australian Graduation School of Management; Simon Benjamin, IBM and Jeff Stewart, Dairy Farmers.

2002

Melbourne Workshop on Identity
December 2002

The aim of the workshop was to bring together organizational researchers together with leading international researchers from other disciplines to learn more about each other's work and to consider how to develop an understanding of discourse and identity. Accordingly, Lars Thøger Christensen (Marketing), Linda Putnam (Organizational Communication) and Margaret Wetherell (Psychology) were invited to participate in a number of panels and presentations on the role of discourse in relation to organizational identities, individual identities and emotions.

2001

Melbourne Workshop on Gender
December 2001

Over 30 individuals, from across the university and from academic, administrative and student groups attended the workshop to discuss and debate issues related to gender.. Panellists included Professor David Knights (Keele, UK) who has written extensively on power, identity, masculinity and insecurity; Professor Joanne Martin (Stanford, USA), who is well known for her work on gender; Ms Suzy Nixon, who is a psychologist with expertise in organizational consulting, counselling and psychotherapy and a former director of Melbourne University's Counselling and Advisory; and Professor Amanda Sinclair (Melbourne Business School) who has a longstanding interest in women's leadership, as well as gender, ethics and diversity.

Sydney Workshop on Organizational Change
November 2001

This international research symposium, entitled New Ways of Thinking about Organizational Change: Discourses, Strategies, Processes, Forms, was hosted at the University of Sydney. It brought together over 30 invited speakers and discussants from the US, Europe and the Asia Pacific Region. The symposium attracted interest from the Journal Strategic Change and the Journal of Organizational Change Management, which commissioned special issues based on the symposium themes to be guest edited by Sydney and Leicester-based members of ICRODSC.

Melbourne Workshop on Publishing
June 2001

The workshop on Developing Strategies for Research and Publishing was co-sponsored by the Australian Research Council, the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management, and the Faculty of Economics & Commerce. It was aimed at helping PhD students and early career researchers to develop strategies for a successful research and publishing career and to establish an international research profile from Australia. Four editors of international journals provided advice to over 40 participants. They included Professor Karen Legge (Warwick), editor of Journal of Management Studies, Professor Hayagreeva Rao (Emory), editor of Organizational Science; Professor David Wilson (Warwick), editor of Organization Studies, and Professor Russell Lansbury (Sydney), editor of Journal of Industrial Relations. In addition, David Grant (Sydney), Cynthia Hardy (Melbourne), Bill Harley (Melbourne), Steve Maguire (McGill), Nelson Phillips (McGill), Leisa Sargent (Queensland University of Technology), and Lea Waters (Melbourne) facilitated breakout groups, which over the course of the following two days, worked through the progress of an individual article from submission to publication.