Hi all,
Steffen, Kirstie, Sam and Kens' messages raise some fascinating, and to my mind much overdue, discussion about our control over the value embedded in the products of academic work i.e. journal papers particularly. There are of course many different ways of engaging with these issues and Steffen and Kirstie have included some suggestions in their posts e.g. fund raising for Surveillance and Society, submitting papers to same and/or Ephemera etc. Perhaps alongside these another way might be to write something about the issues or the practices involved. If this of interest, can I encourage colleagues to consider submitting a paper proposal to the following CMS5 Stream. Submissions are due November 6 2006.
CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES CONFERENCE: MANCHESTER 2007
Conference Stream: Intellectual capital, labour and value; extending the critical agenda
Convenors
David O'Donnell;
The Intellectual Capital Research Institute of Ireland, Ireland
Email: [log in to unmask]
Craig Prichard
Massey University, New Zealand
Email: [log in to unmask]
Lars bo Henriksen;
University of Aalborg, Denmark
Email: [log in to unmask]
Steve Jaros,
Southern University, USA
Email: [log in to unmask]
In recent times many management academics and practitioners have become more enrolled in and attempted to reconnect their work to the practices and problematics of value creation, capture and distribution. Such moves are in some cases premised on a number of events and processes including: the generalized financialization of economic and management practice (and everyday life!), the challenges to and defence of institutionalized 'governance' practices, and efforts to clarify the nature and dynamics of intangible, tacit and knowledge-based capabilities and resources. This stream provides a space for critical management researchers to reconnect with and extend their response to the problematics of value. Below is a broad, indicative and non-exclusive list of topics and themes that we hope might be included in such a stream.
The stream would welcome contributions that extend and refine, either empirically, analytically, theoretically or politically, critical analysis of:
* New and existing critical approaches to the analysis of human capital in organizations and industries. Papers might for example tackle critically the problematics of 'Knowledge', 'Intellectual', 'Cultural', 'Symbolic', 'Social' Capital (e.g. O'Donnell et al, 2006; Hairong, 2003).
* New and existing approaches to understanding labour as this relates to the production, appropriation and distribution of value in organizational processes. For example papers might critically address the problematics of immaterial, affective or emotional labour (e.g. Arvidsson, 2006; Harney, 2006; Harvie,2006).
* New and existing forms of 'value', 'rent' and 'class' analysis as this relates to management and organizational processes (Fleetwood, 2001; Jones and Spicer, 2006; Sorensen, 2000).
* Works that challenge or contend with prominent forms of organizational knowledge and practice concerned with value management (e.g. Coff, 1997, 1999; Lowendal et al, 2001; Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998).
* Works that explore the transfer and distribution of value as part of the cultural, political and symbolic dynamics of organizations particularly those that articulate and organize gender, race, ethnic, disable-bodied relations and identities. For example papers might critically address from a value or class perspective (e.g. Fraad, 2003) the tensions and struggles between family and work relations (the so-called 'work-life balance' issue).
* Works that develop new categories or forms of value analysis that promote equitable and stable forms of wealth distribution in organizations, industries and economies (e.g. Collins, 1995).
Paper proposals should be sent by November 6th 2006 to either:
Craig Prichard
Massey University, New Zealand
Email: [log in to unmask]
Or
David O'Donnell;
The Intellectual Capital Research Institute of Ireland, Ireland
Email: [log in to unmask]
Abstracts must be 300 words (or there abouts) in length, formatted for A4 paper (21cm x 29.7 cm), set single-spaced, using 11-point Ariel font with a left margin of 2.5cm/1inch for binding. They must include:
*Authors (including affiliation and contact details, with lead author clearly indicated)
*Stream to which the abstract is submitted
*Title
*Body text
Further conference details at: http://www.cms5.org/
References
Arvidsson, A (2005) 'Brands, A critical perspective' Journal of Consumer Culture
Vol 5(2): 235-258
Coff, R (1997) 'Human Assets and Management Dilemmas: Coping with Hazards on the Road to the Resource-Based View', Academy of Management Review, 22(2):374-402
Coff, R (1999) 'When Competitive Advantage Doesn't lead to Performance: The Resource-based View and Stakeholder Bargaining Power', Organization Science, 10(2):119-133
Collins, D (1995) 'A Social-Political Theory of Workplace Democracy: Class Conflict, Constituent Reactions and Organizational Outcomes', Organization Science, 6(6):628-643
Fleetwood, S (2001) 'What kind of Theory is Marx's Labour Theory of Value? A Critical Realist Inquiry', Capital and Class, 73:41-77
Fraad, Harriet (2003) 'Class Transformation in the Household: An Opportunity and a Threat', Critical Sociology, Volume 29 (1): 47-65
Hairong Y (2003) 'Neoliberal Governmentality and Neohumanism: Organizing Suzhi/Value Flow through Labour Recruitment Networks, Cultural Anthropology, 18(5):493-523
Harvie, D. (2006) Value Production and Struggle in the Classroom: Teachers within, against and beyond Capital', Capital and Class, 88:1-32
Harney, S. (2006) 'Programming Immaterial Labour', Social Semiotics, 16 (1):75-87
Jones, Campbell and André Spicer (2005) 'Outline of a genealogy of the value of the entrepreneur' in Guido Erreygers and Geert Jacobs (eds.) Language, Communication and the Economy. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lowendal, B and Revang, O and Fosstenlooken, S (2001) ' Knowledge and Value Creation in Professional Service Firms: A Framework for Analysis', Human Relations 54(7):911-931
O'Donnell, D, Tracey, M, Henriksen, L B, Bontis, N, Cleary, P, Kennedy, T and O'Regan, P (2006) 'On the "essential condition" of intellectual capital: labour!' Journal of Intellectual Capital, 7(1): 111-128
Sorensen, A B (2001) Toward a Sounder Basis for Class Analysis', American Journal of Sociology, 105, 6: 1523-58
Tsai, W and Ghoshal, S (1998) 'Social Capital and Value Creation: The role of interfirm networks', Academy of Management Journal, 41(4):464-476
Craig Prichard
Department of Management 214 (Tari Whakahaere Kaipakihi)
Massey University (Te Kunenga Ki Purehuroa )
Private Bag 11-222 (Pouaka Motuhake 11-222)
Palmerston North (Papaioea), New Zealand (Aotearoa)
Phone: 0064 (0) 6 350-5799 ext. 2244
Fax: 0064 (0) 6 350 5661 Info-Page: www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar
_____________________________________________________________
Organization, Identity, Locality (February 10 Conference at Victoria University) details at: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar/oil.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Critical Perspectives on Work, Management and Organization [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of K.S.Ball
Sent: Thursday, 18 May 2006 11:34 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Open-access Journals
Hi all,
This is a very interesting discussion, and I would just echo steffen's and sam's comments about running a free online journal (like Ephemera). I cofounded and co-edit 'Surveillance and Society' and it has been similarly rewarding to produce something that is considered to be of good quality (we can't quite believe it when people tell us though!) and genuinely useful to people. Ephemera were really helpful to us when we set up so the first thing I want to do in this message is spread some S&S love to you guys (aww).
Anyway, on our editorial collective we hold the principle that the journal has to be free to access, sacrosanct. We've made use of various free listing services, but its unsurprising that some of the major ones (IBSS I think) charge thousands to be listed and if the journal wants to publish, for example, odd numbers of issues from year to year they tend to complain! So, not only do they charge for the privilege they also try to dictate the form of what contributing publications do. Even the university who hosts the journal - we pay a nominal fee for the hosting - has tried to make money out of us, by suggesting that they sell us to the CIA(!) Anyway, we resisted that...
Lately the five of us who run the journal have decided that the workload and time commitments have become too great and that we need an editorial assistant. We also realised that, in order to protect the journal from being sold, plundered or otherwise abused by unscrupulous bureaucrats, and ourselves from being sued personally for the journal's contents, we'd put it on an independent, but legal footing. We have recently created a charitable company around the journal's activities (called 'The Surveillance Studies Network'), and we have a small fundraising target per year so that we can pay someone to help administer all of our issues. It's not as costly as it sounds - we already have identified ways in which we can raise money which are, for us, ethically unproblematic.
The sad thing is that, no matter how prinipled we want to be, by avoiding one set of institutional imperatives (ie of the academic and publishing industry), we invoke another - those of companies house and the charities commission. And of course without the internet and software industry we'd be up the proverbial without a paddle! Currently we are feeling overwhelmed by the legal and reporting obligations that now currently affect us, and that we are a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, but we will eventually manage it. I even had to write a business plan (I know, I know), and it has even taught me a few valuable lessons about organization.
I think the point I'm eventually getting to is a pragmatic one. Institutions are a necessary evil and sometimes you have to (and can) work them to your advantage. Free to access in its purest form is still configured by powerful institutions. For us we are driven by the principle that maintaining a free online resource is part of the core ideology and reasoning behind being an academic, ie the free exchange of high quality academic information to enrich our community and promote informed critique. For me it is a legitimate focus of my labour when compared to other institutional hoops we have to jump through.
Show me an academic who says 'well, I really do this job because I want to get a great RAE and QAA score' and I will gladly poke them in the eye!
Cheers
Kirstie
-----Original Message-----
From: Critical Perspectives on Work, Management and Organization [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of steffen boehm
Sent: 18 May 2006 03:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Open-access Journals
Hi Ken,
Here are some responses to your email:
>>>you write: On the publishing side, creating and maintaining a
>>>publishing
program involves extensive costs in time. Having been a publisher and editor, I am aware that only part of these costs involve physical production. An enormous amount of effort is required simply to develop and maintain the content. Relatively few wish to do this, not in comparison with the many other things we might be doing with our time.
I can confirm that publishing/editing a journal does take a lot of time; yes. But if this work is shared in a collective way - and most of the work is done by authors (who write the papers) and fellow academics (who review
them) anyway - then it's not such an arduous task.
>>>you write: For example, effective publishing requires rendering a
>>>journal
visible -- and this includes the immaterial aspects of impact such as abstracting, applying for ISI coverage, etc. I note, for example, that even a fine journal such as Ephemera does not bother to make itself visible outside a rather small circle. Since abstracting and coverage in ISI are one aspect of generating visibility, it also affects whether most scholars can (or wish to) offer articles to journals that do not or cannot maintain effective support services.
It all depends what you mean by 'small circle'. If you think that abstracting and ISI coverage will open up huge new audiences, I disagree. If you compare a well respected to-pay-for (for profit) journal run by a big publisher that has all the muscle to market it well etc with an open-access journal, I think we can still reach many more people with the open-access format simply because of the pure economics involved. Ephemera has got literally thousands of readers around the world. For example, we are read in many places that some people call the global south, because they don't have the money to pay for for-profit journals. Even universities in the first world increasingly find it difficult to pay the sometimes huge sums publishers are asking for the journals (which are kept running by us, the academics). Also, ephemera and other open-access journals is read by many practitioners, activists, freelancers and others who have not got an institution in the background that can pay for the journals. So, seen from this perspective ephemera has been trying to go beyond the very small circle traditional for-profit journals have targeted. Come on, let's be honest. If we are lucky, our papers in for-profit journals and chapters in expensive academic hardback editions will be read by how many people? 10, 30, 40, maybe 50 the most? And that's probably an estimate towards the higher end of what most of us can expect. This compares to hundreds and in some cases thousands of readers for open-access articles. Why does the ESRC in this country want the research it funds to be available in an open-access way?
Because it wants it to be read! It does not want to fund research that, when published, is only available to a small elite. The urgent call remains: we need more open-access journals and other publishing initiatives! Why do we write all the things that we write, if most people never have a chance to get access to this writing?
>>>you write: On the one hand, I understand and support the argument
>>>against
the inward-looking publishing complexes that effectively take our research and sell it back to our schools.
On the other, I understand the work that goes into professional publishing. I don't want to do it -- it's a real pain. But I do want a publisher who does provide the appropriate marketing and attention infrastructure for what I write.
That's exactly the point: it is actually us who run the journals for the publishers. We write the papers and books for them. We review the papers and books for them. In many cases we even proof-read for them. We do the indexes for them. In fact most of the labour is done by ourselves. What the publishers then do is put a huge price tag on the products we create for them for free and then sell them to a very small institutional elite around the world. Yes, they do a bit of marketing, because this is where their surplus value is realised. But as I said, this marketing will never be able to reach beyond a 'small circle' of a tiny elite because of the sheer economics involved. Most of the papers I've written for for-profit journals have never been read by anyone. I have no illusions about this. Equally my hard-back book with a price tag of £50 or so has only gone to libraries. On the other hand, I had lots of comments on my papers that have been published in open-access journals, because these seem to be actually read. The argument is this: the publishers take our research, which we give them for free (more or less), they then sell it back to us for a lot of money, and their marketing is by at large concentrated on a relative small circle who is able to pay for their overpriced products. And the copyright system ensures that we can't even make efforts to spread our own writing to new audiences.
>>>you write: In writing these words, I want to note that I serve on the
advisory
boards of an open access journal at Athabasca University Press (Canada's Open University), as well as on the boards of journals published by more standard publishers (including Elsevier). I agree with the principle of open access, but I recognize that if open access is to become effective, we must also bring about an open access system that is as well organized and as effective as the old, closed system.
It all depends on how you define 'effectiveness'. Based on what I said above, I don't regard the present system as 'effective'. In fact it's highly ineffective, because it serves an elite that can pay and thereby sustaining established borders between academia and wider spheres of society. Many studies have shown the ineffectiveness of the copyright system. It stifles innovation. It goes against creativity and communication.
>>>you write: Only a few journals have done this, and to do so, they
>>>have
had
the support of major funding.
The answer to Steffen's question is, in part, that the dearth of open-access journals is related both to author preferences -- and to the cost in time and effort of creating an open-access journal that serves enough author needs to attract authors.
Ephemera has not had 'major funding'. We've had some support from institutions, which is greatly appreciated. But by at large the project is run collectively by people giving their research time (that time that they would give to for-profit publishers anyway). Let's be clear about this; all of us give lots of time to the publishers for free. Open-access projects say that if we give our time for free, then let's make sure nobody is making a huge profit on our time, and let's make sure that what we produce is actually read by someone.
>>>you write: Given Norway's politics, and given the nature of academic
politics
in Norway, I can say this has more to do with whether the journals take on the responsibility of generating visibility than it has do either with the fact that they are open-access or radical.
That's why we need efforts to change the system itself. The last RAE (research assessment exercise) in this country was run on the basis of some very strange/artificial rankings of journals, and there are many lists that have been created by research officers in universities that try to rank journals according to their perceived importance. Many of these rankings (like most rankings of schools, universities, hospitals) are very problematic and flawed. They discipline us; they normalise our professional work. But do they improve our writing? Do they help us to reach wider audiences? Do they help us to bring our research to the benefit of wider society? These rankings perpetuate a flawed system. And open-access publishing is one of the few ways this can be changed. There are good signs out there that open-access publishing has the support of many people. It's a growing phenomenon. Many academic associations now push for more or all of their research to be available for free online. The question is whether we want to join this growing trend, or whether we want to become the dinosaurs of the knowledge economy.
Best,
Steffen
--
Ken Friedman
Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management
Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
+47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat
email: [log in to unmask]
From: Prichard, Craig
Sent: Thursday, 18 May 2006 10:33 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Open-access Journals
One of the things that the exchange between Steffen and Ken has not highlighted and might be worth adding here is the importance of the professional association as a particular organizational form that, if it is a publisher particularly, addresses some of the issues raised about value produced and appropriated. Seems to me that in some respects open access journals, such as Ephemera, are part of this (feudal?) tradition, and it is something to do with the perculiarities of UK/European social sciences and its recent history (a reluctance to create professional associations that retain or take up the role of publisher) that has meant that corporate publishers have such a tight grip on the surplus labour produced by, among other groups, critical management academics.
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: Critical Perspectives on Work, Management and Organization on behalf of Sam Warren
Sent: Thu 18/05/2006 7:49 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: Open-access Journals
Thank-you for an interesting reply Ken. I am sure Steffen will be the
first to agree with me that editing a journal is a pain in the proverbial
ass as well as being deeply rewarding. As a member of the editorial
collective of ephemera I was intrigued by your perception that the
journal does not bother to "market" itself outside a restricted circle -
that's helpful information for us, thanks! (and for the "fine" comment!!)
Nonetheless, the ongoing tensions and difficulties that we experience
as a group of busy people trying to produce something interesting,
good quality, and open access in a collective manner (on time!) are not
ones that (on the whole) we see as necessary to surmount. It would be
much easier to "buy in" labour to edit the journal, or to revert to a more
traditional "editorial board" structure or even to try and sell the journal
to a publisher (should we be so bold to ask!). But that would be to
collude with/ reaffirm the dominant forms of organization that our
journal seeks to critique, along with the rest of the CMS community (?)
thus being rather hypocritical. And quite frankly - for me at least -
rather dull.
We all feel the pressure to publish in "top" journals, of course. And we
dutifully do this for a whole host of reasons. But sometimes we also
want to write things that might be too avant-garde, or playful, or (dare I
say it) controversially interesting for these outlets. Thats part of
ephemera's raison d'etre I suppose (and I am steeling myself for a
flood of mail saying nothing we publish is controversially interesting, ha
ha!)
Regarding visibility, it is interesting that the paper I wrote for ephemera
4 years ago as a doctoral student has attracted more interest than
anything else I have published in my nascent career - so people DO
find things on open access journals - and from very diverse and non-
academic circles too. Of course every time an open access journal
article is cited in another article in a journal that is listed on a citation
index, it becomes visible that way too.
These are interesting times.... good to see some discussion on our
discussion list :o)
Best wishes
Sam
Hi all,
Just a note on the open access issue that Steffen raises. Recently the funding councils group 'Research Councils UK' drafted a policy on the issue that followed on from that established by the US National Science Foundation. Basically it says that all research funded by the research councils should, after a period of time, be free and open access. This would mean that all papers hatched via funding council money must be publicly available. How this would work out in practice I'm not sure but one way would be that researchers would be required to make copies of work freely available in an open access repository. This in turn would require them to negotiate a particular kind of contract with publishers. It seems to me that this provides an opportunity to work toward free and open access to all university supported research which is mostly funded from public sources and student fees.
Perhaps one way to do this is to look at inserting in our author contracts a clause that would make papers freely available (perhaps after a short period of time) and to work as editorial board members to have these clauses inserted by the journals so that all papers in our area are freely available. How does this sound?
If you're looking for an instrumental rationale for such a move you might click on the following. Basically a bibliometric study found that if its free it gets cited faster.
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=search-simple&hits_per_page=10&sort=relevance&previous_hit=0&total_hits=0&searchtype=simple&issn=1545-7885&anywhere_boolean=ALL&anywhere=Eysenbach+&x=16&y=8
The Chronicle of HE report of this paper below. The authors compared citation rates of free and password protected papers that appeared in the same journal. The comparison is possible in this case- and here's the catch - because the journal (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ) asks authors to send them $1000 to make their papers free access - a practice I wouldn't support.
The Chronicle of HE.(not an open access newspaper by the way)
Open Access Speeds Use by Others of Scientific Papers, Study Finds In the continuing debate about open access to scientific literature, the pro-access side gained strength with a study, published this afternoon, that says that, during the first four to 16 months after publication, papers with free access get cited more often than those that require subscriptions. The study appears in an open-access journal, PLoS Biology, and was written by Gunther Eysenbach, of the University of Toronto, who also edits another open-access journal, the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
The study is the first to compare open-access and non-open-access papers from the same journal. Mr. Eysenbach compared papers published in the journal Proccedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the latter half of 2004. That journal began in June 2004 to offer authors the option of paying $1,000 to make their articles free online upon publication. If authors did not pay the extra fee, their papers remained password-protected for the first six months after publication.
Mr. Eysenbach found that the open-access papers were twice as likely as the password-protected articles to be cited four to 10 months after publication, and almost three times as likely from 10 to 16 months afterward. Not yet clear is whether the open-access advantage increases citation in the long run or whether the trend is similar for other journals.
The open-access movement has drawn additional strength in recent months from pressure in Congress to make taxpayer-supported research freely available (The Chronicle, May 3) and from the European Commission (The Chronicle, April 19).
Craig Prichard
Department of Management 214 (Tari Whakahaere Kaipakihi) Massey University (Te Kunenga Ki Purehuroa ) Private Bag 11-222 (Pouaka Motuhake 11-222) Palmerston North (Papaioea), New Zealand (Aotearoa)
Phone: 0064 (0) 6 350-5799 ext. 2244
Fax: 0064 (0) 6 350 5661 Info-Page: www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar
_____________________________________________________________
Organization, Identity, Locality (February 10 Conference at Victoria University) details at: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~cprichar/oil.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Critical Perspectives on Work, Management and Organization [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of steffen boehm
Sent: Tuesday, 16 May 2006 8:23 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reed-Elsevier and the arms trade
Critters,
There is currently a campaign going on (organised by academics and others) to expose the arms trade connections of Reed Elsevier, which, amongst many titles, publishes a range of management and business journals.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/05/340516.html
For a list of journals published by Reed Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journal_browse.cws_home/
Reed Elsevier owns Reed Exhibitions, which organises a range of arms trade shows; for example, the infamous DSEi (http://www.dsei.co.uk) in London's Excel Centre.
http://www.reedexpo.com/App/homepage.cfm?appname=100266&moduleID=578#1
It is kind of 'funny' that Elsevier publishes journals that could be considered important for the CMS field, such as Accounting, Organizations and Society; Critical Perspectives On Accounting; Scandinavian Journal of Management; and many other journals CMS writers have a vested interest in.
It strikes me that we need to be much more aware of the politics of publishing; and obviously the arms trade connection is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's wrong with the current publishing politics of CMS. Why are there still less than a handful of open-source/open-access journals out there that serve the CMS community?
Frustrating.
Steffen
_____________
steffen boehm
member of the editorial collective of
ephemera: theory & politics in organization www.ephemeraweb.org
Co-editor of mayflybooks
www.mayflybooks.org
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