With apologies for cross-posting:


Preliminary Call for Papers
18th SCOS Conference
Organization and Culture : Premodern Legacies for the Postmodern Millennium
July 5th-9th 2000
Athens, Greece

As we enter the millennium, the Standing Conference on Organizational 
Symbolism invites you to join us in a critical celebration of HERITAGE  and 
LEGACY in the field of  organization and cultural studies. As the Ancient 
Greek word THEORIA was the linguistic root for both THEORY and TOURISM, We 
are visiting Athens, the ancient city-state often regarded as the cradle of 
Western civilisation and philosophy, as an appropriate site for asking the 
questions - Where have we come from? What have we learned? Where can we go? 
What did we miss along the way?

The conference recognises the accumulating critiques of the modernist 
dominance of organization studies as a field, and the development over the 
past twenty years of cultural critiques which have embraced postmodernism 
and cross-cultural studies. Futurist approaches to virtual organization and 
cyborganization have been one product of theoretical attention to the 
combination of technology and globalization. Here heritage has been 
reconstructed and commodified by media, turned into a frequently hyperreal 
cultural industry. This is clearly one place where critique could start.

 On the other hand, current interests are emerging in pre-modernism, 
retro-organization theory, pre-Socratic philosophy, and bodies of thought 
which have been historically suppressed in the field. Here contributions 
could examine historically emergent bodies of thought, knowledge regimes, or 
individual thinkers from any period whose potential contribution has been 
overlooked, or with the aid of historiographic research revisit and 
reinterpret the work of more well known scholars and reassess their 
relevance to contemporary and future organization studies.

Another dimension to this is that increasing attention is now being paid to 
non-Western bodies of thought which are not justified solely by economic 
success (eg Indian, Native American, African and Aboriginal thought) as a 
means of assessing the conseqouences of the dominance of post-enlightenment 
thinking in a world of global organizing.  Here is another welcome line of 
critique.

A fourth possibility is to consider whether the disciplinary mix in 
organization studies is appropriate, and whether disciplines not commonly 
considered to have a place - or which once had a place but are now 
marginalised - can be usefully incorporated. Plato may have banished poets 
from the republic, but should we? Should comedy and tragedy have equal place 
at our theoretical table with integration and differentiation?

Finally, situated as we will be in the city whose language and thought gave 
us both POLITICS and ETHICS, and only a few miles from regions which have 
figured centrally in the history of human conflict in the twentieth century, 
we should be asking - What place do politics have in organization studies? 
What ethical paths are possibe for the field in the third millennium? Does 
culture really matter in this scenario? Can and should organization studies 
be making a bigger difference to the world in which we live rather than 
simply to the efficiency and effectiveness of corporations?

Accordingly we invite papers which:

• address the nature of  HERITAGE and LEGACY
• consider the construction and effects of CULTURAL INDUSTRIES
• compare OLD and NEW models of LEARNING and KNOWLEDGE REGIMES
• address the implications of RETRO-ORGANIZATION THEORY
• address the implications of PRE-MODERNISM
• adopt HISTORIOGRAPHIC METHODS
• address CROSS-CULTURAL PHILOSOPHY
• reconsider the DISCIPLINARY MIX of organization studies
• question the POLITICS and ETHICS of organization studies

OPEN STREAM

The SCOS Annual Conference is intended as an arena where the latest 
developments in research on Organizational Culture and Symbolism may be 
presented, regardless of  their direct relevance to the conference theme, 
and an Open Stream is set aside for this purpose this year. Papers are 
invited on any aspect of methodology or theory, the results of field 
investigations, interventions, or any themes (eg gender; change; industrial 
relations) which are of continuing interest

WORKSHOPS

Offers of workshops on any aspect of the above theme are welcomed.

ABSTRACTS

Abstracts of  up to 500 words should be sent to arrive by Friday October 
29th, 1999 to Mrs. Marion Little, SCOS 2000 Conference, Sunderland Business 
School, University of Sunderland, St Peter's Campus, St. Peter's Way, 
Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, SR6 0DD.
E-mail [log in to unmask] Tel: +44 191 515 2349 Fax: +44 191 515 
3131

Enquiries to Conference Organiser, Professor Stephen Linstead, Associate 
Director (Research), Sunderland Business School, University of Sunderland, 
St Peter's Campus, St. Peter's Way, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, SR6 0DD. 
E-mail [log in to unmask] Tel : +44 191 515 3165 Fax : +44 
191 515 2308.

Check out the SCOS Website at www.scos.org for further information on SCOS, 
to join SCOS free, and links to the conference web-page with on-line 
registration as it becomes available.



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