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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