4th INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES CONFERENCE
4 - 6 July 2005 Cambridge University, UK
Call for Papers - Stream Title: TALK AND TEXT: RHETORIC, REALITY AND
RESEARCH
Stream Description:
This conference stream invites papers and interactive sessions from those
wishing to explore, in a critical way, the relationship between language,
reality, and research.
Recent debates in Organization Studies raise questions about the nature of
language, moving its role from a taken-for-granted periphery to a
problematic centre. Postmodern, poststructural, and social constructionist
scholars are amongst those seeking to replace notions of language as a means
of representing an external reality, with notions of language as constituting
reality.
Language is viewed in a multiplicity of ways, as eliding, evoking, literal,
metaphoric, rhetorical, a 'game', dramatic, poetic, unstable, transparent,
creative... all bringing the complexities and uncertainties of language to the fore.
Such views have had far reaching implications for the way we conceptualize
and thus research organizational life. If we accept that we cannot step outside
language to explain our experience - that the very act of speaking and
explaining give order to experience - then how can we possibly hope to say
anything meaningful about the management of organizations?
Organization theorists employing a linguistic perspective address this
question by taking a wide variety of theoretical and analytical approaches, from
interpretive analyses of the variety of implicit meanings in discourse, to
poststructuralist analyses of the instability of text, and postmodern
analyses of discourse as a process of discipline and control. What ties these
research streams together is their underlying sensitivity to a relationship
between language and reality and an ongoing effort to re-present organizations
and organizing through this link. In this stream, we will continue these
conversations.
We are interested in papers, panels, or interactive sessions that explore
the philosophical, theoretical, and practical aspects of linguistic approaches
to conceptualizing, researching, and managing organizations. We encourage
the submission of interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary papers (i.e. from
communications, poststructuralism, sociology, psychology, education,
organization studies, philosophy, public administration, political science,
and other cognate areas). Papers may also explore the ontological,
epistemological, and/or methodological aspects of language from a variety of
perspectives, including; semiotic, discursive, textual, ethnomethodological,
deconstructive, narrative, and poetic.
Possible areas for critical inquiry may include:
- Philosophical and conceptual debate underpinning textual, linguistic, and
discursive approaches
- Challenges and possibilities for research approaches, methods, and
practices.
- Implications of textual, linguistic, and discursive approaches for re-
conceptualizing organizational life
- Language and identities; Language and culture; Language and power
- Managing and organizing as discursive practices
- Writing and speaking in organizations and about organization(s)
- Language, knowledge, and learning
- Research utilizing linguistic or discursive approaches that illuminate
these issues within social and/or organizational contexts
Details of the Conveners:
Ann L. Cunliffe, Department of Public Administration, California State
University, Hayward, Hayward, CA 94542, USA. (510) 885 2268. Email:
acunliff@csuhayward.edu
Jeanie M. Forray, Department of Management, Western New England College,
1215 Wilbraham Road, Springfield, MA 01119, USA. (413) 796 2068. Email:
jforray@wnec.edu
Cliff Oswick, The Management Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1
7RH, UK. +44 (0)116 252 3955 Email:
c.oswick@le.ac.uk
Timeline:
Abstracts to Ann Cunliffe (
acunliff@csuhayward.edu) 1 October 2004
Decisions on acceptance/rejection communicated 1 December 2004
Full papers to Ann Cunliffe (
acunliff@csuhayward.edu) 1 April 2005
Abstracts should fit the following requirements:
Submission in Word
Arial Font
1000 - 1500 words
Including Title
Authors (affiliation, contact details)
Body of Text
References
Ann L. Cunliffe, Ph. D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Public Affairs and Administration
California State University, Hayward
Hayward, CA 94542
Tel: (510) 885 2268