Item 1:

Charlotte Smith’s Ironman raising funds for Macmillan Cancer

Dear friends and colleagues.

I hope this email finds you well. As some of you may already know, I have signed up for an Ironman next summer to raise funds In Heather Hopfl's name for Macmillan cancer. Some of you may also already know Heather is terminally ill with a brain tumour. I have chosen Macmillan as Heather has a Macmillan support nurse who cares for her and who she says is brilliant. The event is going to be quite a challenge (even by my standards) being made up of a 2 mile open swim, 112 mile cycle ride and a full marathon to finish - all of which has to be completed in under 17 hours. I am basically going to be Heather's legs!! I know we all feel pretty helpless towards Heather's situation and I felt this would be a small way of helping a little bit for a great colleague and friend of Essex Business School.
Therefore I would be very grateful if any of you would be willing to sponsor me whatever the amount of money however big or small. My just giving page is http://www.justgiving.com/cvls
A message from Heather “I am both honoured and humbled by the fact that Charlotte is doing this in my name in support of the MacMillan Cancer Charity. The Ironman UK is a huge test of stamina and endurance and willpower - all of which Charlotte has in abundance. All credit to Charlotte for her efforts present and future in this respect. Go on, support her - it is a gargantuan undertaking and I am very proud of her efforts”.
I would also be very appreciative if you could pass this message onto anybody who you think may be willing to contribute wherever they are located. Heather is very open about her situation and therefore is very willing for this message and request to be sent far and wide.
Thanks so much to those who have already donated and to those who intend to donate in the future

Love and best wishes,

Charlotte Smith and Heather Hopfl


Item 2:

11TH International Conference on Organizational Discourse – “Terra Firma, Terra Nova, Terra Incognita”

Cardiff, Wednesday 9th July - Friday 11th July 2014

M.C. Escher's “Dragon” © 2013 The M.C. Escher Company-The Netherlands. All rights reserved. www.mcescher.com

Twenty years ago, the 1st biannual Organizational Discourse Conference took place in Kings College London. Since then, the conference has become a firmly established biannual event, moving between Kings, Queen Mary, London, and the Vrije University, Amsterdam. In 2014 the conference comes to the new territory of Cardiff for the first time. In this pioneering spirit, the 11th biannual conference will be an opportunity to consider the new, to question the hegemonic, and to reflect on the yet-to-be explored in organizational discourse analysis.

Conference Theme

The call centres on the metaphor of ‘terra’ – the various grounds social scientists stand on to articulate their social constructions. And we invite contributors to use this metaphor to explore the established, the new and the unknown in organizational discourse analysis.
Terra Firma draws attention to well-trodden terrain: the dominant, the safe, the familiar and the reassuring. Organizational discourse analysis has firmly established itself in the past two decades as a topic of interest, an analytical perspective informing a variety of theoretical approaches, and a methodology for organizational research. Through Terra Firma, while we welcome papers that engage with these core debates and theories, in this 11th conference we also wish to attract papers that reflect more critically on the contribution that organizational discourse analysis can offer. We call for greater scrutiny of the dominant and the institutionalised in our theoretical approaches and in the worlds which we research and inhabit. We welcome papers that question what might be viewed now as the solid ground of orthodox and established discursive approaches in organization studies. Equally, we encourage papers that call into question the firm ground of hegemonic or deep-seated discourses, to explore the processes whereby certain meanings and forms of representation become institutionalised.
Terra Nova casts our attention to issues of novelty and emergence. We call for papers, firstly, that consider new empirical sites, new issues, new theoretical approaches, and new methodologies for the discursive analysis of organizations. Additionally, through the theme of Terra Nova, we encourage papers that scrutinize and question the discourse of ‘newness’ and its relationship with aspects of social, organizational or discursive change. Such papers could focus on either contemporary or historical examples of apparent discursive novelty. In doing so, we emphasise the power effects of discourses to question how particular worlds are made possible through the invoking of certain discourses.
Terra Incognita traditionally marks the part of a map left empty, denoting the undocumented or the unchartered, and in popular myth depicted by the expression “here be dragons”. We use the term to draw attention to the hidden, marginalised, excluded bodies, silent voices and submerged meanings, or the ways in which organizations operate to maintain the obscurity of certain meanings and identities. We also point to more unorthodox, risky, possibly iconoclastic approaches and understandings of social phenomena. Through Terra Incognita we invite consideration of issues and ways of understanding that move beyond the conventional in discourse analysis, drawing perhaps on critical praxis, new forms of intervention, and more effective ways of linking academia to different communities. Finally, we draw attention here to the recursive and interconnected nature of meaning and to how one person’s incognita may be another person’s terra firma.
These three sub-themes should be viewed as indicative rather than exhaustive. All papers are invited that have an interest in language and discourse in different aspects of organizing or on processes of discursive production and re-production in constituting different types of social worlds and social actors.
In keeping with past conferences, the theme for the 11th Conference deliberately covers a broad canvas. We expect the precise conference streams to emerge from the papers themselves. We anticipate papers that will organize themselves within and around the following topics:
· Aesthetics and Symbolism
· Ethnography and Organizational Life
· Resistance, Agency and Transformation
· Identity and Identification
· Sense-making, Stories and Narrative
· Time, Space, body and Materiality
· Crisis and Change
· Knowledge, Power and Politics
· Culture, Diversity and Distinction-drawing
· Language and Ideology
· Consumption, Brands and Images

It is envisaged that the Conference will provide a forum in which academics with contrasting epistemological and ontological perspectives on both organization and discourse engage in dialogue. Contributions may thus adopt any epistemological perspective but we aim to achieve a balance between empirical studies and conceptual/theoretical contributions.

Keynote Speakers
Cynthia Hardy, Professor of Management at the University of Melbourne
Dorinne K. Kondo, Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at the University of Southern California
Dennis Mumby, Professor of Organizational Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Guidelines for Submission
Prospective contributors interested in presenting a paper should send an abstract of approx. 1,000 words by 10th January 2014 – to https://www.eventsforce.net/cbs/63/home

Abstracts should include: (1) the title of the paper; (2) the name(s), and affiliation(s) of the author(s); and, (3) an author contact address, e-mail and telephone/fax number.

Notification of acceptance of papers will be given by 1st March 2014.
Full papers are required by 6th June 2014.

Conference Organisers
Carl Cederstrom, Annette Davies, Tom Keenoy, Cara Reed and Robyn Thomas, Cardiff Business School.
Ida Sabelis and Sierk Ybema, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Cliff Oswick, Cass Business School, City University, UK.
Nic Beech, University of St. Andrews, UK
Cynthia Hardy, University of Melbourne, Australia

Conference Secretariat
Beverly Frances, Cardiff Business School: carbs-conference@cardiff.ac.uk

Further information
External Engagement Team
Conferences and Events
Aberconway Building
Colum Drive
Cardiff
CF10 3EU
email: carbs-conference@cardiff.ac.uk


Item 3:

LAEMOS 2014, HAVANA, CUBA, 2-5TH April SUBTHEME 04

Call for papers – Diversity, difference and all that…: Social justice and resistance in the balance

Subtheme Conveners:
Alison Pullen (Swansea University, UK)
Suzanne Gagnon (McGill University, Canada)
Rafael Alcadipani da Silveira (FGV/EAESP, Brazil)

Contact:
a.pullen@swansea.ac.uk ; suzanne.gagnon@mcgill.ca ; Rafael.Alcadipani@fgv.br

Social justice has been a pressing issue in Organization Studies for decades. Attending to the need for greater social justice has driven much of the literature on diversity, albeit at times influenced by the need to manage diversity for improved business identity and performance. In addition, social justice in relation to feminism, gender, equality, discrimination and identity politics has brought forth solid ground to further critique the concept of ‘diversity’ itself. As Sara Ahmed contends, diversity has ‘value’ and we wish to join other researchers who have called for a critical revitalization of diversity research (Calás et al., 2009; Metcalfe and Woodhams, 2008, 2012; Miller et al., 2009; Zanoni et al., 2010; Ahonen et al., forthcoming) to interrogate the value of ‘diversity’ and to contest ‘diversity’ itself. Whilst diversity is managed and moulded into corporate and instutitional agendas to manage complex social problems and reporting, questioning diversity as dynamic, situational, and a site of contestation (Ahmed, 2012; Christiansen and Just, 2012; Swan, 2010; Ahonen et al, forthcoming) enables the power relations underlying such diversity projects to surface. To attend to the call made by Ahmed and Swan (2006) -- what difference does diversity research make? -- we suggest that it is difference itself that is important to question diversity rhetorics or classifications which stifle identity, agency and freedom. As such, social justice – whether it is positively labelled as striving for equality, representation and inclusion, or attending to the harsh realities of discrimination, injustice and violence – will be explored in this stream by surfacing alternative ways of thinking about ‘diversity’ through attending to debates surrounding sameness and difference, inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality, and power and resistance. Diversity and difference are deeply implicated in the ways in which organizations interact with their surrounding communities and societies. Yet imagining alternatives to contemporary institutional systems that value difference rather than just the management of difference through categorization is difficult. We invite contributions to this stream which problematize ‘diversity’ on a global scale – what value does diversity have in different social, economic and political arenas? How are theoretical developments being translated to practice? What politics are we acknowledging in our practice as researchers of diversity and/or social justice? In what activism might we engage? How can alterity been lost in developing theory?
Given the historical development of the field, diversity research and its frameworks tend to be US and Eurocentric. Given the location of this LAEMOS conference and recognising the alterity of global regions in diversity research, we call for contributions that engage specifically with discourses and constructions of diversity from the South, and how these may critique Northern hemisphere research. How can we develop approaches to diversity that are linked to the realities of Latin America? How can we talk about diversity using epistemologies from the South?
We welcome critical empirical and conceptual papers which address the dynamics of difference and alternative organizing, including but not limited to the following themes:
• Resistance through difference for more egalitarian organizations and institutions
• Epistemologies of diversity and difference in the North and South
• Superdiversity (Blommaert, 2010) and the challenges of alternative organizing
• The realities of diversity in Latin America
• The global precariat, difference and diversity
• Rights based approaches to global diversity and difference
• Ethics, difference and resistance (Pullen and Rhodes 2012, Contu, 2008)
• Social justice perspectives – promoting difference and social justice through educating the dominant (Goodman, 2001)
• Whiteness, dominance and ‘racism without racists’ (Bonilla-Silva, 2003) north and south
• Freedoms-oriented approaches to the problem of difference and equality (Gagnon and Cornelius, 2004)
• Problematizing diversity as a space of privilege
• Our stake in struggle (Ashcraft, 2008) with respect to diversity, equality and difference
• Diverse ways of knowing and doing, and their links to equality and difference (Ospina et al, 2009)

To submit your abstract go to: http://laemos.com/abstractsubmitform.html.
Abstract submission (1000 words): 15 November, 2013
Notification of acceptance: 15 December, 2013; Submission of full paper (6000 words): 5 March, 2014


Item 4:

Call for short papers – Sub-theme 45: Reimagining Management Practices in Times of Rising Inequality along Socio-Demographic Lines

30th EGOS Colloquium, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 3-5, 2014

Convenors:
Patrizia Zanoni, Hasselt University, Belgium (patrizia.zanoni@uhasselt.be)
Marieke van den Brink, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands (mcl.vandenbrink@fm.ru.nl)
Maddy Janssens, KU Leuven, Belgium (maddy.janssens@econ.kuleuven.be)

Employees belonging to historically underrepresented socio-demographic groups have never been as present in the labour market. Still, as the crisis has painstakingly shown, inequalities remain solidly structured along socio-demographic identities (OECD, 2011). Women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, the youth and the elderly are often vertically and horizontally segregated into less protected and less well-paying jobs and sectors and have distinct career paths (Hermelin, 2005; ILO, 2012; Tomaskovic-Devey et al, 2009).
After over two decades of research documenting and theorizing power inequality between the majority and historically underrepresented groups in organizations (Linnehan and Konrad, 1999; Prasad et al, 2006), our current knowledge on how organizations can actually achieve more equality remains disappointingly poor. The advancement of research on equality-fostering diversity management has been hampered by the strong dominance of diversity management practices – e.g. formalized HRM procedures, diversity training, networking and mentoring programmes – that can be used as symbols of compliance with normative institutional pressures, in court cases and to meet criteria for subcontractor eligibility (Edelman, 1992), yet which are ineffective in fostering equality (Kalev et al, 2006; Kulik and Roberson, 2008).
Critically oriented diversity scholars have been largely unable to explore ‘good’ managerial practices which they see as ultimately enabling exploitation in contemporary capitalist organizations. The academic debate has thus remained focused around the opposition between a legal/social justice logic and a business logic (cf. Kelly and Dobbin, 1998; Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000; Noon, 2007; Prasad and Mills, 1997; Wrench, 2005), at safe distance from management practices. Aware of the inherent contradiction of building ‘critical’ diversity theory from diversity management practices in capitalist organizations (Fournier and Gray, 2000), we opt to temporarily bracket our fundamental critique to engage with such practices (cf. Anthony, 1998). We refuse to leave diversity management to non-critical, functionalistic research paradigms (Foldy, 2002).
In this stream, we aim to advance contemporary thinking on how organizations can achieve more equality between the majority and minorities, despite (and even, possibly, by virtue of) their capitalistic nature. We welcome theoretically founded, ground-breaking empirical studies of innovative, equality-fostering diversity management practices, which are critically self-reflective of the (im)possibilities of such practices in (capitalist) organizations. Studies might deal with the following topics, although the list is not exhaustive:
• Equality and non-conventional ways to manage diversity
• Managing diversity without ‘diversity management’ practices
• Equality and diversity management in social profit and cooperative organizations
• Equality and diversity management for employees in low-rank jobs
• Equality as the joint effect of protective employment legislation and diversity management practices
• Flexicurity regimes, employment relations and diversity management practices
• The role of third parties (the state, customers, suppliers, trade unions, civil society organizations, etc.) and equality-fostering diversity management
• Diversity management as sustainable management (CSR)
• New trends in HRM (job crafting, strength-based organization, idiosyncratic deals, developmental approach) as possible equality-fostering practices
• Transformative strategies of organizational processes for sustainable change towards diversity and inclusion

References
Anthony, P. (1998) Management education: Ethics versus morality. In M. Parker (Ed.), Ethics and organization (pp. 269-281). London: Sage.
Foldy, E. G. (2002) ‘Managing’ diversity: Identity and power in organizations. In I. Aaltio and A. J. Mills (Eds.), Gender, identity and the culture of organizations (pp. 92-112). London: Routledge.
Fournier, V. and Grey, C. (2000) At the critical moment: Conditions and prospects for critical management studies. Human Relations, 53, 7-32.
Hermelin, B. (2005) Recruitment procedures in the construction of labour market relations - The ethnic divide in Sweden. Geografiska Annaler Series B-Human Geography 87B(3): 225-236.
ILO (2012) Global Wage Report 2012/2013: Wages and equitable growth. Geneva: International Labour Office.
Linnehan, F. and Konrad, A. M. (1999) Diluting diversity: Implications for intergroup inequality in organizations. Journal of Management Inquiry, 8, 399-414.
Kalev, A., Dobbin, F. and Kelly, E. (2006) Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71, 589-617.
Kelly, E. and Dobbin, F. (1998) How affirmative action became diversity management: Employer response to Antidiscrimination Law, 1961-1996. American Behavioral Scientist 41: 960-984.
Konrad, A. and Linnehan, F. (1995) Formalized HRM structures: Coordinating equal employment opportunity or concealing organizational practices? Academy of Management Journal, 38, 787-820.
Kulik, C. T. and Roberson, L. (2008) Common goals and missed opportunities: A research agenda for diversity education in academic and organizational settings. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7, 371-375.
Lorbiecki, A. and Jack, G. (2000) Critical turns in the evolution of diversity management. British Journal of Management, 11, S17-S31.
Noon, M. (2007) The fatal flaws of diversity and the business case for ethnic minorities. Work, Employment and Society, 21, 773-784.
OECD (2011) An Overview of Growing Income Inequalities in OECD Countries: Main Findings. http://www.oecd.org/els/socialpoliciesanddata/49499779.pdf
Prasad, P., Mills, A. J. (1997) From showcase to shadow: Understanding the dilemmas of managing workplace diversity. In: Prasad, P, Mills, A J, Elmes, M and Prasad, A (eds) Managing the Organizational Melting Pot. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 3-27.
Prasad, P., Pringle, J. K., & Konrad, A. M. ( 2006) Examining the contours of workplace diversity: Concepts, contexts and challenges. In A. M. Konrad, P. Prasad, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.), Handbook of workplace diversity. (pp. 1-22). London: Sage.
Tomaskovic-Devey, D., Avent-Holt, D., Zimmer, C. and Harding, S. (2009) The categorical generation of organizational inequality: A comparative test of Tilly’s durable inequality. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 27: 128-142.
Wrench, J (2005) Diversity management can be bad for you. Race and Class 46(3): 73-84.
Submissions of short papers should be uploaded through the EGOS website http://www.egosnet.org/2014_rotterdam/general_theme by Monday, January 13, 2014.

Patrizia Zanoni is Professor at Hasselt University, Belgium. Since 2009 she has led SEIN, the Institute for Identity, Diversity and Inequality Research. Drawing on various critical theoretical traditions, including critical discourse analysis and class theory, her research explores the interface between diversity and capital-labour relations. Her work has been published in Organization Studies, Organization, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of World Business, and the British Educational Research Journal. She is one of the promoters of the Flemish Policy Centre for Equal Opportunities and a founding member of the EU-region research network EqualDiv@Work.

Marieke van den Brink is Assistant Professor SHRM at the Radboud University Nijmegen. Inspired by feminist organization theory and critical management studies, she studies the place and functioning of gender and diversity in organizations and the possibilities and impossibilities for organizational change. Her work has been published in a.o. Organization Studies, Organization, Human Relations, Human Resource Management Journal, Gender Work & Organization.

Maddy Janssens is Full Professor at the Research Centre for Organization Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research centres on ways in which differences in an organizational context are constructed and managed. She has published numerous articles on expatriate and global management, diversity management, language in MNCs, and interorganizational collaborations.