SCOS Update January
We have four items this month, including:
1) SCOS 2014 Call for Papers – Sport, Play and Game
2) Seven Full-Time Funded Postgraduate Research Opportunities, University Of Leicester, School Of Management
3) Critical Management Studies Division – Academy of Management 2014 Dissertation Award Announcement
4) Rather lovely job up for grabs at the University of York!
1) SCOS 2014 Call for Papers – Sport, Play and Game
2) Seven Full-Time Funded Postgraduate Research Opportunities, University Of Leicester, School Of Management
3) Critical Management Studies Division – Academy of Management 2014 Dissertation Award Announcement
4) Rather lovely job up for grabs at the University of York!
Item 1:
32nd Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS) – ‘Sport, Play and Game’
Utrecht, the Netherlands, 7-10 July 2014, School of Governance, Utrecht University
Organizing committee: Jeroen Vermeulen, Martijn Koster, Michel van Slobbe, Eugène Loos, Jeroen Veldman
Call for Papers
“All play means something” (Johan Huizinga, 1938)
In recent decades, sport as a social practice has become relevant in many different spheres: in health, economy, politics, education, work and leisure. The importance of sport transcends beyond the confines of the sport field. Sport is, in essence, is about organization and organizing.
SCOS 2014 focuses on the symbolic and cultural meanings of sport from the perspective of the tension between play and game. Play refers to the free, the associative, the spontaneous and to (re)creative aspects. Game refers to the serious, the regulated and the competitive aspects. Hence, the conference theme Sport, play and games concentrates on the interplay between the formal and the entertaining; between the serious and the fun. It does so by focusing in on the intricate connections and tensions between work and leisure; system world and life world; rules and creativity; standardization and innovation; the categorical and the personal; the centres of hegemonic power and the margins of everyday organizational life. Because of these tensions and contradictions, the theme of Sport, play and game provides vantage points for exploring beyond taken-for-granted assumptions of social life in organizations.
The conference is concerned with the question how sport is organized both as an active, participative, and a passive, consumed, form of engagement. In both senses, it is interesting to consider how sport functions as a spectacle, as performance and as an aspect of community. In line with this, issues of play and playfulness and of games and gaming in organizations come to the fore.
Furthermore, sport features particularities that resonate with organizational life.
Organizations are replete with sporting metaphors that give meaning to their practices, such as competition, arena, excellence, talent, team work. We might also think about games like chess as a metaphor for organizing and strategy. Meanwhile, in sport, we find organizational aspects of regulation and control. In this way, the interweaving of sport and organization opens up possibilities for management.
The organization of events such as the Olympic Games, the World Cup Football and the Tour de France has an immense economic, social and political impact. Sport is entangled with issues of bribery and corruption, regulation and politics, and with the role of the State. As such, sport is a nexus between serious fun and serious business.
We would like to invite contributions that – particularly but not exclusively – deal with the following subjects in organization studies, from the perspective of sport, play and game:
• Playful organizations - playing on the job, playtime as an organization, play and design, play as resistance, child's play, homo ludens in organizations, cultures of fun
• Social values of teamwork, loyalty, and self-sacrifice
• Body culture - the cultivation of bodily exercise, body dysmorphia and play,
The Adonis Complex, plastic surgery, muscles
• Physical culture – cultural expressions of community through physical activities (forms of sports, dances, folk games, martial arts)
• Rules and regulations - corporate cheats and phonies, blaggers and chancers, spoil-sports, breaking the rules, obedience and compliance
• Collective participation - collaboration, cooperation, synchronization of actions, new games with no winners only players, on-line gaming
• Pleasure and entertainment - the pleasure principle, the misery of the school gym and the dreaded PE lesson, Epicureanism, the spectacle, sport and play in movies
• Identities - the David Beckham effect or the glamour of the international sports person – sport as marker and maker of cultural identities, sporting heartthrobs
• Politics and policy – sport and nationalism, sport for development, instrumental uses of sport
• Competition – the ‘excellence’ game in organizations, high performance
• Field - playing the field, fielding questions, the spatial and symbolic boundaries of the sport field
• Morality and ethics - fair play, whistle blowing, sportsmanship as a moral category, honesty and responsibility
• Feelings and emotions – sweat and tears, euphoria, auto-ethnographies of horrible wet hockey fields
• Producing and consuming - audiences, media, merchandising
• Games and gaming - exergaming, social games, gaming cultures, online games, casual games, games in business, gamification
• Gender – construction of gender roles through play and sport, and gender play, inequalities
• Sport and economy – commercialization of sport, football clubs as capitalized businesses, branding, logos
• Work and leisure – new divisions in time and space, free time, sport events during work time
• In- and exclusion – who can play along, secret societies, hidden worlds, illegal sport, extreme ironing, amateurs versus professionals
• Insiders and outsiders – fan culture, us versus them, opposing teams, teammates, home and away games, boundaries (lines) of the field
• Violence – physical abuse against referees and linesmen, football is war, injuries, extreme fighting sports, organization as an arena for symbolic violence
• Winning and losing - competitiveness, rivalry, tactics, scoring, goals and targets
• Place and space – sensing the stadium: when the lights go up and the lads come out in their colours, the arena, the gym, sport program in jails, struggle over space, space as a practised place, the playground
• Material artefacts – the ball, the field, clothes, sportswear as ordinary wear, protective clothing, the whistle, toys
• Sport and philosophy – why sport?
Please note, that the themes are not limited to those included in the list above! As always, alternative and innovative interpretations of the theme are encouraged. With its long tradition of interdisciplinary membership, SCOS invites papers that draw insights and approaches from across a range of social sciences and humanities. In addition to scholars working in management and organization studies we welcome contributions from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, politics, (art) history, sport studies, communication, film, gender and cultural studies. Contributions can be theoretical, empirical or methodological, but should address their subject matter in a critical and rigorous fashion.
Open stream
An open stream will facilitate presentations of recent developments in research on organizational culture and symbolism that do not connect directly to the conference theme. Papers are therefore invited on any aspect of theory, methodology, fieldwork or practice that may be of interest to the SCOS community. If submitting to the open stream, please indicate this clearly on your abstract.
Workshops
We also welcome suggestions for workshops, performances or events. Outlines of proposed workshops should be no more than 500 words and should clearly indicate the resources needed, the number of participants, the time required, the approach to be taken and the session’s objectives.
Abstracts
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted as e-mail attachments (all common formats accepted) by 1st February 2014 to the organizers: scos2014@gmail.com
Item 2:
Seven Full-Time Funded Postgraduate Research Opportunities, University Of Leicester – School Of Management
The School of Management is pleased to offer five new PhD Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAships) and two new PhD Graduate Research Assistantships (GRAships). These full-time postgraduate research opportunities are worth approximately £18,376 per year over four years and offer teaching experience (GTAships) or research experience (GRAships) while working on PhD research.
The School of Management at the University of Leicester is renowned for the quality of its creative, interdisciplinary and heterodox research. We welcome applications from those interested in the critical and innovative rethinking of any of the following fields: employment and global work; finance and accounting; industrial relations and trade unionism; labour markets and the labour process; management and business; management of science, technology and information; marketing and consumption; organizations and organising; training and development. Our PhD programme is distinctive because it is firmly located within a broadly defined critical social science tradition. Our students draw on any of the different fields of management as well as on anthropology, cultural studies, economics, geography, physics and mathematics, science and technology studies, sociology, politics, philosophy and psychology in undertaking their research. It is important for you to read the 'Detailed Advert' and 'Further Guidance' available on our website if you are interested in applying for these GTAships/GRAships:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/management/postgraduate/research/fees
Closing date for applications: 6th March 2014. Interviews are provisionally scheduled for April 2014.
Item 3:
Critical Management Studies Division – Academy of Management, 2014 Dissertation Award Announcement
The Critical Management Studies (CMS) Division of the Academy of Management announces the 2014 CMS Award for Best Doctoral Dissertation. We are very pleased that sponsorship for this prize continues to originate from Organization, and we are grateful for this enduring support. We also gratefully acknowledge the provision of a bursary for the winner from the University of Portsmouth Business School.
Ph.D. dissertations/theses that have passed (i.e. successfully completed the formal examination – including, where relevant – the viva voce and any subsequent revisions) within the period 1st June 2013 – 1st May 2014 are eligible for this year’s competition.
What work qualifies as 'critical'? The domain statement of the CMS Division reads:
“The Critical Management Studies Division serves as a forum within the Academy for the expression of views critical of established management practices and the established social order. Our premise is that structural features of contemporary society, such as the profit imperative, patriarchy, racial inequality, and ecological irresponsibility often turn organizations into instruments of domination and exploitation. Driven by a shared desire to change this situation, we aim in our research, teaching, and practice to develop critical interpretations of management and society and to generate radical alternatives.
Sample topics include but are not limited to: critical theories of the nature of managerial authority, resistance to managerial authority, identity, affectivity, rationality, and subjectivity; critiques of managerialist theories of management and organization; critical assessments of emerging alternative forms of organization; critiques of political economy; critical perspectives on business strategy, postcolonial critiques of organizations and management; globalization, entrepreneurship, technological innovation, e-working, management consulting practices; critical analyses of discourses of management and management development; critical perspectives on class, gender, and race; the profit-imperative and the natural environment; critical epistemologies & methodologies.”
For more information about CMS, go to http://group.aomonline.org/cms/
Submission Process
Submissions must include three separate documents:
1) A title page and abstract with complete author identification/contact information.
2) An abridged version of the dissertation without author identification that will go out to the panel of judges. This should include title, abstract, and a summary of each chapter of the dissertation/thesis [max. total of 40 pages, double-spaced, 12 point font, plus charts/tables and references].
3) A supporting letter of no more than one page from the dissertation chair, or lead supervisor certifying the completion date of the project. The chair’s letter may be sent separately.
We will try to accommodate submissions in non-English languages based on our capabilities to review to the requisite standard. Please contact the organizers by email (listed in the next paragraph) if you would like to submit in a non-English language in order for us to ascertain whether or not this will be possible before submission. A long abstract of 2500 words in English is required to accompany such submissions.
We would ask that colleagues desist from submitting dissertations that have been published or are going through the journal review process. If in any doubt here, please contact the organizers.
Submissions must be received by May 1st, 2014 and should be submitted electronically to Sarah Gilmore sarah.gilmore@port.ac.uk
Please put: “CMS DISSERTATION AWARD SUBMISSION” in the email subject heading.
The winner will be announced at the CMS business meeting in Philadelphia and will receive a cash award, a two year subscription to Organization and a bursary from the University of Portsmouth Business School to assist with meeting relevant Academy of Management conference expenses.
Item 4:
There is a lovely job up for grabs at the University of York!
It is a Senior Lectureship in Organisational Behaviour and Theory and would be in our very Scossey group - read the details in the link below and contact the Head of Group who happens to be your SCOS secretary if you have queries: lynne.baxter@york.ac.uk
https://jobs.york.ac.uk/wd/plsql/wd_portal.show_job?p_web_site_id=3885&p_web_page_id=174980
32nd Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS) – ‘Sport, Play and Game’
Utrecht, the Netherlands, 7-10 July 2014, School of Governance, Utrecht University
Organizing committee: Jeroen Vermeulen, Martijn Koster, Michel van Slobbe, Eugène Loos, Jeroen Veldman
Call for Papers
“All play means something” (Johan Huizinga, 1938)
In recent decades, sport as a social practice has become relevant in many different spheres: in health, economy, politics, education, work and leisure. The importance of sport transcends beyond the confines of the sport field. Sport is, in essence, is about organization and organizing.
SCOS 2014 focuses on the symbolic and cultural meanings of sport from the perspective of the tension between play and game. Play refers to the free, the associative, the spontaneous and to (re)creative aspects. Game refers to the serious, the regulated and the competitive aspects. Hence, the conference theme Sport, play and games concentrates on the interplay between the formal and the entertaining; between the serious and the fun. It does so by focusing in on the intricate connections and tensions between work and leisure; system world and life world; rules and creativity; standardization and innovation; the categorical and the personal; the centres of hegemonic power and the margins of everyday organizational life. Because of these tensions and contradictions, the theme of Sport, play and game provides vantage points for exploring beyond taken-for-granted assumptions of social life in organizations.
The conference is concerned with the question how sport is organized both as an active, participative, and a passive, consumed, form of engagement. In both senses, it is interesting to consider how sport functions as a spectacle, as performance and as an aspect of community. In line with this, issues of play and playfulness and of games and gaming in organizations come to the fore.
Furthermore, sport features particularities that resonate with organizational life.
Organizations are replete with sporting metaphors that give meaning to their practices, such as competition, arena, excellence, talent, team work. We might also think about games like chess as a metaphor for organizing and strategy. Meanwhile, in sport, we find organizational aspects of regulation and control. In this way, the interweaving of sport and organization opens up possibilities for management.
The organization of events such as the Olympic Games, the World Cup Football and the Tour de France has an immense economic, social and political impact. Sport is entangled with issues of bribery and corruption, regulation and politics, and with the role of the State. As such, sport is a nexus between serious fun and serious business.
We would like to invite contributions that – particularly but not exclusively – deal with the following subjects in organization studies, from the perspective of sport, play and game:
• Playful organizations - playing on the job, playtime as an organization, play and design, play as resistance, child's play, homo ludens in organizations, cultures of fun
• Social values of teamwork, loyalty, and self-sacrifice
• Body culture - the cultivation of bodily exercise, body dysmorphia and play,
The Adonis Complex, plastic surgery, muscles
• Physical culture – cultural expressions of community through physical activities (forms of sports, dances, folk games, martial arts)
• Rules and regulations - corporate cheats and phonies, blaggers and chancers, spoil-sports, breaking the rules, obedience and compliance
• Collective participation - collaboration, cooperation, synchronization of actions, new games with no winners only players, on-line gaming
• Pleasure and entertainment - the pleasure principle, the misery of the school gym and the dreaded PE lesson, Epicureanism, the spectacle, sport and play in movies
• Identities - the David Beckham effect or the glamour of the international sports person – sport as marker and maker of cultural identities, sporting heartthrobs
• Politics and policy – sport and nationalism, sport for development, instrumental uses of sport
• Competition – the ‘excellence’ game in organizations, high performance
• Field - playing the field, fielding questions, the spatial and symbolic boundaries of the sport field
• Morality and ethics - fair play, whistle blowing, sportsmanship as a moral category, honesty and responsibility
• Feelings and emotions – sweat and tears, euphoria, auto-ethnographies of horrible wet hockey fields
• Producing and consuming - audiences, media, merchandising
• Games and gaming - exergaming, social games, gaming cultures, online games, casual games, games in business, gamification
• Gender – construction of gender roles through play and sport, and gender play, inequalities
• Sport and economy – commercialization of sport, football clubs as capitalized businesses, branding, logos
• Work and leisure – new divisions in time and space, free time, sport events during work time
• In- and exclusion – who can play along, secret societies, hidden worlds, illegal sport, extreme ironing, amateurs versus professionals
• Insiders and outsiders – fan culture, us versus them, opposing teams, teammates, home and away games, boundaries (lines) of the field
• Violence – physical abuse against referees and linesmen, football is war, injuries, extreme fighting sports, organization as an arena for symbolic violence
• Winning and losing - competitiveness, rivalry, tactics, scoring, goals and targets
• Place and space – sensing the stadium: when the lights go up and the lads come out in their colours, the arena, the gym, sport program in jails, struggle over space, space as a practised place, the playground
• Material artefacts – the ball, the field, clothes, sportswear as ordinary wear, protective clothing, the whistle, toys
• Sport and philosophy – why sport?
Please note, that the themes are not limited to those included in the list above! As always, alternative and innovative interpretations of the theme are encouraged. With its long tradition of interdisciplinary membership, SCOS invites papers that draw insights and approaches from across a range of social sciences and humanities. In addition to scholars working in management and organization studies we welcome contributions from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, politics, (art) history, sport studies, communication, film, gender and cultural studies. Contributions can be theoretical, empirical or methodological, but should address their subject matter in a critical and rigorous fashion.
Open stream
An open stream will facilitate presentations of recent developments in research on organizational culture and symbolism that do not connect directly to the conference theme. Papers are therefore invited on any aspect of theory, methodology, fieldwork or practice that may be of interest to the SCOS community. If submitting to the open stream, please indicate this clearly on your abstract.
Workshops
We also welcome suggestions for workshops, performances or events. Outlines of proposed workshops should be no more than 500 words and should clearly indicate the resources needed, the number of participants, the time required, the approach to be taken and the session’s objectives.
Abstracts
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted as e-mail attachments (all common formats accepted) by 1st February 2014 to the organizers: scos2014@gmail.com
Item 2:
Seven Full-Time Funded Postgraduate Research Opportunities, University Of Leicester – School Of Management
The School of Management is pleased to offer five new PhD Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAships) and two new PhD Graduate Research Assistantships (GRAships). These full-time postgraduate research opportunities are worth approximately £18,376 per year over four years and offer teaching experience (GTAships) or research experience (GRAships) while working on PhD research.
The School of Management at the University of Leicester is renowned for the quality of its creative, interdisciplinary and heterodox research. We welcome applications from those interested in the critical and innovative rethinking of any of the following fields: employment and global work; finance and accounting; industrial relations and trade unionism; labour markets and the labour process; management and business; management of science, technology and information; marketing and consumption; organizations and organising; training and development. Our PhD programme is distinctive because it is firmly located within a broadly defined critical social science tradition. Our students draw on any of the different fields of management as well as on anthropology, cultural studies, economics, geography, physics and mathematics, science and technology studies, sociology, politics, philosophy and psychology in undertaking their research. It is important for you to read the 'Detailed Advert' and 'Further Guidance' available on our website if you are interested in applying for these GTAships/GRAships:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/management/postgraduate/research/fees
Closing date for applications: 6th March 2014. Interviews are provisionally scheduled for April 2014.
Item 3:
Critical Management Studies Division – Academy of Management, 2014 Dissertation Award Announcement
The Critical Management Studies (CMS) Division of the Academy of Management announces the 2014 CMS Award for Best Doctoral Dissertation. We are very pleased that sponsorship for this prize continues to originate from Organization, and we are grateful for this enduring support. We also gratefully acknowledge the provision of a bursary for the winner from the University of Portsmouth Business School.
Ph.D. dissertations/theses that have passed (i.e. successfully completed the formal examination – including, where relevant – the viva voce and any subsequent revisions) within the period 1st June 2013 – 1st May 2014 are eligible for this year’s competition.
What work qualifies as 'critical'? The domain statement of the CMS Division reads:
“The Critical Management Studies Division serves as a forum within the Academy for the expression of views critical of established management practices and the established social order. Our premise is that structural features of contemporary society, such as the profit imperative, patriarchy, racial inequality, and ecological irresponsibility often turn organizations into instruments of domination and exploitation. Driven by a shared desire to change this situation, we aim in our research, teaching, and practice to develop critical interpretations of management and society and to generate radical alternatives.
Sample topics include but are not limited to: critical theories of the nature of managerial authority, resistance to managerial authority, identity, affectivity, rationality, and subjectivity; critiques of managerialist theories of management and organization; critical assessments of emerging alternative forms of organization; critiques of political economy; critical perspectives on business strategy, postcolonial critiques of organizations and management; globalization, entrepreneurship, technological innovation, e-working, management consulting practices; critical analyses of discourses of management and management development; critical perspectives on class, gender, and race; the profit-imperative and the natural environment; critical epistemologies & methodologies.”
For more information about CMS, go to http://group.aomonline.org/cms/
Submission Process
Submissions must include three separate documents:
1) A title page and abstract with complete author identification/contact information.
2) An abridged version of the dissertation without author identification that will go out to the panel of judges. This should include title, abstract, and a summary of each chapter of the dissertation/thesis [max. total of 40 pages, double-spaced, 12 point font, plus charts/tables and references].
3) A supporting letter of no more than one page from the dissertation chair, or lead supervisor certifying the completion date of the project. The chair’s letter may be sent separately.
We will try to accommodate submissions in non-English languages based on our capabilities to review to the requisite standard. Please contact the organizers by email (listed in the next paragraph) if you would like to submit in a non-English language in order for us to ascertain whether or not this will be possible before submission. A long abstract of 2500 words in English is required to accompany such submissions.
We would ask that colleagues desist from submitting dissertations that have been published or are going through the journal review process. If in any doubt here, please contact the organizers.
Submissions must be received by May 1st, 2014 and should be submitted electronically to Sarah Gilmore sarah.gilmore@port.ac.uk
Please put: “CMS DISSERTATION AWARD SUBMISSION” in the email subject heading.
The winner will be announced at the CMS business meeting in Philadelphia and will receive a cash award, a two year subscription to Organization and a bursary from the University of Portsmouth Business School to assist with meeting relevant Academy of Management conference expenses.
Item 4:
There is a lovely job up for grabs at the University of York!
It is a Senior Lectureship in Organisational Behaviour and Theory and would be in our very Scossey group - read the details in the link below and contact the Head of Group who happens to be your SCOS secretary if you have queries: lynne.baxter@york.ac.uk
https://jobs.york.ac.uk/wd/plsql/wd_portal.show_job?p_web_site_id=3885&p_web_page_id=174980