Workshops

2008

Sydney Workshop on Leadership and Discourse

February 2008

An ICRODSC international research workshop on Leadership and Discourse was held in Sydney in February 2008. Over 40 participants heard 9 papers over the two days the workshop was held. Invited speakers included Professor Keith Grint (Cranfield University), Professor Brad Jackson and Dr Brigid Carroll (Auckland University Business School), Professor Gail Fairhurst (University of Cincinnati) and Associate Professor Ray Gordon (Bond University). Papers were also presented by Helena Liu and John Shields (University of Sydney) and Jennifer Frahm (University of Melbourne). ICRODSC members attending from other partner included Stefan Sveningsson, (Lund University) and Nick Ellis (Leicester University). The workshop concluded with a discussion session involving all participants. A PhD forum, which provided students with an opportunity to meet with leading scholars in the area of organizational discourse and leadership in order to discuss their PhD research was also held. A special issue of the journal Management Communication Quarterly which will contain papers from the workshop has been commissioned. This is to be guest edited by David Grant, Gail Fairhurst, Keith Grint and Brad Jackson and is due to appear in 2010.

2006

Doctoral Workshop: Organizational Discourse Methods.

University of Sydney, November, 2006

As part of a visit funded by a University of Sydney, Visiting Research Fellowship Dr Andrea Whittle of Cardiff Business School led a doctoral workshop on Organizational Discourse Methods. This included 12 participants from the disciplines of Work and Organizational Studies, Marketing, International Business, Government and Law. The workshop introduced six different forms of discourse analysis, which included references to key literature and examples of recent studies. The workshop was a practical, hands-on session which gave participants the opportunity to conduct each type of discourse analysis using an empirical data extract provided. The participating doctoral students also benefited from the opportunity to work in groups to analyse data extracts from their own research projects.

2005

International Research Workshop on Organizational Discourse Methods

University of Sydney, December, 2005

In December 2005, the Organizational Discourse, Strategy and Change Group at the University of Sydney hosted an ICRODSC international workshop on Organizational Discourse Methods. The aim of this interactive two-day event was to explore various approaches to discourse analysis as well as reflect on the implications of their use.

Methodological approaches covered in the workshop included critical discourse analysis (Cynthia Hardy, Melbourne University and Steve Maguire, McGill University); narrative (Andrew Brown, University of Bath); Laclau & Mouffes discourse analysis (Hugh Wilmott, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge); reflexivity (Robyn Thomas, Cardiff University); micro-level analysis (Arlene Harvey, University of Sydney), and multi-modality (Rick Iedema, University of New South Wales). In addition to the invited speakers and PhD students from a range of Australian universities, other invited participants included Stefan Sveningsson (Lund University), Chris Wright (University of New South Wales), Bill Harley and Leisa Sargent (University of Melbourne).

Highlights of the workshop were the interactive panel discussions and the PhD forum which provided students with an opportunity to meet with leading scholars in the area of organizational discourse and discuss their PhD research.

2004

Resistance in Organizations: Processes, Forms and Discourses

University of Sydney, February, 2004

Members of the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney (Leanne Cutcher, David Grant, Nick Wailes and Grant Michelson) collaborated on a workshop held in Sydney in February 2004 on Resistance and Discourse. It involved the participation of members of other partner institutions including Dan Krreman (Lund) and Linda Putnam (Texas A&M). In addition, Dennis Mumby (University of North Carolina) and Karen Ashcraft (University of Utah) both attended. Dennis and Karen regularly work on research related to resistance and discourse. They have recently published a book together on Reworking gender: A feminist communicology of organization published by Sage. Other participants came from New Zealand - Ralph Stablein and Craig Pritchard (Massey University) and Deborah Jones and Brad Jackson (Victoria University). A special issue of the journal Management Communication Quarterly which will contain papers from the workshop has been commissioned. This is to be guest edited by Sydney and Texas A&M members of ICRODSC and is due to appear in 2005.

Enterprise Resource Planning Workshop: Managing ERPs Organisational Implications

As the Centres ERP project developed and four major case studies were completed, it was decided that it would be of value to hold another workshop to share our ideas with other key researchers in the field. The ERP project team met with 25 other academics from a range of Australian universities who were all studying ERPs from a variety of different perspectives. The brief was to focus on post-implementation issues with particular reference to organisational impacts.

Speakers included: Peter Seddon, Department of Information Systems, Melbourne University; Nasrin Rahmati, School of Business, Monash University; Sue Williams and Catherine Hardy, Business Information Systems, University of Sydney; Guy Gable, School of Information Systems, Queensland University of Technology; Madhavan Thiruvenkatachari, Business Information Systems, University of Sydney.

Further presentations from the ERP Project team were made by Richard Hall, Kristine Dery and Nick Wailes.

The day concluded with a practitioner panel to discuss the days presentations from a practitioner perspective and also to get views on the measures industry uses to determine ERP success. The panelists were Nick Covari, IT Manager, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney; Virginia Rice, Consulting Director, Cubic Consulting; and Jeff Stewart, Business Solutions Manager, Dairy Farmers. This presentation was taped and transcribed for contribution to the research project.

A special issue of the Journal of Strategic Change which will contain papers from the workshop has been commissioned. This is to be guest edited by Sydney members of ICRODSC and is due to appear in 2005.

2003

Sydney Workshop on Ethical Investment and Corporate Social Responsibility

The aim of the workshop was to bring together fund managers, those involved in screening companies, corporate managers, stakeholder groups and academics from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds to discuss various aspects of ethical investment and its connections to corporate social responsibility. The symposium attracted interest from the Journal of Business Ethics and the Australian Accounting Review which commissioned special issues based on the symposium themes to be guest edited by Sydney based members of ICRODSC.