[csaa-forum] Conference CFP: ASCOS 2008: Neophilia and Organization

[Jean Burgess]

Forwarded by request.

Please direct inquiries to Professor Carl Rhodes at carl.rhodes at uts.edu.au.

ACSCOS 2008
The 3rd Australasian Caucus of the Standing Conference on Organizational
Symbolism

Call for Papers

Neophilia and Organization

University of Technology, Sydney
26-28 November 2008

Introduction

We are pleased to announce that the 3rd Australasian Caucus of the Standing
Conference on Organizational Symbolism (ACSCOS) will be held at the University of
Technology, Sydney from 26 to 28 November 2008.  Similarly to the two that
preceded it in Brisbane in 2004 and in Auckland in 2006, this year's ACSCOS is
being held as a meeting ground for those broadly interested in what, for want of better
words, is referred to as critical and postmodern management and organization studies.
The colloquium is positioned under the ambit of SCOS both in recognition of that
body's long and innovative contribution to critical and avant garde organization
studies as well as to continue SCOS's excursions against its own Eurocentricism. We
sincerely hope that Australian and New Zealand colleagues will respond to this call
and help to generate a vibrant and productive mechanism for exchange. We also hope
that colleagues from elsewhere in the world will join us in our corner of the southern
hemisphere just as we so often trek to the north.  More generally we look forward to a
stimulating, collegial, productive and supportive gathering.

Theme

The theme of this year's colloquium is neohphilia and organization.  Neophilia is a
fetishishtic love of all that is new.  Those afflicted with neophilia become excited
about novelty; they crave newness.  Newness to neophiliacs is a virtue to be upheld
and a goal to always strive for.  The development of the modern world saw the
excitement for the new become a mainstay of western culture.   In a temporal reversal,
it seems that today we have inherited neophilia from the modern past - a condition
that permeates management practice and management theory. The colloquium invites
papers that consider neophilia as it relates to management and organizations.  Indeed,
management practice has long been afflicted with the love of the new, whether it is
for the creation of new forms of organizations, a pathological desire for change and its
management, the scrambling after the latest management fashion, or the strategic
demand for re-invention.  Management theory is not immune to novelty: ind
eed, it is often in the vanguard of both its promotion and demise. Those of us engaged
in this practice are under constant pressure to define our work in terms of 'new
knowledge' in the assumption of an ever incremental path of progress and
accumulation, lest we be considered old-hat luddites who fail to move with the times.
Mainstream management articulates this in terms of creativity, change management,
innovation, development and growth.  Those who theorize with a more critical bent
are not immune either - such 'progressive' theories venture into becoming,
emergence, utopia, and in days gone by even revolution.

In our region of the world we are the direct bearers of the conflicting legacy of
neophilia.  We are part of the new world, whether residing in the newly discovered
unknown land of the south (terra australis incognita) or the new land once named after
the Dutch province of Zealand.  With this newness came a disavowal of the old, a
wiping clean of the slate that created a terra nullis ripe for the creation of the new as if
from nowhere.   Here in the new world, neophilia went practical in its attempt to
sweep clear the old in the name of colonial expansion.

The colloquium seeks to trouble organization and management in relation to both its
neophiliac roots and its location in tradition.  We call for an appraisal of the value and
values of newness in our dynamic fields of practice and theory, and an exploration of
the intertwined relation between newness, change and novelty on the one hand, and
tradition, permanence and inheritance on the other.  Papers are particularly welcomed
that consider neophilia as it relates specifically to our spatial location, cultural
tradition, and political position in Australasia.

Papers addressing the theme might consider the following issues, although this list is
far from exhaustive

* The manager as neophiliac
* Management theory in the space between difference and repetition
* Avant-gardism in management theory and practice
* Management as a new academic discipline and its relationship with older
scholarly traditions
* Recycling, organizing and the simulacra of the new
* Neophilia and the process of both creating the new and destroying the old
* The new managerial classes and social control
* New organizational forms and their relationship to bureaucracy
* New technology and organization
* Old vs. new scholarly value in management research
* The business school and the new university
* 'Brand New': neophilia and consumption
* The new men and women of organizations
* Resistance to the new and resistance to the old
* Newness, identity and self-(re)creation in organizations
* Organizational life and the desire to for self-reinvention
* Organizational change and the pleasures of the new
* Postcolonialism, organization and neophilia
* Management fads and fashions
* Neophilia and neophobia and organizational conflict
* Technology and the neo-luddites
* Nostalgia and the striving for a new future in an imagined past
* The temporal character of organizations
* Neophilia and organizational becoming
* Progress, the myth of progress and neophilia
* The relation between tradition, inheritance and neophilia
* The history of neophilia in organizations
* Postmodernism and the modern fetish for newness
* Intolerance to neophilia
* Neophilia as old-fashioned


Guidelines for Submission

Papers and abstracts are invited that directly address the colloquium theme, or address
other open issues.

Two alternative forms of submission are invited for the colloquium: abstracts of up to
800 words or full papers of up to 7,000 words.

Full Papers: Full papers will be independently peer reviewed.  Accepted papers will
be published in conference proceedings.

Abstracts: Abstracts will be peer reviewed, and made available to delegates prior to
the colloquium.

Papers or abstracts should be submitted by 1 August  2008.  Notification of
acceptance will be given prior to 5 September 2008.


Venue

The colloquium is being hosted by the School of Management, University of
Technology, Sydney and will be held at the University's Haymarket Campus located
at Cnr Quay Street & Ultimo Road, Haymarket Sydney.


Registration and Fees

Fees for the colloquium will be A$200. Details of how to register will be posted
closer to the event.


Accommodation

The University of Technology's School of Management is located in close proximity
to Sydney's China Town and Darling Harbour.  While participants will book their
own accommodation, details of nearby hotels are available at
http://www.housing.uts.edu.au/hotels/index.html


Inquiries

Please direct inquiries to Professor Carl Rhodes at carl.rhodes at uts.edu.au.

Local Organizing Committee

Carl Rhodes (Chair), University of Technology Sydney
David Bunba-Litic, University of Technology Sydney
Stewart Clegg, University of Technology Sydney
Martin Kornberger, University of Technology Sydney
Tyrone Pitsis, University of Technology Sydney
Alison Pullen, University of Technology Sydney
Anne Ross-Smith, University of Technology Sydney

Regional Advisory Board

Craig Prichard, Massey University, Palmerston North
Janet Sayers, Massey University, Auckland
Bob Westwood, University of Queensland, Brisbane
Julie Wolfram-Cox, Deakin University, Melbourne
Loong Wong, University of Canberra, Canberra

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