Discussion: View Thread

Apologies for cross postings. The deadline to submit and abstract has been
extended to January 31st!!

Critical Management Studies Research Workshop
Montreal, Aug 4-5, 2010
(Meets Prior to Academy of Management)
GENDER AND DIVERSITY TRACK
Conveners: David Knights (david.knights@virgin.net)
Angela Hope (angela.hope@hotmail.com)
Marieke van den Brink (MCL.vandenBrink@fm.ru.nl)
Mustafa F. Ozbilgin (m.ozbilgin@uea.ac.uk)

The CMS Division of the AOM will conduct a research workshop immediately
prior to the 2010 Academy of Management meetings in Montreal in August 2010.
The workshop will begin mid-morning of Wednesday Aug 4 and run till the
evening of Thursday Aug 5. We are coordinating a stream called “Gender and
Diversity” in this workshop, and seek submissions from interested researchers.
Gender and diversity research, from a critical perspective, in management
and organization studies is a steady, growing field. Despite the uneasy
marriage between critical management studies and gender/diversity, this area
of inquiry continues to be a stream topic every year in CMS venues. Yet,
still we have a long way to go. This stream is situated at the nexus of
critical theory, gender studies, and diversity management. It is a
continuation of the Gender and Diversity in Organizations (GDO) symposium at
last years Academy of Management in Chicago entitled: The ‘Next 25 Years of
GDO Research—A Special Panel in Honor of GDO’s 25th Anniversay’ where Joanne
Martin, Linda Smircich, Marta Calas, Deb Meyerson, and Angela Hope discussed
future directions in gender and diversity research. In particular, junior
scholars were called upon to direct the future of this research (Martin,
2009); hence this stream is organized predominantly by younger, junior
scholars in the field.

The story remains the same. Women are still marginalized in the workplace
and discrimination at work based on race, gender, religion, sexual
orientation, looks, ethnicity, class, and ability is commonplace. What has
changed in research and what are some of the directions in the past 25
years? Gender and diversity must go hand in hand as gender must incorporate
contextually specific forms of diversity in order to provide thorough, more
inclusive, research. Another understanding demonstrated in previous
scholarship is that language and power are situated in texts and discourses
(Martin, 2009). These texts and discourses are mobilized in the
organization, serving to engender power relations and the marginalization of
Others (Martin, 2009) Language enacts understandings of heteronormativities
that privilege certain people and methods of managing and organizing at the
expense of others. These norms, depending on the context, typically
privilege not just the male—but the ‘able-bodied’, white, middle-classed,
heterosexual, Christian male.

Despite these advances, scholars have also been hesitant, though not all, in
constructing new theory in the field of diversity and gender studies
(Martin, 2009). Much of the work recycles existent literature, thus, new
theory is being called for in this field. Linda Smircich and Marta Calas
(2009) call for more feminist work from modernist perspectives (e.g.
feminist standpoint theory) and other new perspectives other than research
grounded in solely postmodern feminist perspectives. However, it should be
noted that postmodern discourses in feminism are diverse and perhaps there
is terrain that has yet to be explored in this area. Joanne Martin (2009)
contends the discursive turn has left us in a position to lose sight of
material considerations. Finally and most notably, research has been better
at documenting inequalities and being critical of current phenomena without
advocating for praxis. The need for efficacious change and ideas that can
translate into practice is one of the most important directions that the
future of gender and diversity research can take.

This stream calls for theoretical and empirical papers that explore, but are
not limited, to the following:

1. Introducing new or under utilized forms of feminism in research in
including post-feminist perspectives. For example, the body and corporeal
feminism, and bringing bodies into the workplace, as well as transnational
feminism and crossing boundaries in the global workplace context
2. Organizational change: How can we bring about real praxis? If through
resistance, then how can we find ways to subvert heteronormativity? Perhaps
through new understandings of sexuality, sex at work and desire in managing
and organizing?
3. New theory around gender and diversity aspects in management and
organizational theory, including religion, a neglected aspect of diversity
4. Racializing whiteness and theorizing about other perspectives on race and
ethnicity.
5. Explorations of the evolution of diversity discourses and their
displacement of equality discourses
The motivation for the workshop is simple: neither the PDW nor the main
program events at the AOM give us enough opportunity to engage in in-depth
discussion of papers in critical management studies. Therefore this workshop
will be organized as a series of parallel streams (working groups), with
each stream comprising of people who have contributed papers on a
well-defined topic (perhaps with some invited discussants), working together
over the course of the day-and-a-half, discussing the papers in depth. In
order to maximize discussion, authors will not present their own papers, but
rather participants will be asked to present and discuss each others'
papers. We will also arrange a couple of plenary sessions and some social
time where all the participants come together.
We are yet to finalize the cost of the workshop, but we hope to be able to
offer low-cost accommodation during the event, and dovetail it with the AOM
meetings, especially those events involving the CMS Division. We will
finalize the details quickly on the expenses of the workshop.
If you wish to be part of this stream, please submit a 250 word abstract to
angela.hope@hotmail.com and MCL.vandenBrink@fm.ru.nl by January 31h, 2010.
Please note that submissions can be concurrently on review at the regular
AOM 2010 conference as well. The submission of an abstract constitutes a
good-faith agreement to submit a full paper for the stream by June 1, 2010
if the paper is accepted. The final paper should be less than 8000 words in
length.

References:(Calas & Smircich, 2009)

Calas, M., & Smircich, L. (2009). Feminist perspectives on gender in
organizational research: What is and is yet to be. In D. Buchanan & A.
Bryman (Eds.), Handbook of Organizational Research Methods (pp. 256-269).
London: Sage.

Martin, J. (2009). “The Next 25 Years of GDO Research” presented at Academy of
Management, GDO Symposium. The Next 25 Years of GDO Research—A Special Panel
in Honor of GDO’s 25th Anniversary. August 8, 2009.

_______________________________________________________________________

To send a message to the MSR Listserv, please send your email to: MSR@AOMLISTS.pace.edu

To visit the Academy's MSR Web site, please visit: http://group.aomonline.org/msr/

To manage you MSR Listserv subscription, please visit: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=MSR&A=1