In collaboration with Diversity in Teams and AlterEcos: Exploring Alternatives to Currently Dominant Forms of Economic Organizing, the Diversity&Difference cluster at CBS invites everyone interested to participate in a two-day international seminar on: Diverse organizing/organizational diversity – Methodological questions and activist practices taking place at CBS Råvarebygning May 2-3, 2017.

Event Abstract

In continuation of previous years’ successful workshops on leadership, diversity and inclusion, we now turn to the question of how to study organizational diversity. How do we study different organizations/organizational differences and why do we do it? This issue is both one of methodology and activism. In terms of methodology, the study of organizational diversity and diverse organizing challenges academic orthodoxies of specialization, standardization and incrementalism (Alvesson & Gabriel, 2013). The search for different organizations/difference in organizations demands that we unsettle our ways and reconsider the ins and outs of what we have been, are and will be doing. In terms of activism, a commitment to diversity and difference challenges social and organizational norms of meritocracy, inclusion, recognition, etc. (Fraser, 2000; Castilla & Benard, 2010; Zanoni et al., 2010). Encounters with difference require that we not only consider new sites of investigation, but also new means of intervention; above all, it implores reconsideration of the very purpose of inquiry: How may studies of diverse organizing and diversity in organizations move beyond either passive description or mere critique and, instead, provide practicable redefinitions of organizational realities?

Keynote: Karen Ashcraft

Panelists: Alison Pullen, Christian de Cock, Damian O’Doherty, Patricia Zanoni.

Find more information at the workshop’s website.

The workshop is exploratory in nature, but we acknowledge the importance of publication. Some participants have submitted abstracts and/or full papers and their presentations will, along with a keynote talk and a panel debate, be the main component of the seminar. However, presenting a paper is not a prerequisite for taking part in the workshop. In line with the theme of the workshop, we welcome alternative forms of participation. This could be contributions to the discussions – or taking on the important role as a curious listener.

Sign up to the workshop here.