Menu:

First ISA Forum of Sociology
Sociological Research and Public Debate
Barcelona, Spain
September 5 - 8, 2008


Research Committee on
Sociology of Organization RC17

Main theme
Changing organizations, changing identities


Programme Coordinators
Paul du Gay, University of Warwick, UK, paul.dugay@wbs.ac.uk, Robert Van Krieken, University of Sydney, Australia, robertvk@usyd.edu.au and Liz McFall, The Open University, UK, e.r.mcfall@open.ac.uk

Venue of RC17 sessions:

Faculty of Philosophy, Geography and History
University of Barcelona
Montalegre, 6
08001 Barcelona, Spain, map

Session 1: Changing organizations, changing identities. Part I

Friday, September 5, 2008, 15:30-17:30
Chairs: Paul du Gay, University of Warwick, UK, paul.dugay@wbs.ac.uk and Liz McFall, The Open University, UK, e.r.mcfall@open.ac.uk
One of the most pervasive themes in the sociological study of organizations over the last two decades has been the subject of ’change’. Whether characterised in terms of an epochal shift from bureaucratic to ’network’, ’entrepreneurial’ or ’post-bureaucratic’ forms of organization, or the development of dis-organized, financialised or turbo-charged forms of capitalism, for example, an orthodoxy has emerged in which it is assumed that organizations - - both commercial and grant-maintained - have been subject to unprecedented volatility and uncertainty. Following on from this, it is argued that in order to survive and prosper in changed circumstances, organizations must radically alter the ways they conduct their business and they ways that those who work for them conduct themselves. The aim of this session is to examine the processes, practices and techniques of contemporary organizational change and to describe and analyse the forms of identity that organizations now seek to offer to those whom they employ, and to assess the extent to which these organizational identties have also been subject to radical reconstruction.

Session 2: Changing organizations, changing identities. Part II

Saturday, September 6, 2008, 09:00-11:00
Chairs: Paul du Gay, University of Warwick, UK, paul.dugay@wbs.ac.uk and Liz McFall, The Open University, UK, e.r.mcfall@open.ac.uk

Session 3: The ethics of management power and the power of management ethics in changing times

Saturday, September 6, 2008, 11:30-13:30
Chair: Stewart Clegg, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, stewart.clegg@uts.edu.au
Sociologically, we live in interesting times. Organizations are being positioned to become more pervasive than ever as the failures of the recent past in which the market reigned supreme become ever more apparent, and ever more sophisticated apparatuses of security, governance and regulation continue to be developed in addressing constantly changing uncivil society, ranging from binge drinking to suicide bombers.
But exactly how are the regulators to be regulated? Unbridled management power is just as dangerous as an unbridled market. Can the normal ways of being a manager be ethical in the new conjuncture of a return to organization and a shift from markets? If we concluded that we didn’t much like the ethics of market-driven managers – ENRON – then what kind of ethics do we expect from the next generation of managers? What is the appropriate ethical disposition of a modern manager and how will it be, and how should it be, formed?

What of the world they will manage? For Boltanski & Chiappelo, it will be a world in which there is a 'new spirit of capitalism' pursuing a particular model of justice; for Castells, it will be a network society, while Braithwaite sees it as one that is characterized by ‘regulatory capitalism’. Not all these new forms of regulation will have the weight of the law behind them: many will rely on standards as Brunsson and Jacobssen insist, others will be regulated by the professions, as Scott suggests, with the role of audit central to both how standards manage and how professionals do what professionals so, according to Power.

For Bauman, the world is one of liquid modernity: what forms of power and what forms of ethics characterize this liquid modernity? What are the changing calibrations of relations between states, civil societies, and markets and all the organizations that traverse them: business, community, not-for-profit, NGOs, public sector and voluntary? And, like a capillary lacing through the body politic, what is the impact of the increasing financialization of management? Moreover, similarly to a bacillus threatening this new order, what is the impact of ‘Terror’ in terms of the increasing insecurity of being managed in a world where surveillance and border control present themselves as the solution to so many problems?
In addressing these kinds of issues, participants in this session will be making an important contribution to an increasingly important sociology of management power and management ethics.

Session 4: Devices and dispositions: Shaping organizational conduct. Part I

Saturday, September 6, 2008, 15:30-17:30
Chairs: Liz McFall, The Open University, UK, e.r.mcfall@open.ac.uk and
Paul du Gay, University of Warwick, UK, paul.dugay@wbs.ac.uk
This session seeks to explore ways of thinking about organizational identity and conduct after the moment of social constructionism. Through the focus on ’devices and dispositions’, the session calls attention to recent developments in the social and human sciences and organization studies that have challenged the tenets of social constructionism. The renewed emphasis on socio-technical practices in STS and related approaches and the recent ’descriptive turn’ within sociology, for instance, mark the role of particular configurations of material and technical devices in shaping distinct forms of organizational conduct. Thus, organizational action, including its reflexive dimension, can be viewed as taking place within ’hybrid collectives’ that incorporate a variety of materials, both human and non-human. These ’hybrid collectives not only shape conduct but make up or construct particular forms of organizational identity.

Session 5: Devices and dispositions: Shaping organizational conduct. Part II

Sunday, September 7, 2008, 09:00-11:00
Chairs: Liz McFall, The Open University, UK, e.r.mcfall@open.ac.uk and
Paul du Gay, University of Warwick, UK, paul.dugay@wbs.ac.uk

Session 6: Devices and dispositions: Shaping organizational conduct. Part III

Sunday, September 7, 2008, 11:30-13:30
Chairs: Liz McFall, The Open University, UK, e.r.mcfall@open.ac.uk and
Paul du Gay, University of Warwick, UK, paul.dugay@wbs.ac.uk

Session 7: Changing organizations, changing identities

Sunday, September 7, 2008, 15:30-17:30
Chair: Daniel Muzio, University of Leeds, UK, dm@lubs.leeds.ac.uk