[Experiencemaillist] CFP: Affect in Organizational Renewal - final reminder

[Moisander Johanna]

CALL FOR PAPERS: Affect in Organizational Renewal

Workshop 17-18 June 2019
Aalto University School of Business, Finland

Keynote speakers:

Professor Silvia Gherardi: Affective ethnography and organizational change Department of Sociology, University of Trento, Italy

Professor Kate Kenny: Speaking out, censorship and the regulation of affect J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, NUI Galway, Ireland

Professor Alison Pullen: The politics and ethics of affect Department of Management, Macquerie University, Sydney Australia



Organizational renewal is usually seen as an outcome of deliberate rational practices such as employee training and work design. There is an important affective dimension to organizational renewal, however, which until recently has received relatively little attention among management and organization scholars. Affect refers to a body’s capacity to affect and be affected, and the intensities that emerge from these encounters (Massumi, 2002). It is a non- reflective bodily response, such as excitement or shame, that is created in relations between humans and materialities such as technology (Gherardi, 2017; Katila, Laine & Parkkari, 2017).

While affect is difficult to control and may diminish actors’ capacity to act, it can also enhance actors’ capacity to act collectively in new ways (Michels & Steyaert, 2017). For example, affective (organizational) experiences have the capacity to unite people: to turn private affective experiences into collective experiences with political potential (Pullen et al., 2017; Vachhani & Pullen, 2019). Depending on the nature of such affective experiences, the political potential may work towards or against organizational renewal initiatives. Affect can, thus, be seen as critical ingredient in any organizational renewal process, as it includes action-potential (Duff, 2010) while also playing a pivotal role in institutional identity work (Katila, Laine & Parkkari, 2017).

In this workshop, we focus on the emerging discussion on affect-based understandings of organizations in general (Fotaki, Kenny & Vachhani, 2017; Gherardi, 2017) and organizational renewal in particular. We explore how affective experiences emerge within organizational practices, what they do, and how they can be manipulated to support (or contest) organizational renewal. We also work toward new methodological approaches to “capture” and better understand affective experiences in organizations. The workshop will be organized around keynote presentations, paper presentations, roundtable discussions, and collaborative activities.

Abstract submission

If you wish to participate in the workshop, please submit an abstract of no more than 800 words to affect.workshop2019 at gmail.com<mailto:affect.workshop2019 at gmail.com> by May 1, 2019.

We welcome contributions that explore affect from various theoretical and methodological perspectives. Possible themes and topics include but are not limited to the following:

• The role of affect in processes of organizational change and renewal

• The role of affect in institutional work

• The role of affect in contemporary political discourse to channelize fear and/or optimism for change

• Affect and gendered practices in organizations

• Affect and the phenomenology of embodied agency

• Affect and ethics

• Affect, disruption and fragmentation

• Affective labor in contemporary (platform) capitalism

• Affective experiences within/of organizations and organizing

• Affective experiences and their relationship to space/time

• Methodological approaches for exploring affect in organizations and through organizing

• Methodological approaches for writing and representing collective affective experiences


Authors will be notified of acceptance by May 15, 2019.


Organizers:

Dr. Saija Katila, Aalto University School of Business

Prof. Johanna Moisander, Aalto University School of Business MSc.

Ari Kuismin, Aalto University School of Business

MSc. Alice Wickström, Aalto University School of Business



Contact information

E-mail: affect.workshop2019 at gmail.com<mailto:affect.workshop2019 at gmail.com>



The workshop venue

Aalto University School of Business, Espoo (Helsinki metropolitan area). The location and address of the venue will be announced later.

Workshop participants are kindly requested to make their own travel arrangements and hotel reservations.



References

Duff, C. (2010). On the role of affect and practice in the production of place. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(5), 881-895.

Fotaki, M., Kenny, K., & Vachhani, S. J. (2017). Thinking critically about affect in organization studies: Why it matters. Organization, 24, 3-17.

Gherardi, S. (2017). One turn... and now another one: Do the turn to practice and the turn to affect have something in common?. Management Learning, 48(3), 345-358.

Katila, S., Laine, P. M., & Parkkari, P. (2017). Sociomateriality and Affect in Institutional Work: Constructing the Identity of Start-Up Entrepreneurs. Journal of Management Inquiry, 1056492617743591.

Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Michels, C., & Steyaert, C. (2017). By accident and by design: Composing affective atmospheres in an urban art intervention. Organization, 24(1), 79-104.

Pullen, A., Rhodes, C., & Thanem, T. (2017). Affective politics in gendered organizations: Affirmative notes on becoming-woman. Organization, 24(1), 105-123.

Vachhani, S. J., & Pullen, A. (2019). Ethics, politics and feminist organizing: Writing feminist infrapolitics and affective solidarity into everyday sexism. Human Relations, 72(1), 23-47.





Dr. Johanna Moisander
Professor, Department of Management Studies
Aalto University School of Business
P.O. Box 21210
00076 AALTO, Finland

Email: johanna.moisander at aalto.fi<mailto:johanna.moisander at aalto.fi>
Tel. +358503120904
http://management.aalto.fi<http://management.aalto.fi/>
https://people.aalto.fi/en/johanna_moisander









Dr. Johanna Moisander
Professor, Department of Management Studies
Aalto University School of Business
P.O. Box 21210
00076 AALTO, Finland

Email: johanna.moisander at aalto.fi<mailto:johanna.moisander at aalto.fi>
Tel. +358503120904
http://management.aalto.fi
https://people.aalto.fi/en/johanna_moisander

Visiting address:
Ekonominaukio 1, Y-201
02150 Espoo, Finland