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25th EGOS Colloquium
July 2–4, 2009
ESADE Business School
Barcelona, Spain
Passion for Creativity and Innovation
Energizing the Study of Organizations and Organizing
Call for Sub-theme Proposals
What better place than Barcelona and the Mediterranean for explorations in and dialogues on passion for creativity and innovation in organization studies and celebration of the plurality of theoretical and empirical approaches, which EGOS stands for!
Passion is about excitement, enthusiasm, zeal, and delight. Passion for creativity and innovation is essential for energizing the study of organizations and organizing in various ways and at different levels: Societies or parts of them, such as social movements, urban milieus, or youth cultures, play essential role as contexts of creativity and innovation and are, in turn, re-shaped by them.
Organizations co-create – with their stakeholders, competitors, regulators, or partners in alliances and networks – practices, policies, processes, and narratives about their own becoming, which influence societies.
Entrepreneurs engage in institution building efforts to push their ideas forward. They go against the grain and persist in the face of failure, bringing to life new organizations, which can displace a field's centre of gravity.
Scholars, passionate about the study of organizations and organizing, revisit old problems with new approaches or discover new lands and lenses of academic inquiry, thus revising, revitalizing, or challenging the field's conventions.
We invite sub-theme proposals which seek to energize the study of organizations and organizing; welcome connections between micro and macro levels and explorations of both centripetal and centrifugal forces; or aim at attracting papers dealing with different kinds of organizational, social and societal innovations, the conditions that foster or hinder them, and the processes through which they take place, gradually or abruptly. Sub-theme proposals may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
(1) Passion for Creativity and Innovation in Organization Studies
We welcome sub-themes with innovative proposals that push forward divergent thinking and pose challenging questions to help ignite imagination and create spaces for the exchange of brave new ideas on organizing and organizations; explorations into forgotten areas and uncharted territories as well as exploitation of existing ideas with new interpretations and in different contexts; attention to peripheral themes that have the potential to move to the core of the field or to core themes that call for reinvention; discovering and bringing to the fore of opportunities for creative disruptions; focus on unusual organizational settings and new methods' combinations; learning from other "languages", e.g. those of philosophy, psychology, economics, and political science.
(2) Society as Context of Creativity and Innovation
We invite submissions of sub-theme proposals that offer room for explorations into society as context of novelty. For example, what role do the ways in which the public sector and political life are organized play for creativity and innovation? How do changes in organizational practices generate new patterns of how we live and interact in society? What are the manifestations, impact and implications of employing creativity and innovation at the policy level? How are public, private, and governmental institutions able to be creative? How are cities organized to offer fertile soil for clusters and networks of collaboration and co-creation to emerge and thrive? What role do media and other stakeholders play in negotiating the identity and image of a city or a society?
(3) Creativity and Innovation in and beyond Organizations
We look for sub-theme proposals that address questions related to the relationship of creativity and innovation with organizing. In what ways do creativity and innovation permeate organizing? How do organizations create, within and without their boundaries, across units and locations? What are the balancing mechanisms and practices that allow perpetuating creative effervescence, while enhancing performance and efficiency? What identities and images do organizations shape for themselves? What novel forms come into being (e.g. online communities, virtual marketplaces)? How do reflection and learning set these forms in motion? What are the hidden forms of reflective practice? When does failure become a source of novelty in organizations? Are there dark sides of an organization's passion for creativity and innovation, such as, for example, the tensions and instabilities arising when novel ideas challenge old ways of thinking and doing, and the resulting burnout or turnover of creative talent that leads to loss of knowledge and experience for an organization?
(4) Creative Groups and Entrepreneurs
We also seek sub-theme proposals that focus on individuals and groups as originators of novelty. How do cultural, social, or institutional entrepreneurs play with codes and conventions, transpose logics or blend different frames? How do creative minds attract followers and shape – remake and reassemble – organizations and institutions, creating novel combinations that enrich a field's variety, achieve continuity and change, improve wellbeing, and pave the way to social, political, or economic change?
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Submissions are expected to include an outline of the proposed theme and the area of interest (maximum of 2 pages) and a short description of the team of convenors, including their academic background and experience.
Convenor teams should be international in composition (convenors from at least two countries) and should include one highly reputed scholar and one convenor experienced in organizing EGOS sub-themes. The maximum convenor team's size is three scholars.
Deadline for submission of sub-theme proposals: December 21, 2007.
Please send submissions by e-mail to:
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Organizing Committee at ESADE Business School:
Silviya Svejenova, Associate Professor ()
Alfons Sauquet, Professor ()
José Luis Alvarez, Professor ()
Luis Vives, Assistant Professor ()
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