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Organising Towards or Against Extinction?

As the first IAS to be based in a business school, we use this provocatively titled work programme to both critique how business and management knowledge and scholarship have contributed to our current manifold global challenges and also to explore how such knowledge, theories and ideas can help us to address these challenges by working towards sustained and responsible futures in uncertain and challenging times https://www.rennes-sb.com/centre-for-unframed-thinking-cut/

The symposia in this series take place over 2-3 days, with a variety of events and activities for different audiences and forms of impact.

Symposium 3: Rising from the Ashes? Visions and Delusions (of and about the future): Leading, Managing, Acting, and Organising in uncertain and challenging times

Our third symposium in this programme, Visions and Delusions, is future-facing and picks up from the past two symposia, Leading and Misleading and Organising and Disorganising. We question how, in order to recover and move on from the manifold global crisis of our time, management and leadership thought and practices can be renewed and strengthened through the (re)application of established and new ways of thinking, organising, acting and practising which can equip all types of organisational actors in dealing with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, working towards human and non-human flourishing.

Event 2  Thursday 4^th May Paper Presentations

6 CUT Senior Fellows and Visiting Fellows present a research or conceptual paper addressing the Symposium theme: Rising from the Ashes? Visions and Delusions (of and about the future): Leading, Managing, Acting and Organising in uncertain and challenging times, followed by discussion where cross-cutting themes are identified and developed.

9.30-11.30 Session 1

Professor Michael Aßländer: The Visions of Enlightenment and the Delusions of Economic Reality

Professor Kai Hockerts: Schumpeter's Second Act: The Role of Market Disequilibria
in a Macro-level Theory of Social Entrepreneurship

Dr Elke Weik: Science as Delusion

Discussion

12.00- 1.20 Lunch RSB Cafeteria

1.30-3.30 Session 2

Professor Elena Antonacopoulou : Future Making Beyond Utopia - Emplacement – Cultivating and Activating Responsible Leadership and Governance

Professor Lucy Taksa:  From individual to collective: rethinking inclusive leadership for social inclusion

Professor Carole Elliott: Leadership legitimacy and the mobilization of capital(s): Disrupting politics and reproducing heteronormativity

Discussion

Coffee/Tea/Close

To register without charge please use the following link: CUT Seminar Paper presentation - May 4, 2024 - 09h30-11h30 & 13h30-15h30 (office.com)

Paper Presentation ABSTRACTS

Professor Michael Aßländer: The Visions of Enlightenment and the Delusions of Economic Reality

Economic theory being part of the project of enlightenment has transposed the political demands of the enlightenment into a theory where individual liberty, reason, and individualism, understood as autonomy, have been reformulated in the economic terms of free enterprise, economic rationality and methodological individualism. At least to some extent, this over-interpretation of the political demands in economic theory has thwarted the original intention of enlightenment and subjected the idea of political emancipation to

the idea of economic freedom and a doctrine of laisser-faire.

Professor Kai Hockerts: Schumpeter's Second Act: The Role of Market Disequilibria
in a Macro-level Theory of Social Entrepreneurship

This paper advances a theoretical model for how Schumpeterian social entrepreneurship catalyzes systemic change. We shift attention from micro (the hybrid identity of social entrepreneurs) and meso (the management of hybridity in social enterprises) phenomena to macro-level perspective of social entrepreneurship. At this level social entrepreneurship does not just require an understanding of the direct impact created by a social enterprise, but more importantly, by its indirect impact when transforming market and non-market environments. By drawing on Schumpeter's definition of entrepreneurship we conceive of social entrepreneurship as the discovery and exploitation of economic opportunities through the generation of market disequilibria that initiate the transformation of a sector towards an environmentally and socially more sustainable state. We discuss why such transformative impact creation begins with the recognition of market failure due to the presence of antagonistic assets and the identification of opportunities to transform these into complementarities. Three such strategies are discussed and suggestions for future empirical work are proposed.

Dr Elke Weik:  Science as Delusion

Taking a bird's eye view on current academic knowledge creation, I argue that most forms engage in some form of corruption in which universities are paid by either the government or private groups to produce knowledge justifying inaction – the "Don't rock the boat" perspective. I argue that the belief that climate change poses an intellectual (and therefore academic) problem lies at the heart of this corrupt knowledge production. A first step to address this would be the concession that we do not need any new theories – we just need the will to enact some of the old ones. A second step would be what Isabelle Stengers has called "slow science".

Professor Elena Antonacopoulou: Future Making Beyond Utopia - Emplacement – Cultivating and Activating Responsible Leadership and Governance

Grand Societal Challenges affirm that VUCA conditions are the norm which makes all the more critical partnering for impact to co-create desirable futures. Rising to this occassion is a call for leadership (across levels) to realize 'y-our impact'. This calls for regenerative ways of managing and leading which cultivate and activate responsibility in service of the common good. Drawing on ongoing collaborative research I present emerging insights on how to align ways of seeing and ways of being to enable ways of becoming human. I position this analysis as imperative to human flourishing by mobilising modes of managing, leading and acting that embed and axiology founded on emplacement.

Professor Lucy Taksa:  From individual to collective: rethinking inclusive leadership for social inclusion

This paper, based on work with Dr Glen Powell, questions the prevailing tendency in leadership scholarship to focus predominantly on individual leaders  and leader behaviours, as well as the development of their human capital. Beginning with the assumption that leadership can be exercised both individually and collectively (Bandura, 2000), this paper examines inclusive leadership as a collective organisational capacity (Drath et al., 2008) that relies on social capital and leadership capital, which can be accumulated and harnessed collectively by marginalised groups to offset the inequitable distribution of resources through which inequalities are maintained (Ospina and El Hadidy, 2009, 2011). The presentation uses qualitative research conducted with two Australian not-for-profit migrant and refugee settlement organisations in Sydney, to outline how pre-existing commitment, adaptation to a neoliberal context, and alignment of social capital resources can contribute to collective leadership capacity.

Professor Carole Elliott: Leadership legitimacy and the mobilization of capital(s): Disrupting politics and reproducing heteronormativity

In this session I will discuss how the rise of populist leaders in the political sphere mounts a challenge to normative understandings of leadership. Specifically, I will present a recent paper (Stead, Elliott & Gardiner, 2021) that examines how political leaders mobilize different forms of social capital in pursuit of leadership legitimacy, thereby providing insight into the dynamics of how leadership norms are maintained. I will argue that while research has tended to focus on specific forms of capital, further insights can be gained by considering capital as multidimensional and strategically mobilized. The presentation will draw on a multimodal analysis of interactions between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during peak 'Twitter Moments' of the three 2016 presidential election debates to illustrate the paradoxical dynamics of the mobilization of multiple capitals and their intersection as a simultaneously disruptive and reproductive resource.

Speaker Bios

Dr Elena P. Antonacopoulou PhD is Professor of Organisation Behaviour and Strategy at Ivey Business School. Before joining Western University she held full-time Professorial appointments at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Warwick in the UK. Her principal research expertise lies in The Future of Work, Organisational Learning and Strategic Resilience and Renewal, with a focus on the Leadership implications. She is published widely in international journals and edited books (over 100 publications) and policy reports. Her practice-relevant scholarship has earned her many research grands, awards and accolades recognising the impact of the ideas developed. She has been elected and served in multiple leadership roles in the top professional bodies in the management field (AOM, EURAM, EGOS, BAM) and has received several awards for her outstanding leadership and service contributions and teaching excellence. She has successfully secured funding and led interdisciplinary, international multi-stakeholder research teams on high profile research programs funded by Research Funding Councils in the UK, EU and was invited to co-author policy and evaluation reports by professional bodies and Think Tanks designed to improve professional practices. She is frequently invited to deliver keynote speeches in international conferences, and workshops that inspire and promote action choices that serve the common good. She is a certified coach from the International Coaching Federation (and practises as an axiologist – enabling true-self breakthroughs) and she has founded the GNOSIS Institute to promote knowledge philanthropy and to avert 'humane poverty' by designing innovative leadership and organisational development programs including the '2030 – Man-Agement initiative. https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-p-antonacopoulou-a179013/ ORCIT: 0000-0002-0872-7883

Michael Stefan Aßländer is professor for business ethics at the International Institute of the Technical University Dresden located in Zittau (Germany). From 2005-2010 he held the Plansecur Endowed Chair for business ethics at the University of Kassel. He has studied management, philosophy, sociology, psychology, political economy and Russian language in Bamberg (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Bochum (Germany) and Moscow (Russia) and holds a MBA in Business Administration (1988), a Master in Philosophy (1990), a PhD in Philoso-phy (1998) and a PhD in Social Sciences (2005). From 2005-2011 he was board member of the German Business Ethics Network, and was a founding member of the Austrian Business

Ethics Network (2004) where he served as a deputy chairman till 2021. From 2008-2016 he was also member of the executive committee of the European Business Ethics Network.

Carole Elliott, is Professor of Organisation Studies at Sheffield University Management School. Her research interests lie at the intersection of disciplinary fields: management and leadership learning, organization studies and human resource development. Her early research interests developed in response to a curiosity about the development of the self for work, particularly amongst managers and leaders. The interpretive foundation for this body of research is located in critical theory, particularly as it has been applied to the organization and management studies' fields. This early research focus on the individual learning experience provides a backdrop for continuing inquiries into the power dynamics of organizational learning environments, including a focus on women's leadership learning.  Her critical approach to the study of gender and leadership has provided a foundation for several articles in journals such as: Human Relations, Organization Studies; Gender, Work and Organization, and Management Learning, as well as two co-edited collections, and a monograph.

Kai Hockerts is Professor in Social Entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School (CBS).

Kai's primary research focus is on corporate sustainability strategies and social entrepreneurship. Kai holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of St. Gallen (CH). Before joining CBS Kai was Adjunct Professor at INSEAD (F). His research has been published in the Journal of Business Venturing, International Review of Entrepreneurship, Journal of Business Ethics, and Business Strategy and the Environment.

Lucy Taksa is Professor of Management with the Department of Management, Deakin University Business School, Victoria, Australia and Honorary Professor, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong in New South Wales (NSW). Lucy's research and publications are on the past, present and future of work, working people, work organisation, workplace health; management strategies and employment practises; gender, cultural and age diversity; equity, diversity and cross-cultural management; representations of women leaders, inclusive leadership and gendered work cultures; migrant employment and entrepreneurship; and social and industrial history and heritage. She is Editor-in-Chief (with Prof. Amanda Pyman), of the Journal of Industrial Relations, is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Centre on Global Migration at Gothenburg University in Sweden and was an Associate of the Chaire Diversite et Management, Paris-Dauphine University

Dr habil Elke Weik is Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. She is a critical management scholar with a vivid interest in organizational theory, social theory and philosophy. She has worked on theorizing post-1989 transformation processes, the history of the university and the market for knowledge, the problem of 'teflon' academics, and the influence of culture on markets. Her most recent projects revolve around the aesthetic dimension of the social. She has written two monographs and published in many leading journals in the field, such as The Academy of Management Review, Organization, European Management Journal and Management Learning

Kind regards / Bien cordialement,