From the ‘Connections in Action’ workshop held by the IKON Research Unit at the University of Warwick, 5-6 December 2016

What a treat! Joining us for this Special Episode from the fascinating ‘Connections in Action’ workshop at the University of Warwick are Katharina Dittrich and Brian Pentland (aka Doctor Decade)! To our great delight, Doctor Decade provided the live intro music for this episode and even performed one of his songs (Ruts in the Road)! 

This episode has been recorded in two parts – Part 1 before the event, where Dmitrijs, Pedro, Katharina and Brian discussed what may be the issues of interest with regards to drawing connections between the macro and the micro, and Part 2, recorded after the workshop, where they reflected on all the new things that they have learned.

One of the challenges that process, practice and organizational routine studies share with other micro-sociological approaches is how to deal with some of the ‘big issues’ or ‘grand challenges’ of our times. Examples of such issues include the nature and functioning of financial markets, the rise and fall of large institutional arrangements, the global travel of idea and ideologies, inequality, the bureaucracy and its failures, climate change and the future of the planet.

The aim of the workshop was to bring together scholars who explore how we can account for and keep track of large phenomena utilising existing and new ‘micro-sociological’ and relational approaches in organization studies. The purpose of this was to (1) advance theorizing about large social phenomena, (2) re-imagine our methods of inquiry in a way that they are more productive in dealing with the complexity of contemporary organizing, (3) exchange about the challenges in doing this kind of research and (4) develop exemplary studies that pave the way for a new stream of research. The workshop was be speculative in character with the intent to learn from each other and generate new ideas through dialogue and listening. So, needless to say, this was amazing and you should definitely keep an eye out for the second iteration of the event which will take place in Zurich, Switzerland.

Also, as a bonus, here is one of the methodological postcards recorded by the editorial team of the podcast exclusively for this event. This one is provided by Dr. Christian Bueger. Enjoy!  

You may also download the audio files here: Part 1 | Part 2

Related posts from the Talking About Organizations Podcast:

Ella Hafermalz: “Reflections on the ‘Process and Practice Perspectives on Organisation Studies’ Workshop at the University of Queensland Business School“

Related episodes from Tom’s podcast Reflections on Management:

Episode 3-4. On Asking the BIG Questions