Special issue on "The novel and organization

Citation

(2007), "Special issue on "The novel and organization", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 20 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm.2007.02320faa.002

Special issue on "The novel and organization"

For a number of years now management and organizational researchers have been using novels in a number of ways, for example: as a teaching aid to communicate the complexity and ambiguity of organizational life, as a means of deconstructing modes of representation in academic writing, or as a research lens through which to analyse social perceptions of work and organization. Each of these approaches has generated a significant body of academic commentary – a "literature" on Literature – which engages directly with the novel.Given this range of engagements the Journal of Organizational Change Management is planning a special issue on the topic of "the novel and organization". The issue will explore both the role of novels in organizing and the organization of the novel. Contributions will be welcomed from a range of theoretical perspectives.

Papers are invited on a range of topics including, but not limited to:

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  How has the novel come to dominate discussions of "literature" both within organization studies and in the humanities more generally?

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  How should we understand both the value of the novel and its limitations? What are the political, ethical, epistemological and even ontological commitments of the novel as a mode of representation? How might an examination of these commitments inform the ways in which we engage with "the novel" as a particular way of organizing and representing experience?

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  How have novels historically represented organization and organizational change? How have these representations intervened in the cultural reproduction of organizational forms?

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  What might the "novelty" of the novel mean today? For example, what can experimental novels, such as the work of Pynchon, Burroughs or DeLillo, tell us about current changes in organizational forms and processes?

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  What, if anything, can novels contribute to more radical forms of organizational and social change? What are the effects of utopian and dystopian novels on organization?

Our hope is that, by exploring both novels about organization and the organization of the novel, the special issue will offer a critical stock-taking of the uses and abuses of the novel within studies of management and organization. To discuss ideas for papers, please contact the issue editors directly. The deadline for submission of full papers (up to 7,000 words, including references and notes) is 1 February 2008 for publication in 2008. Submitted papers should conform with the journal's house style, details of which can be found at: www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/jocm/notes.jsp

Chris Land and Martyna Sliwacland@essex.ac.uk; masliwa@essex.ac.uk