Phenomenology, Information Technology and Management: an international workshop

The London School of Economics, London, UK, 10-11 May 2002

Video of Dermot Moran's keynote address to the seminar

Call for papers and participation

As many researchers struggle to give an account of everyday phenomena in organisations, which resonates with lived experience, there is increasingly a turn to phenomenology as a way to get back to the actuality of the 'everyday life of organisations themselves'.

Most reflective researchers have realised that just more and more empirical studies are giving us 'rich' qualitative accounts but seems to leave us 'stranded' in our data. On the other hand elaborate theories seem to be 'dry, austere and idealistic' and seem to lack the complexity, vibrancy and 'life' we encounter in the flow of everyday organisational life. We seem to be trapped between what managers and employees tell us, and what our theories inform us we should find; and never the two shall meet. The world 'as such', the world in the flow of everyday experience, always seems somehow different.

It is exactly in this seemingly impossible juncture where phenomenology steps in. As Merleau-Ponty claims in his famous 'preface' in Phenomenology of Perception: 'phenomenology is a study of essences… But phenomenology is also a philosophy which puts essences back into existence, and does not except to arrive at an understanding of man and the world from any starting point other than of their "facticity".' It is this understanding 'from facticity itself' that motivates and steers phenomenology. It is in and through our 'in the worldness' that we must seek to describe the phenomena of organisation, planning, decision-making, innovation, and so forth.

It is with this challenge in mind that the workshop sees its task. The workshop will aim to develop and explore phenomenological analysis and accounts of organisational phenomena such as (but not limited to):

information technology use;
decision-making, judgement and intuition;
innovation and innovating;
collaboration and cooperation;
strategy and strategic thought;
learning and improvisation;
organisational language and languaging;
organisation and organising; and
connecting and being connected.

The workshop will be limited to 20-25 participants. We intend it to be an informal and interactive workshop for immersion and learning. We welcome contributions from those who have a substantive interest in phenomenology or who are keen to develop such an interest. The overall aim of the workshop is to develop and foster the community of phenomenological researchers in the fields of information systems and management and organisational studies (broadly defined).

If you are interested to participate send an extended abstract or paper to the workshop chair, Lucas Introna, l.introna@lancaster.ac.uk, Lancaster University.

Closing date: ASAP but not later than 9 April 2002.

Notification of acceptance: 15 April 2002.

Programme committee

Lucas Introna, Lancaster, UK
Bogdan Costea, Lancaster, UK
Claudio Ciborra, LSE, UK
Fernando Ilharco, Catholic University, Portugal