Slawomir Magala, generalist with a cause

Citation

Flory, M. and Essers, J. (2016), "Slawomir Magala, generalist with a cause", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2015-0217

Slawomir Magala, generalist with a cause

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Organizational Change Management, Volume 29, Issue 1.

Over the last couple of months it has been our great pleasure and privilege to have been working on this special issue for the 13-year period that Slawek Magala has been the Editor-in-Chief of JOCM and to honor at this moment of his retirement his untiring work for this journal and his promotion of original scientific research in change management and related topics in organizations and society. We are grateful that we can commemorate his valuable contribution to JOCM as well as the lasting legacy he has left to the study of change in the turbulent times his tenure has witnessed.

If anything characterizes Slawek’s legacy to the scientific community and the world beyond it, which has defined his higher cause as a generalist, it would undoubtedly be his passionate defense of and devotion to academic freedom to explore in all available directions the wide-ranging and complex manifestations of change in this era of globalization. For Slawek it is categorically unthinkable, an unforgiveable expression of intellectual hybris, that anyone in the Republic of Science could rightfully presume to have some privileged methodological or paradigmatic access to the “Truth,” that science could aspire or lay claim to anything more than modest conjecture and careful deliberation in trying to understand the multiple forms of global change people experience and try to make sense of. To the extent that the social world is a pluralistic amalgam of sometimes incompatible interpretations of these developments, how could social science be anything but a reflection of such pluralism in its own investigations, however much people may feel a desire for certainty in such muddled circumstances? Having experienced the strictures of political and ideological dogmatism while growing up, the “management of meaning” that became the signature phrase of his contribution to cross-cultural studies for Slawek could never entail any form of hierarchically imposed uniformity, but only a plea for democratic tolerance and playful learning through the intellectual expansion of the mind.

Both of us, as his PhD students and colleagues in the department of organization and personnel management at RSM, are grateful for the freedom he afforded us to explore, expand and deepen our own avenues of research. We are both convinced that his intellectual openness in supervising our PhD’s and in acting as the head of our department enabled us to develop our ideas more thoroughly both in breadth and depth, and to become more balanced scholars and teachers in the process. Never did we enter his room to discuss the progress of our research without leaving with a whole load of new references to literature we could use to throw an alternative light on our enquiries. His proverbial command of the widest possible array of scientific advances, of cultural and artistic knowledge and of political developments around the world, were sometimes mindboggling and a bit intimidating, giving the impression that he embodied a bookcase that was even more overloaded than the actual one in his office. He read everything and could refer to it all at will, whether it was in the field of philosophy, sociology, political economy, cross-cultural management, literature, cinema, the arts or rhetoric and narrative research.

Slawek’s unrelenting adherence to academic freedom from time to time must have challenged the publishers of JOCM as well. Over the last two decades the world of academic publishing has changed dramatically, with the need for journals to adopt a distinctive academic profile becoming strategically ever more decisive. Often verging on a form of neo-scholasticism, most journals in management and business research nowadays implement rather rigid and restrictive editorial policies to maximize their impact scores. Whatever one may think of the scientometric merits of these policies, whether they really serve the advancement of knowledge is something Slawek as editor to JOCM has always consistently and rightfully questioned. In a real sense, this has defined the distinctive “profile” of JOCM as a genuinely open and innovative journal in the field of management studies. The editorials Slawek wrote over the years testify to this, ever challenging the received view on a topic with his characteristic wit and charm. And so he would never refuse a paper that took an opposing view to his own convictions on some area of business and management research, as he is convinced that the real qualities of such research can only be judged by the reactions it triggers in the scientific community at large and against the background of the full range of alternative perspectives available. As one of the founding figures of critical management studies, his dedication to the critical and democratic discussion of ideas, undoubtedly inspired by the formative period he spent as a Von Humboldt fellow in Frankfurt, has established JOCM as one of the most prominent platforms for cross-cultural diversity and paradigmatic openness in the academic world today. For that, his contribution to the perpetuation of global democracy has been invaluable.

Not only in theory but also in practice Slawek devoted his career to the understanding of culture in all of its multifaceted manifestations. He untiringly traveled the globe in search of new experiences and perspectives to extend his knowledge of the customs, habits and expressions of the modes of being people enact in their social existence. And so, wherever you want to travel yourself, you can always rely on Slawek as a veritable connoisseur of the good life to give you directions on where to go for an exceptional exhibition, museum, cultural site of importance or just a good place to eat, whether it be in Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Baltimore or Barcelona. His network of connections around the world is astounding, making you wonder, how he ever found the time to get to know so many people of interest next to his daily work in the university. For the unequaled amount of energy he has invested in the development of cross-cultural understanding we thank him in this issue. On behalf of all the contributors to this issue we sincerely hope, and we are pretty confident, that Slawek’s official retirement will not put an end to his continuing commitment to the advancement of worldwide cross-cultural understanding.

Slawek’s comprehensive interests in organization and cultural studies are quite notably reflected in the diversity of contributions of the authors to this special issue as well. Every one of them is connected in some way to the breadth of his extensive expertise and voracious curiosity. And all are especially appreciative of his devotion to academic freedom and global democracy, to the playful exploration of ideas we mentioned before as one of his most characteristic and contagious qualities. To underscore this inclusive feature of his intellectual endeavors we have therefore chosen to include the CV’s of the authors at the beginning of each paper instead of at the end of this edition so the reader can see where they all come from.

To fully appreciate the collection of essays gathered in this special issue we recommend that you start with the overviews of Slawek’s career at the beginning of this edition, specifically the legacy recounted by David Boje and David Perez. Of some historical interest as well is the piece by Frits van Engeldorp Gastelaars about the role played by the Frankfurt School conference in 1988 in Rotterdam for the emergence of Critical Management Studies, while the very personal reflection of Arjo Klamer on the friendship that grew out of his intense teaching collaboration with Slawek in Holland reflects the kind of memorable experience we all share as Slawek’s friends.

After these papers the rest of the issue is roughly organized around three sub-themes. The first of these one could say revolves around the evolution of the culture of academia, starting with a critical discussion by Mats Alvesson and André Spicer of the effects of power on the bureaucratization of academic work and the slow surrender of intellectual autonomy. Eduard Bonet and Nuria Nadal-Burgues then delve into the rhetorical deep-structure of creativity in scientific projects, after which Gerhard Fink and Daniel Dauber discuss Slawek’s legacy in the field of organizational change.

The second sub-theme is devoted to Slawek’s lasting involvement with cross-cultural management. Brendan McSweeney opens the debate with an insightful criticism of etic approaches to the study of cross-cultural management, epitomized in the work of the “Trio”: Hofstede, Trompenaars and the GLOBE project. It is followed by a promising alternative developed by Giorgio Touburg, the youngest of Slawek’s PhD students, on the concept of national habitus, which relies more on emic views of culture research.

Third, and finally, the last three entries discuss the opportunities afforded by digital media to improve inter-cultural learning both in real life and in the classroom. Betina Szkudlarek and Laurence Romani investigate how the notion of dispersed institutional entrepreneurship through digital media can change views on professionalization along more organic lines. Dariusz Jemielniak analyzes how Slawek’s work on the management of meaning can serve as a backbone to the study and evolution of digital societies. To close off, Charles Wankel looks toward the future and inquires how inter-cultural training and education can be aided by the use of social media to foster cross-cultural knowhow.

Slawek, a last remark to you personally. We hope you will enjoy with the rest of JOCM’s readership the contributions brought together in this volume from your friends and colleagues. We offer you these reflections in thankfulness for your inspiration and loyalty to the cause of academic freedom, which we will be proud to continue. Meanwhile, this is not goodbye! We hope to see a lot of you still in the years to come and to continue to enjoy the pleasure of having you as our regular and cherished sparring partner.

Contributors of the special issue

Juup Essers studied philosophy and business administration before he joined Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in 1986. He wrote his PhD on the incommensurability debate in organization studies (2007) and published various papers on issues ranging from knowledge management to ideology in business studies and change management. He teaches on a wide range of subjects, including research methodology, the philosophy of organizational change, cross-cultural management and rhetoric. His current research interests mainly focus on a critical appraisal of the semiotics and rhetoric of leadership discourse.

Dr Marja Flory is a Lecturer and Researcher in Organizational Change at Organizational Change at RSM, the Erasmus University. She gives lectures in organization theory, storytelling, advisory skills and management of change. She also has been a freelance trainer and consultant since 1986, She has provided consultancy services to various national and international organizations on teambuilding, organizational culture and change and has led courses on influencing and leadership skills. Her current research interests include diversity, storytelling and reflexive methodology.

Professor David Boje a Full Professor in the Management Department and Tenure, at New Mexico State University. He has 9,156 citations of his 135 articles and 21 books in the field of storytelling research. He is former Bank of America Endowed Professorship of Management (awarded September 2006-2010), and past Arthur Owens Professorship in Business Administration (June 2003-June 2006). Distinguished University Professor (2011) and Bill Daniels Ethics Fellow in Management Department at New Mexico State University (2009-2012). He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Aalborg University, Denmark in 2011 for his contributions to quantum storytelling. He is Founder and President of Standing Conference for Management and Organizational Inquiry, Founder and Past Editor of Tamar Journal and Chair of the NMSU Sustainability Council.

David R. Perez is currently working on his MBA at NMSU, intending to specialize in sustainability, which he hopes to complete in the fall of 2016. He is currently preparing to take the Graduate Management Admission Test in hopes of applying for the PhD program and pursuing his goal of higher education in organizational behavior. While obtaining his undergrad in business administration, he was recognized for academic achievement and remained on New Mexico State University’s Dean List for two years from 2013-2014, until graduating.

Dr Frits van Engeldorp Gastelaars (1946) read sociology and international relations at Leyden University before joining Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in 1971, where he stayed until his retirement in 2011. Most of his career he lectured in the methodology of the social sciences and management research, on which he published a range of books and papers (in Dutch). He also held positions as lecturer at Steinbeiss University, Berlin (Germany), at the Royal Military Academy in the Netherlands, at the Bochum-Ruhr University (Germany), at The Hague School of Hospitality Management and for shorter periods in Bremen, Mainz, Antwerp and Brussels. Next to this he acted as Consultant to Median Consultancy, to the Goethe Institute in Rotterdam and to the Humanitas foundation for the care of the elderly. He also co-founded a part-time doctorate program in management at RSM, Erasmus University.

Professor Arjo Klamer occupies the Chair in Cultural Economics at the Erasmus University. He is also Professor of Social Innovation at the Fontys University and Alderman for the city of Hilversum. He is furthermore President of the Association of Cultural Economics International. His publications include the Value of Culture (1994), Speaking of Economics (2005) and Doing the Right Thing: A Value Based Approach to the Economy (forthcoming). Before he came to the Erasmus University he taught at various American Universities. He has collaborated with Slawek in various ways and currently teaches with him an Honors course on Identity.

Mats Alvesson is Professor of Business Administration at Lund University, Sweden and at University of Queensland Business School, Australia and at Cass Business School, City University London, UK. His research interests include critical theory, gender, leadership, identity, organizational image, organizational culture and symbolism, qualitative methods and philosophy of science. He has published extensively on organizational culture, leadership, identity, gender, reflexive methodology and critical theory. His books include Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research (with Jorgen Sandberg, Sage, 2013) and The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization (Oxford University Press, 2013).

André Spicer is Professor of Organizational Behavior at Cass Business School, City University London, UK. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research focusses on political dynamics in and around organizations. He is currently investigating stupidity in organizations.

Professor Eduard Bonet is Professor at the Strategy and General Management Department ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain. He has obtained the PhD in Mathematics at the University of Barcelona in 1974. He has been a Former Lecturer at the University of Barcelona, Former Professor at the Polithechnical University of Catalonia and Lecturer and Professor at ESADE since 1962, and Professor of epistemology, philosophy of qualitative methods and rhetoric in both the PhD and MRes programs, Organizer of the PhD program on Management Sciences and Director of the program in 1990 and 2005. A Founding Member and Former President of the European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management and Public Administration. Chairman of the Conferences on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research together with Professors Barbara Czarniawska, Hans Siggaard Jensen and Deirdre McCloskey.

Nuria Nadal-Burgues PhD has pursued business management in her academic and professional life. On the academic side, she holds BS and MS in Business Administration from Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, respectively. In 2010 she received her Master of Research in Management Sciences from ESADE Business School, and in 2015 she has obtained the PhD. On the professional side, she has been working as a Marketing and Accounts Manager and as a Research Project Manager for over 12 years.

Gerhard Fink is retired Jean Monnet Professor. During 2002-2009, he was the Director of the Doctoral Programs at Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria. In earlier research work, he had focussed on economics of communist countries in Europe, later on international business and international finance in Europe. His current research interests are in cybernetic agency theory, normative personality, organizational culture and cultural change in Europe. He has about 275 publications in learned journals or book chapters and authored or (co-)edited about 25 books and special issues.

Dr Daniel Dauber is Assistant Professor at Warwick Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick. His major research interests and teaching responsibilities include international business, cross-cultural management and organizational behavior. Dr Dauber’s current research focusses on internationalization of higher education institutions, group/team work and organizational culture change and dynamics. He is also Co-founder of the “Organizational Coherence and Trajectory” Project, which focusses on developing a generic model of organizational culture for organizational diagnostics. Since 2010, he is Executive Editor of the European Journal of Cross-Cultural Management.

Brendan McSweeney (PhD LSE) is Professor of Management at Royal Holloway, University of London and Visiting Professor at Stockholm University. His research has been published in a wide range of scholarly journals. Prior to becoming an academic he worked in a number of occupations including as a banker and later as a trade union official. He maintains an involvement with practice. His current engagements include membership of the advisory board to the Europe, Middle East and Africa division of a large globally located company.

Giorgio Touburg is a fourth-year PhD Student at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. His main topics of interest are knowledge migration, cross-cultural management and critical management studies. Giorgio’s PhD research is supervised by Professor Magala and deals with the internationalization of context-bound knowledge work and the challenges this poses for employees and managers. His work has been published in various peer-reviewed journals.

Betina Szkudlarek, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Management at the University of Sydney Business School (Australia). Betina’s core research interests lie at the intersection of cross-cultural management, international HRM, international business ethics and management of diversity. Her work has been published in top-tier international journals including Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics and Academy of Management Learning and Education. Betina has wide experience in training, coaching and mentoring in various areas linked to global leadership development, cross-cultural competence and management of diversity. She has worked with corporate and government clients including, among others, Shell, T-Mobile, Daimler, MAN, Kaspersky and Q8.

Laurence Romani, PhD, Associate Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden). Laurence’s work focusses on issues of representation and interaction with the cultural other in respectful and enriching ways. She aims to understand how cultural diversity is practised in organizations, and what it means to ethically and respectfully relate to this diversity. Her current research gives special attention to leadership and its link to diversity and inclusion. Laurence endeavors to present alternative theories and approaches to cross-cultural management than the mainstream ones. She considers contributions from critical management, feminist and postcolonial organization studies to further cross-cultural management research and teaching. Her works appear in Organizational Research Method, Journal of Business Ethics and International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, among others.

Dariusz Jemielniak, PhD is Full Professor of Management at Kozminski University, Founder of NeRDS (New Research on Digital Societies) group and Fellow at Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. He has been a Visiting Scholar also at Cornell University, MIT, University of California Berkeley, and he has been a recipient of numerous awards and scholarships for academic merit. He recently published Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia (2014, Stanford University Press). He recently stepped down from his position as Editor-in-Chief of Tamara Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry.

Charles Wankel, Professor of Management at St John’s University, New York, holds a Doctorate from New York University. He has authored scores of books including best-selling textbooks, scholarly treatises and edited volumes on sustainability, cutting-edge technologies and their use and implications for education and managing, poverty alleviation and social entrepreneurship. His Encyclopedia of Business in Today’s World received the American Library Association’s Outstanding Business Reference Source Award. He has been a Visiting Professor in Lithuania at the Kaunas University of Technology (Fulbright Fellowship) and the University of Vilnius (United Nations Development Program and Soros Open Society Foundation funding).

Dr Marja Flory -Department of Organisation and Personnel Management, Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Dr Juup Essers - Department of Organisation and Personnel Management, Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands