Call for Papers
The broad range of themes addressed in past workshops include issues of power and domination in project settings, ethics and moral responsibility within projects, tensions between standardisation and creativity in project organisations, the limits to projectification and the dysfunctions of project rationality. Contributions on any of these themes or related critical topics drawing on pragmatic conceptualisations, empirical ethnography, narratology or concrete case studies, would be welcome.
A key concern of this workshop is to employ critical perspectives to analyse and evaluate the practice of project management and decision making as evidenced in the approval, governance and control of project work and project workers. We particularly welcome critical contributions which seek to bridge the gap between abstract theorising and the practice of project management. Such critique will be germane to those, such as project managers, who work closely and struggle with the demands of project-based organisation and who are trying to find more acceptable and participative/democratic ways of coping with their roles. We would like to encourage papers which address the widening range of sectors in which organisations and organising are increasingly structured around the project form by focusing on issues of context, values and power. This might encompass the following fields:
- New Product Development and Innovation projects
- Urban Regeneration, Community Development and International Development projects
- Consultancy and Consulting projects
- Organisational Change projects - Projects in voluntary organisations
- New Media and IT related projects
- Art and Exhibition projects
- Environmental / Sustainability projects
- Event Management projects
- Research projects in both industry and academia
Contributions which adopt critical perspectives on the themes of temporality, complexity, phronesis, entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial processes, sustainability, the knowledge economy, leadership, professionalisation, pedagogy and education as related to the field of project management studies will also be of interest to conference participants.
The deadline for extended abstracts is 25th September 2009.
Organising committee:
Svetlana Cicmil and Peter Case
Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol
Damian Hodgson
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester
Monica Lindgren and Johann Packendorff
School of Industrial Engineering & Management, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
 
Details can be found at the workshop website;
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/bbs/research/mpc/mpc5/mpc5.shtml