Calls for Submissions
Open Calls
Thematic Issue (Winter 2024)
Discursive leadership
Discursive leadership explores discourse in organizational interactions. On ontological and epistemological grounds, it departs from leadership psychology in the sense that it rejects essentialization “whether it be found in the individual leader, the situation, or some combination thereof” (Grint, 2000) and focuses on the relational, contextual and negotiating character of human communication.
There exists a large body of research that emphasizes the relational nature of leadership (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Rost, 1991). However, this dynamic has been traditionally explored from the perspective of a leader in a specific context, focusing on leader characteristics or leader behavioral styles (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Fleishman et al., 1991). Despite acknowledging the relational nature of leadership, research has usually treated and evaluated the two actors – the leader and the follower - as separate entities (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). In recent years however, this approach has been questioned and it has become widely accepted that leadership needs to be conceived of as a “relational process co-created by leaders and followers in context” (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012, p. 1044) which evolves and changes over time (Uhl-Bien & Ospina, 2012). Such a social constructionist view of leadership creates space for the integration of different theories and perspectives. For example, in her forthcoming book, Lehman proposes that the process of scholarly text creation can be viewed as an act of leadership. She argues that for successful communication to occur, we, as scholarly writers, should consider the needs and expectations of our evoked reader—our ‘follower’—and involve them in a dialogue to jointly construct meaning within a specific socio-cultural and disciplinary context.
We call for submissions that seek to propose different conceptualizations of leadership and throw light on relational and contextual aspects involved in its construction and enactment. Such problematization of leadership offers many paths of research into a wide range of leadership issues from multidisciplinary perspectives which include (but are not limited to) the following considerations:
- leadership as a relational practice
- leadership as a cultural practice
- leadership as an act of negotiation
- leader-follower/writer-reader analogy
We call on prospective contributors to provide conceptual, critical and qualitative papers on this theme with a specific focus placed on relative empirical research.
The deadline for submissions is 16 September 2024. The publication of this thematic issue is planned for winter 2024.
References
Bass, B.M., & Avolio, B.J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through
transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Fairhurst, G. T., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2012). Organizational discourse analysis (ODA):
Examining leadership as a relational process. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(6), 1043–1062.
Fleishman, E.A., Mumford, M.D., Zaccaro, S.J. Levin, K.Y.Korotkin, A.L., & Hein, M.B.
(1991). Taxonomic efforts in the description of leader behaviour: A synthesis and functional interpretation. Leadership Quartely, 2 (4), 245-287.
Graen, G. B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership:
Development of a leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years–Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 6, 219–247.
Grint, K. (2000). The Arts of Leadership. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Lehman, I.M. Leader Charisma in Scholarly Writing on Management and Organizations.
Routledge Studies in Leadership Research (forthcoming)
Rost, J. C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century. New York: Praeger.
Uhl-Bien, M., & Ospina, S. (Eds.). (2012). Advancing relational leadership research: A
dialogue among perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Thematic Issue (Spring 2024)
Spirituality in scholarship
Doing and reporting research in global academia, located in the Anglophone ‘centre’, often excludes considerations of the role of spirituality in scholarship. Based on the epistemological perspective of positivism, the dominant approach attributed to modern science holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive, i.e. related to facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience (Larrain, 1979). What follows from this is that other ways of knowing, including metaphysics, intuition and introspection are rejected as being inappropriate for such an endeavour. Consequently, in our scholarly work, we are expected to internalize the conventions which favor highly formulaic work (Alvesson & Gabriel, 2013) and “learn and perfect the routines that lead to publication” (Rasheed & Priem, 2020, p. 160).
However, social theories, including social constructionism (Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1995; Halliday 1978, 1994; Halliday & Hasan, 1989), contest this detached, objective and value-free approach to reporting research (Canagarajah, 2018). Following this perspective, the editors of this volume contend that spirituality, similarly to other elements of culture, shapes one’s unique identity which gives us “a location in the world and reflects the link between us and the society in which we live” (Liu et al., 2011) and helps develop valuable traits, such as tolerance, openness and self-reflection.
Allowing spirituality-related issues to become a part of the knowledge-making process requires a more profound engagement with difference. This entails looking at the concept of spirituality from multiple perspectives including, not only considering its influence on scholarship but also the ways our scholarly experiences inform and affect our spirituality. As Canagarajah persuades,
"Spirituality doesn’t have to be a one-way application of religious beliefs in our professional life […] The challenges we encounter in teaching and scholarship can provide new insights into spirituality. They can help us interrogate how our spirituality can become more relevant to the challenges in our everyday life. They can enrich and complexify our understanding of spirituality”
(Canagarajah, 2018, p. xviii-xix)
Writing about science does not exist in a vacuum, but is performed by actual people who “compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, on the one hand, and the requirements of convention, the history of a discipline, on the other" (Ivanič, 1998, p. 86).
We call for submissions that seek to understand the role of spirituality in scholarship from a variety of perspectives which include (but are not limited to) the following considerations:
- scholarly enquiry as a spiritual practice
- scholarly enquiry as an identity quest
- scholarly enquiry as a search for meaning in life events
- scholarly enquiry as an understanding of the interconnectiveness of all aspects of the universe.
We call on prospective contributors to provide conceptual, critical and qualitative papers on this theme with a specific focus placed on relative empirical research.
The deadline for submissions is 08 April 2024. The publication of this thematic issue is planned for spring 2024.
References
Alvesson, M. & Gabriel, Y. (2013). Beyond formulaic research: In praise of greater diversity
in organizational research and publications. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(2), pp. 245-263.
Canagarajah, S. (2018). Foreword: Complexifying our Understanding of Spirituality. In M. Shepard Wong & A Mahboob, Spirituality and English Language Teaching, pp. ix-xiii. Bristol: Multilingual Matter.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis. Longman: London.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edition). London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K. & R. Hasan. (1989). Language, Context and Text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Larrain, J.(1979). The Concept of Ideology. London: Hutchinson.
Lebeck, C. (2005). Liberal pluralism — between autonomy, diversity and management. ARSP: Archiv Für Rechts- Und Sozialphilosophie / Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, 91(1), pp. 121–133.
Liu, S., Volcic, Z., & Gallois, C. (2011). Introducing Intercultural Communication, London: SAGE.
Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and Identity. The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Rasheed, A. A., & Priem, R. L. 2020. Exchanges: “An A Is an A”: We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Us! Academy of Management Perspectives, 34, pp. 155–163.
Closed Calls
Thematic Issue (Winter 2023)
Reflexivity in scholarship
‘Reflexivity’ is a term used widely in social science contexts with various applications. Organizational studies into speaker – audience interaction point to the interconnected relationship between rhetoric and reflexivity (Silliance & Suddaby, 2008). These studies emphasize the need for the reflexive scholar to accept the ambiguous and contested character of communication (Hartelius & Browning, 2008). In doing so, they must be flexible in their way of communicating to accommodate their audience’s needs (Whittle et al., 2008). Boje and Rosile (1994) place the responsibility for creating a writer identity with personality traits, particular experiences and interests on the researcher. Lacy and Chen (2022), in their argument for the adoption of a (co)-mentoring approach to the teaching of marginalized students, see reflexivity as a fundamental tool with which students can find their own voices.
Approaching the concept somewhat differently, Alvesson et. al. (2008) propose four relatively independent sets of reflexive practices, or ‘reflexivities’, which commonly appear in organization and management research: (i) multi-perspective, (ii) multi-voicing, (iii) positioning and (iv) destabilizing practices. We see this taxomomy as a useful framework from which to further discuss and define the concept of reflexivity and its possible applications.
We call for submissions that offer a variety of perspectives which investigate reflexive scholarship and call on prospective contributors to provide conceptual, critical and qualitative papers on this theme. The specific focus placed on relative empirical research.
The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2023. The publication of this thematic issue is planned for winter 2023.
References
Alvesson, M., Hardy, C. & Harley, B. (2008). Reflecting on Reflexivity: Reflexive Textual
Practices in Organization and Management Theory. Journal of Management Studies, 45(3), pp. 480-501.
Boje, D. and Rosile, G. (1994). ‘Diversities, differences and authors’ voices’. Journal of
Organisational Change Management, 7, 8–17.
Hartelius, E. J., & Browning, L. D. (2008). The application of rhetorical theory in managerial
research: A literature review. Management Communication Quarterly, 22(1), 13-39.
Lacy, N. B. & Chen, Y-W. (2022). “It takes a village”: proposing critically reflexive
(co-)mentoring with underrepresented students as racialized, gendered, and othered, Communication Education, 71, 370-373.
Sillince, J. A., & Suddaby, R. (2008). Organizational rhetoric: Bridging management and
communication scholarship. Management Communication Quarterly, 22(1), 5–12.
Whittle, A., Mueller, F., & Mangan, A. (2008). “In search of subtlety”: Discursive devices
and rhetorical competences. Management Communication Quarterly, 22(1), 99-122.
Thematic Issue (Spring 2023)
Dimensions of intermediality: Forms of art which co-construct the narrative and the world presented in literary and scholarly texts
This call is to invite scholars to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the thematic issue of Discourses on Culture entitled: “Dimensions of intermediality: Forms of art which co-construct the narrative and the world presented in literary and scholarly texts”. The volume aims to bring together a variety of cross-disciplinary perspectives to the issue of how different forms of art influence a storytelling paradigm in both literary and scholarly texts.
The synergy of various modes of media is captured in the concept of ‘intermediality’. For the purposes of this volume, we adhere to a broad meaning of ‘intermediality’ which links this notion to “all types of relations among different media” (Chrzanowska-Kluczewska, 2019, p. 288). We believe that the exploration of the interplay between various art forms and texts, whether literary or academic, is timely and worthwhile and can provide important insights into understanding communication in general.
We call for submissions that offer new perspectives, consolidate and/or extend on-going debates on the ways different modes of art co-construct the narrative and the world presented in literary and scholarly texts. Prospective authors are encouraged to provide conceptual and qualitative papers (e.g., narratives, content analysis, multiple cases, experiments), conceptualizing ‘intermediality’ as a multi-dimensional process which impacts artistic, scholarly and everyday communication.
The deadline for submissions is 10 April 2023. For further information and article submissions, please contact discourses@san.edu.pl. For the Author Guidelines, please see: http://dyskursy.san.edu.pl/index.php?id=8
References
Chrzanowska-Kluczewska, E. (2019). Visual narrativity and the creation of a text world – A semiotic study of selected cases of transmediality. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 136 (2019), pp. 287–296.
Thematic Issue (Winter 2022)
Writing differently about scholarly issues: Defending our voices and inviting the reader
This call is to invite you to contribute your thoughts and ideas to our thematic issue of Discourses on Culture entitled: “Writing differently about scholarly issues: Defending our voices and inviting the reader.” The volume aims to bring together scholars from across academic disciplines and encourage contributions which are interesting, engaging and reflective.
The increasing criticism - levelled at the quality of much writing in scientific journals – has provoked us to call for contributions which write differently on scholarly issues. In many academic contexts, and in particular in writing on business and management, the necessity of the effective use of rhetorical strategies in text production has not been fully appreciated and hence, not employed by leading authors in the field who publish their research in top-tier disciplinary journals. The main criticisms of their texts include: 1) the lack of engagement with a wider readership’s needs and interests, with the dominance of texts which are inward looking and reflective (Hambrick 2007); 2) the use of language which is often over-technical, complex, obscurantist and lifeless and with a writing style which is formulaic, jargon-ridden, authoritative, thereby limiting any impact on a wider readership (Grey and Sinclair 2006; Bridgman and Stephens 2008), and 3) the constant revisiting of well-worn theories and concepts, and focusing on developing these through repetition rather than innovative approaches (Suddaby et al. 2011; Shepherd and Sutcliffe 2011; Tourish 2020).
The entrenched bottom line norms for producing and evaluating research, including the established rhetorical models academic writers are expected to follow, are central issues to be addressed in the discussion on how to defend our voices in our texts. Since our careers and tenure are linked to our ability to publish in top-tier journals in our disciplines, these issues are fundamental aspects of our professional lives. The constant negative feedback we academics receive from the indispensable ‘A’ level journals dooms us to live in a perpetual state of anxiety. Another stress-laden aspect related to the process of publishing our research on a global level is the time-consuming and demotivating experience of having to revise and resubmit a paper to the same or an alternative journal with no guarantee of success. Commenting on the factors surrounding writing for international publication today, Brewer et al. point out, “many researchers and prospective authors approach writing with antipathy and fear” (2004, p. 16) and as a result, “publishing impotency plagues many academics around the globe” (Habibie, 2019, p. 36).
The editors of Discourses on Culture believe that radical change in how authors present themselves when writing on scholarly issues can and should be done. The cornerstone of this belief is that we need to defend the presence of our own voices in our texts and understand that effective writing is a dialogue between the reader and the writer (Helin 2016, Meier and Wegener 2017). Following the work of Grafström and Jonsson (2020) and other CMS scholars, we call for “defending and nurturing our own voices in academic texts” (Grafström and Jonsson 2020, p. 119) and resisting repeating the impersonal and sterile ways in which academic texts tend to be written, leav[ing] little room for artistic expression, creativity or (…) passion or feelings” (2020, p. 121).
In crafting your text for this thematic issue, you are encouraged to produce a narrative in which your unique voice emerges in the story you create, so that the reader is left with the sense of having read an engaging, satisfying and persuasive piece of writing.
The contributions to this issue can include, but are not limited to, the following forms of submissions:
- empirical articles
- theoretical articles
- book reviews
- essays (provocative commentaries on current issues and trends in doing and reporting research);
It is our sincere hope that the submissions to this thematic issue will contribute to the development of new and inclusive ways of writing about global scholarship.
The deadline for submissions is 31 September 2022. The publication of this thematic issue is planned for winter 2022. There are no submission or publication fees.
Discourses on Culture is a fully open-access journal indexed in ERIH PLUS, Sherpa Romeo and the Directory of Open Access Journals. It is also currently under evaluation with Scopus. There are no submission or publication fees.
For further information and article submissions, please contact discourses@san.edu.pl. For the Author Guidelines, please see: http://dyskursy.san.edu.pl/index.php?id=8
We look forward to receiving your submission!
On behalf of the editorial board,
Iga Maria Lehman
Editor-in-Chief
References
Brewer, E. W., Marmon, D., & McMahan-Landers, J. (2004). Basic advice for manuscript
preparation for junior faculty members and graduate students. College Student Journal, 38(1), 16–23.
Bridgman, T., & Stephens. M. (2008). Institutionalizing critique: A problem of Critical
Management Studies. Ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 8(3), 258-270.
Grafström, M. & Jonsson. (2020). When fiction meets theory: Writing with voice, resonance
and an open end. In A. Pullen, J. Helin, N. Harding (Eds.), Writing Differently, 113-129. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Grey, C., & Sinclair. A. (2006). Writing differently. Organization, 13(3), 443-453.
Guardiano, C., Favilla, M., & Calaresu, E. (2007). Stereotypes about English as the language of science. AILA Review, 20, 28–52.
Habibie, P. (2019). To be native or not to be native: That is not the question. In P. Habibie &
K. Hyland (Eds.), Novice Writers and Scholarly Publication: Authors, Mentors, Gatekeepers,35-52. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hambrick, D. (2007). The field of management’s devotion to theory: Too much of a good
thing? Academy of Management Journal, 50(6), 1346-1352.
Helin, J. 2016. Dialogical writing: Co-inquiring between the written and the spoken word.
Culture and Organization, 25(1), 1-15.
Meier, N. & Wegener, C. (2017). Writing with resonance. Journal of Management Inquiry,
26(2), 193–201.
Shepherd, D. A., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2011). Inductive top-down theorizing: A source of new
theories of organization. The Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 361-380.
Suddaby, R., Hardy, C. & Huy, Q. (2011). Where are the new theories of organization.
Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 236-246.
Tourish, D. (2020). The triumph of nonsense in management studies. Academy of
Management Learning & Education, 19(1), 99–109.
Thematic Issue (Spring 2022)
Academic Discourses and Their Hidden Power
This call is to invite scholars to contribute their thoughts and ideas to our thematic issue of Discourses on Culture entitled: “Academic Discourses and Their Hidden Power”. The volume aims to bring together a wide range of cross-disciplinary perspectives from the fields of Social Sciences and Humanities to the issue of how relations of power are communicated and/or embedded in scholarly communication, and how this phenomenon is related to the context of disciplinary communication, and the broader one of discourse communities, societies and culture.
Taking the lead from Bourdieu (1991), we view the world of academia as no different from other institutions with regard to such phenomena as: the concentration of capital and power, the existence of dominant and subservient social and professional relations as well as issues around the appropriation of the means of production and reproduction of knowledge. Therefore, the suggested line of enquiry to be followed by the contributions should address the ways power relations influence conception, production and diffusion of academic knowledge. We encourage contributions on the variety of strategies writers employ to embed, assert (or reject) the existence of power relations in their texts. This will include considerations for the need for broader conceptualisations of the ways in which knowledge can be produced for and is presented to target audiences.
Considering the fact that today, more than ever before, academic discourse is subject to the influence of dynamic social changes brought about by digitalisation, globalisation and also the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, we encourage contributions that consider whether academic discourse is becoming less exclusive and more inclusive; moving from a potentially alienating academic discourse (with the construction and perpetuation of power relations) into a more socially diverse and inclusive discourse.
We invite contributions that show the under-researched link between socially situated discourse practices and writing styles typical to these contexts. This phenomenon has been previously addressed in terms of relaxation or billboardization of scientific discourse (e.g. Duszak 1998, 2005), and, more generally, the essayization of scientific writing (e.g. Gajda 1999a, b), but recently its development has been greatly influenced by the use of new technologies.
Consequently, the textual manifestation of one person, institution or concept as having ‘power over’ something or somebody (previously a fundamental aspect of academic discourse) is now being critically evaluated in terms of the need of discourses to address actual and current social and intellectual concerns, needs and expectations. One consequence of this is the observation that academic discourse is generally inaccessible to wide and diverse audiences. For example, Critical Management Studies scholars (e.g. Grey and Sinclair 2006; Hambrick 2007; Bridgman and Stephens 2008; Adler et al. 2008; Kiriakos and Tienari 2018; Gilmore et al. 2019; Pullen et al. 2020; Tourish, 2020) have identified one of the key challenges of scholarly writing in Management and Organization Studies as being its ability to reach people who might actually find scientific outputs in the field useful and interesting to read, such as managers and more broadly, the workforce. As noted by one of the potential contributors to this thematic issue in our e-mail exchange: “Myself, as someone coming from an oral tradition of disseminating knowledge through folktales and other story-telling approaches, is often puzzled by some of the so-called 'top-tier journal' language and sentence construction. Therefore, highlighting the diverse possibilities of presenting knowledge is something I am keen to contribute to”.
By exploring how the power relations and inequalities that exist in academic discourses are communicated in the rhetorical strategies writers employ to disseminate disciplinary knowledge and belief claims, our purpose in this issue is to mobilise a cross-disciplinary push for inclusivity and greater appeal to global and diverse audiences.
The deadline for submissions is 8 May 2022, and it is planned to publish the thematic issue in spring 2022. Discourses on Culture is a fully open-access journal indexed in ERIH PLUS, Sherpa Romeo and the Directory of Open Access Journals. It is also currently under evaluation with Scopus. There are no submission or publication fees.
For further information and article submissions, please contact discourses@san.edu.pl. For the Author Guidelines, please see: http://dyskursy.san.edu.pl/index.php?id=8
References
Adler, P.S., Forbes, L.C. & Willmott, H. C. (2008). Critical management studies. The
Academy of Management Annals, 1, 119–180
Bridgman, T. & Stephens, M. (2008). Institutionalizing critique: a problem of critical
management studies. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 8, 258–270
Duszak, A. (1998). Academic writing in English and Polish: comparing and subverting
genres. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(2), 191-213.
Duszak, A. (2005). Between styles and values: an academic community in transition. Identity,
community, discourse: English in intercultural settings, 18, 69.
Gajda, S. (1999). Współczesny polski dyskurs naukowy. Dyskurs naukowy–tradycja i zmiana, 9-17.
Gajda, S. (1999). Program polskiej polityki językowej. Polska polityka językowa na przełomie
tysiącleci. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 179-188.
Gilmore, S., Harding, N., Helin, J. & Pullen, A. (2019). Writing differently. Management
Learning, 50, 3–10
Grey, C. & Sinclair. A. (2006). Writing differently. Organization, 13, 443–453
Hambrick, D. (2007). The field of management’s devotion to theory: Too much of a good
thing? Academy of Management Journal, 50, 1,346–1,352
Kiriakos, C. M. & Tienari, J. (2018). Academic writing as love. Management Learning, 49,
263–277
Pullen, A., Helin, J. & Harding, N. (Eds.). (2020). Writing differently. Bingley, UK: Emerald
Tourish, D. (2020). The triumph of nonsense in management studies. Academy of
Management Learning & Education, 19(1), 99–109
Thematic Issue (Winter 2021)
Literature and Management: Insights, Perspectives and Synergies
In many countries, including Poland and the United Kingdom, management can be classed both as a social science and as part of the humanities. Though many management courses naturally emphasise numerate and social science-related aspects, interest in incorporating humanities-based perspectives is growing – for example, many postgraduate business programmes now include compulsory or optional coursework in ethics and philosophy. In recent years, moves have been growing to also include literature – be it fiction or non-fiction – within various management curricula. Accordingly, this upcoming thematic issue of Discourses on Culture seeks to include communications and which examine this intersection of management and literature from a variety of perspectives.
Proposed topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Case studies of including literature-based courses in postgraduate management programmes
- Students’ perspectives on literature-based courses in the management classroom
- Applying literary theory approaches to seminal management texts
- Theoretically-grounded syllabus proposals for literature-based courses in business schools
- Portrayals of managers in literary (non)fiction
- The role of literature and poetry in the modern workplace
- Links between literature and management in the creative industries
The deadline for submissions is 15 October 2021, and it is planned to publish the thematic issue in winter 2021. Discourses on Culture is a fully open-access journal and there are no submission or publication fees.
For further information and article submissions, please contact discourses@san.edu.pl. For the Author Guidelines, please see: http://dyskursy.san.edu.pl/index.php?id=8