Karlshochschule International University

Karlshochschule – International University is organizing an international conference on “Narratives and Innovation” with the aim to bring together scholars and practitioners from different contexts. The topic “Narratives and Innovation” forms part of an interpretive approach towards business administration, management concepts, and entrepreneurship, by introducing instruments of semiotics, linguistics, narratology, and others. The topic of the conference therefore is open to a bundle of scientific and industrial perspectives.

From an entrepreneurial perspective, the early recognition of change in societies, markets and organizations is crucial. Not only from a competitive point of view are the signals more valuable, the earlier they are recognized. Early recognition opens windows for innovation and helps to foster new business opportunities.

It has largely been acknowledged that organizations are built, maintained and developed by story-type tools of management and leadership. The communication of missions and visions, the setting of myths and basic values, the implementation of change management processes through rhetorical issues, and so on, are amongst the most powerful means to drive the organization forward. As a consequence, text based analyses of the organizational self and of organizational meaning has been gaining interest in organization theory continuously in the last decades.

Less known and still to be discussed is the role of the cultural context in this behalf and the way in which the mutual influences of organizational story-building and the narrative processing of knowledge in a culture do actually interact.

– How do value systems of cultures and organizations exchange their scales and priorities?

– Which narratives form part in the encounter of partners in a complex network of stakeholders, which interactional formats can be identified?

– How do generic structures change, how can the sense-making character of new signs and stories be interpreted?

– How do styles in story-telling change and what does style-shifting indicate?

– Where are the strategic and organizational challenges?

– What are the levers that open new paths to entrepreneurial innovation and new business opportunities?

The proposed conference will have to deal with these last questions. Slight changes in the construction and the semantics of narratives or stories might represent the weak signals Igor Ansoff spoke about and which make the strategic anticipation of change possible. How can they be detected, what kind of analysis is apt for their description? Several theoretical backgrounds, e. g. organization theory, system theory, discourse analysis, sociology of knowledge, cultural studies, as well as the practitioners’ perspective on innovation in uncertain and contingent markets should be taken into account, everyone with an interest in the topic is invited to send us a proposal for participation.

Date:

September 15-17, 2010

There will be several possibilities for participation in this conference:

Paper Presentation (25 minutes)

Panels (120 minutes)

Poster Presentation

Please send in an abstract (one page) of your Paper or an application (three pages) for a Panel. In case of a Panel application please tell us the title as well as the names of at least three participants who are going to contribute to your Panel.

Deadline for Submission is May 1, 2010

Please send your proposal to Prof. Dr. habil. Andreas Müller, amueller[@]karlshochschule.de

Keynote speakers are (confirmed):

Dirk Baecker, Professor of Communication and Cultural Management, Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany

Gustav Bergmann, Professor of Business Administration and Marketing, University of Siegen, Germany

Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Professor of Management Studies, Göteborg University, Sweden

Alfred Kieser, Professor for Business Administration and Organisation, University of Mannheim, Germany

Florian Menz, Professor of Linguistics, Universität Wien, Austria