We are faced with unprecedented grand challenges on societal and environmental levels that are threatening our world. These global, interconnected, system-wide problems are not future issues, but need to be tackled urgently through individual and collective efforts. This asks for solidarity, new ways of organizing, collaboration, new forms of work and responsible leaders who dare to engage and act for the common good.
The Department of Organization Studies and Ethics aims to contribute to those challenges, by tackling these issues on multiple levels and by taking into account the way in which these issues are interrelated and intertwined. Our department brings together a wide group of academics across multiple disciplines and topics, whose work strives to extend knowledge on Organization Studies and Ethics. We aim to understand present developments for building a desirable future that creates value for individuals, organizations and society. Our belief is that change takes place at all three levels and we strive to influence positive change. It can be extraordinary and innovative but also ordinary and traditional. We conduct engaged and impactful research at the individual (employee, leader, manager), organizational (start-up, large companies and SMEs) and inter-organizational (networks, supply chains, ecosystems, stakeholder) levels that enhance scholarship and practice. We take real-life issues as a starting point for empirical exploration and analysis, and we often, but not exclusively, practice theory-building based on qualitative material. We strive to transfer research-related knowledge and outcomes to pedagogy at undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels as well as in executive education programmes.
The research we undertake and the courses we offer encompass the following expertise poles that are interrelated and have an interdisciplinary outlook: Sustainability and Ethics; Organization Studies; Human Resource Management; Organizational Behavior. As poles of expertise in teaching and research, they bring together various disciplines and schools of thought. Further, these poles share a well-established presence and a strong experience within Audencia as they have been developed within the School.
Through responsible and inclusive management education, strong cooperation with industry partners and interdisciplinary research that allows to grasp the complexities of the issues involved, we believe that our Department of Organization Studies and Ethics helps to create a sustainable, liveable and enjoyable world in which everyone has a place.
Grand challenges require concerted efforts by various actors that aspire for sustainable development and ethical conduct. While the challenge of our work is the future, our anchorage is the present. We strive to understand present developments to build a desirable future that creates value for individuals, organizations and society. To do that, we approach the topic of sustainability and ethics in our research and teaching from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and theoretical and empirical angles. We focus on topics such as political CSR, stakeholder engagement, complex systems, business ethics, responsible leadership, diversity and inclusion, and pressing industry sector challenges.
Drawing on the social sciences and humanities, organization studies is inherently interdisciplinary in nature and focuses on organizational processes and practices as well as organization theory. Our department often adopts a critical management lens and employs a wide spectrum of reflective and empirical methodologies to study issues such as governance; public management, project management, knowledge management, intercultural management and managerial innovation.
Organizational Behavior is important as humans are the core of many organizations and their behavior influences almost all aspects of it. Drawing from a range of disciplines such as psychology and sociology, our teaching and research crosses the boundaries between individual, team/group and organizational societal levels in order to shed light on the complex issues involved in human behavior. We focus on topics such as communication, negotiation, conflict, well-being, work-life balance, meaningful work, personal development, teamwork and leadership.
Human Resource Management is about the management of employees as the main asset for an organization. We aim to extend knowledge on talent management, strategic human resource management in which the emphasis is on future-oriented processes of developing and implementing HR programs, various aspects of careers, such as sustainable careers and law. We draw on a range of disciplines including law and economics and use variety of research methods to make an impact in our specialized fields in HRM.
Discover some of the programs offered by the department Organization Studies and Ethics:
Date | Presenter | Title |
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20/01 | Emma Avetisyan | The Intended and Unintended Consequences of the Non Financial Reporting EU Directive on Firms’ Sustainability Activities |
03/03 | Jos Akkermans | Career shocks and sustainable careers |
TBD | Alison Pullen | Feminist ethics in the doing of leadership diversity research |
26/05 | Patrizia Zanoni | Post-diversity, precarious work for all: Un-bordering categories of socio-demographic difference in the Amazon warehouse |