'The odyssey of organizing': 17th EGOS colloquium, Lyon 5-7 July 2001 - EGOS Notes - Brief Article

Organization Studies, Sept-Oct, 2001

The 17th EGOS Colloquium, 'The Odyssey of Organizing', was hosted by E.M. Lyon Graduate School of Management, University Lyon 2 and University Lyon 3.

This year, 1066 delegates from 35 countries participated in the meeting, 78 percent from Europe (UK 21%, Nordic Countries 17%, France 15%, Benelux 7%, Germany 6%, Italy 4%, Switzerland 3%, Spain 3%, etc.), 14 percent from the Americas and 9 percent from Asia-Pacific. More than 800 papers were presented and discussed (75 % of the extended abstracts submitted in February were accepted).

The participation of Ph.D. students is increasing (240 delegates in Lyon) and the activities of the 'EGOSNETWORK' (www.ephemeraweb.org/egosnetwork), organized by the younger generations of EGOS members are developing rapidly. (It was the network who invited the Northumbria University Arts Staff to the colloquium to perform the theatre workshop: 'A Question of Direction'. They also initiated the debate on 'Radicalizing Organization Studies').

EGOS now has six Standing Work Groups, the three established ones ('Comparative Studies of Economic Organizations', 'Diffusion of Managerial Ideas and Practice', 'Organizational Change in Transforming Societies'), and three new EGOS Standing Work Groups which were launched at the 17th EGOS Colloquium: 'Business Network Research', Mark Ebers (mark.ebers@wiso.uni-augsburg.de) and Anna Grandori (anna.grandori@uni-bocconi.it); 'The Philosophy of Organization', Stephen Linstead (linstead@essex.ac.uk) and Heather Hopfil (heather.hopfl@unn.ac.uk); 'Environmental Organizing and Management', Susse Georg (sg.ioa@cbs.dk), Frank Boons (f.a.a.hoons@kub.nl) and Lanni Fussel (lf.ioa@cbs.dk).

The proceedings of the 17th colloquium, 2500 pages of extended abstracts, are accessible at the colloquium web site : www.em-lyon.com/eros and the CD Rom of extended abstracts can be ordered from: perrier@em-lyon.com

Respecting diversity was the only way we found to manage the high number of participants. This resulted in diversity of sub-themes (34 workshops in parallel), and diversity of styles and workshop formats. However, following the EGOS tradition, all the convenors agreed to emphasize discussion and preserve enough time for dialogues during the meetings. Suggestions are welcome in order to improve this quality further in future meetings.

Next July, the 18th EGOS Colloquium will take place in Barcelona. It is time to contact the principal organizers and the convenors and to prepare our future discussions. More information can be found on pps. 905-907 of this issue. The website of the Barcelona Colloquium is: www.egosbarcelona.com