One reason why it is so hard to reign into Big Tech platforms is their own contradictions. In a new article by @elkesybille, Sara Maric & myself, we try to unpack how they expand and subvert democratic publics by looking at the case of YouTube: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1mc285Ef7AXVcx

#1paper1meme

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New Article in Journal of Business Ethics: »Parrying Diversity-Hostility and Ethical Dilemmas of Organizing Inclusion«

It is not a coincidence that organizational efforts to support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are in the eye of the neofascist storm that is currently devastating US-based institutions and has already begun to reverberate globally. The hostility toward DEI results from the fact that such initiatives not only seek to broaden participation, but also unsettle entrenched hierarchies and cultural privileges. This makes them an obvious target for movements aiming to restore exclusionary orders under the guise of tradition, merit, or freedom of speech. Yet, despite their centrality to current political contestations, organizational approaches to DEI remain ill-prepared to address the growing intensity of diversity-hostile communication.

In the article “Parrying Diversity-Hostility and Ethical Dilemmas of Organizing Inclusion” co-authored by my sister Laura Dobusch, Milena Leybold and me, we explore ‘parrying’ diversity hostility as an increasingly necessary DEI practice (in addition to traditional orientations of promoting inclusion and preventing discrimination). The case we are looking at is that of the controversy around the so-called ‘Google Diversity Memo’ by James Damore, which eventually led to the author’s dismissal. Check out the abstract below:

Many countries of the Global North are currently facing a strong rise in anti-diversity movements fueled by conservative, right-wing parties and authoritarian, probably fascist regimes, which also affects the workplace. However, organizations are insufficiently equipped to deal with increasing diversity-hostility since most policy approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) focus on promotion- and/or prevention-oriented measures. What is missing is a parrying orientation: methodically responding to—sanctioning—diversity-hostile communication, which can even imply the dismissal of employees. At the same time, aiming to promote inclusivity through exclusion decisions makes parrying ethically dilemmatic, and, therefore, contestable. By analyzing the case of the ‘Google Diversity Memo,’ we shed light on how an organization addressed the ethical dilemmas connected to an act of parrying—the decision to dismiss the memo’s author, who criticized Google’s DEI approach for going ‘too far.’ Drawing on a processual understanding of decision communication, we investigate public communicative acts challenging and justifying the dismissal and Google’s respective policy approach more generally. We show that organizational authoritative texts such as a code of conduct represent particularly effective decision premises to challenge or justify acts of parrying. We argue that addressing the ethical dilemmas connected to parrying requires establishing overarching rule-based procedures on how to respond to diversity-hostile communication which contributes to the overall ethical infrastructure of an organization.

The article has been accepted for publication by Journal of Business Ethics and is available open access. Finally, check out the obligatory #1paper1meme below:

#1paper1meme #codeOfConduct #Diversity #diversityHostility #EthicalInfrastructures #Google #Inclusion #inclusiveOrganizations #inclusiveOrganizing #JamesDamore #parrying

How come that editors of scholarly journals regularly lament the problems of finding enough competent reviewers, while reviewers report being overwhelmed by requests to review?

In our research essay for the journal Organization, Mie Plotnikof, Matthias Wenzel and I argue that, while being critical for advancing scholarly knowledge, reviewing is an invisibilized, underappreciated, and exploited academic practice.

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New Article: »Reviewing is Caring! Revaluing a Critical, but Invisibilized, Underappreciated, and Exploited Academic Practice«

Together wie Mie Plotnikof (Aarhus University) and Matthias Wenzel (Leuphana University Lüneburg), I have written an essay proposing a care perspective to the way we organize academic peer review. The paper entitled “Reviewing is Caring! Revaluing a Critical, but Invisibilized, Underappreciated, and Exploited Academic Practice” has now been published open access in Organization. Check out the abstract below:

Reviewing is critical to advancing scholarly knowledge by assuring research standards and contouring what counts as novel. Yet, our system of reviewing submissions to journals is in crisis. With growing submission numbers, editors struggle to match these with qualified review capacities, unwillingly adding extra, often uneven, workloads on some reviewers, without equally distributing pressures or finding the most ‘ideal’ expert match. We propose to redress this issue in terms of care. Inspired by feminist care theory, we discuss how the current review system invisibilizes, underappreciates, and exploits the care invested in it. Furthermore, we suggest reconsidering the very organizing of the review system along the lines of care to reinvigorate the nurturing, knowledge-enhancing practices of reviewing. Specifically, we recommend (1) increasing the visibility of reviewing across journals, (2) recognizing reviewing as an inherent part of paid scholarly work, and (3) introducing cross-journal review limits. Together, we argue that such moves enable a more visibly appreciative and less easily exploitative organizing of reviewing as a scholarly practice of care that we and all science indeed rely on.

Finally, I created another visualization of the paper’s motif to share with the hashtag #1paper1meme:

#1paper1meme #careWork #Organization #PeerReview #reviewing #reviewingIsCaring

New Paper by @MilenaKLey, @monicanadegger & Ellen Nathues : “Dear vulnerability … writing toget-her to escape and resist the neoliberal university”

https://osconjunction.net/2024/09/05/new-paper-dear-vulnerability-writing-toget-her-to-escape-and-resist-the-neoliberal-university/

#1paper1meme

It's always great (and often a relief) when an academic article finally gets published. However, it's particularly fantastic if it has been co-authored with your sibling.

This is why I am so happy to share the news that the book chapter »Searching for Transformative Potential: Comparing Conceptualizations of Open, Inclusive and Alternative Organizations« co-authored by @loradob and Katharina Kreissl and myself is out now:

https://osconjunction.net/2024/08/07/new-book-chapter-searching-for-transformative-potential-comparing-conceptualizations-of-open-inclusive-and-alternative-organizations/

#1paper1meme

»Hört die Signa(le): rechtspolitische Fragen und Ableitungen aus dem Fall der Signa-Gruppe« lautet der Titel eines mit @sturn_j verfassten Aufsatzes in der rechtswissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift #juridikum https://osconjunction.net/2024/07/24/neuer-juridikum-aufsatz-hort-die-signale-rechtspolitische-fragen-und-ableitungen-aus-dem-fall-der-signa-gruppe/

Zusammengefasst als Meme-Abstract (#1paper1meme):

New Article in ‘Innovation: Organization & Management’: »Barracudas, Piranhas and crowds: making ideas valuable in pharmaceutical innovation through opening and closing practices of valuation«, co-authored by Katharina Zangerle, Richard Weiskopf and myself:

https://osconjunction.net/2024/04/17/new-article-in-innovation-organization-management-barracudas-piranhas-and-crowds-making-ideas-valuable-in-pharmaceutical-innovation-through-opening-and-closing-practices-of-valuati/

#1paper1meme