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Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre Chair of Organization and Management

Professor David Seidl and Team

“Simply pushing harder within the old boundaries will not do.”
(Karl Weick)

The Chair of Organization & Management is part of the Department of Business Administration (Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre) at the University of Zurich. In our research and teaching we are concerned with different aspects of organization and management, which we examine using different theoretical and methodological approaches. More specifically, in our research we are particularly interested in questions concerning the practice of strategy, the dynamics of standardization and the relation between management research and practice. In our teaching we cover a wide range of topics such as organization theory, organization design, change management and strategy as practice. We are fully committed to excellence and responsibility across the entire range of our activities.

News


December 14th, 2015, Paper Party 2015

Paper Party

Last Wednesday we celebrated a number of recently published and forthcoming papers with a paper party. Before the party started every paper was briefly presented in front of all guests.

Please have a look at our most recents publications:

Dittrich, K., Guerard, S., & Seidl, D. (forthcoming). Talking about routines: The role of reflective talk in routine change. Organization Science.
Jarzabkowski, P., Kaplan, S., Seidl, D. & Whittington, R. (forthcoming). On the risk of studying practices in isolation: Linking what, who, and how in strategy research. Strategic Organization.
MacLean, D., MacIntosh, R. & Seidl, D. (forthcoming). Rethinking dynamic capabilities from a creative action perspective. Strategic Organization.
Aaken, D. van, Kirsch, W. & Seidl, D. (2015). Gesetzmäßigkeiten in der Unternehmensführung? Unternehmensführung als das Verfügen über Notwendigkeiten. Die Unternehmung, 69(1): 54-66.
Kieser, A., Nicolai, A. & Seidl, D. (2015). The practical relevance of management research: turning the debate on relevance into a rigorous scientific research program. Academy of Management Annals, 9(1): 143-233.

 


October 15th, 2015, Visit of the Ringier AG

 

The best students of the assessment lecture BWL II in the spring term of 2015 were invited to visit Ringier at the end of September. Ringier is one of the leading media companies in Switzerland and pro­duces more than 120 news­papers and mag­a­zines, and runs sev­eral ra­dio and TV stations as well as over 80 web and mo­bile plat­forms in 14 countries. The intention of the visit was to learn more about the organization and structure of Ringier and to get an impression of how the office is adapted to Ringier’s particular field of business.

 


October 5th, 2015, Magic Mountain in Munich

 

At this year’s autumn "Magic Mountain“ - our internal strategy workshop - we spent two days in Munich. Already on the train to Germany we started discussing research, teaching and administration related topics in order to further improve working processes at the Chair of Organization and Management. The discussion continued at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, where the inspiring air stimulated many creative thoughts. After two days of hard work the team event culminated in a cheerful visit of the famous annual Oktoberfest. Once again we had a fruitful strategy workshop and a great time with the whole team!

 


September 11th, 2015, Theodore Schatzki on the Practice-Theoretical Perspective on Organizations

 

As part of our Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series Theodore Schatzki (University of Kentucky, U.S.) explored his practice theory with us. The aim of the three-day seminar was to develop an advanced understanding of how organizations can be studied from a practice-theoretical perspective. Apart from covering its basic concepts, we discussed in detail Schatzki’s conception of organizations as bundles of practices and material arrangements, and how organizational practices emerge, are maintained and disrupted. We talked about small and large phenomena in organizational research, and were introduced to the concept of timespace. The workshop was wrapped up by an interesting debate on morality in organizational practices. Thank you to Theodeore Schatzki and all the participants for such an insightful seminar!

 


September 10th, 2015, Katharina Dittrich receives Outstanding Reviewer Award

 

We are very happy to announce that our team member Katharina Dittrich has been awarded the “Outstanding Reviewer Award” by the Strategizing Activities and Practices (SAP) Interest Group at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Vancouver, Canada. The award goes to high quality reviews that help authors to develop their work further and push it to a higher level. We would like to thank Jane Lê, the Program Chair of the SAP Interest Group, for the recognition of Katharina’s work.

 


August 17th, 2015, Swiss Reception in Vancouver at the Annual Meeting of the AoM

David Seidl, Katharina Dittrich and Stéphane Guérard represented our team at this year’s Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Vancouver, Canada, and at the affiliated annual Swiss Reception, which was organized by the University of Zurich's Chair of Foundations of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm this year. The event took place at the Vancouver Alpen Club, which provided a cosy and traditional Alpine setting for a nice evening of catching up with colleagues from all over the world.


August 11th, 2015, 31st EGOS Colloquium in Athens

 

As every year, our team participated in the annual EGOS Colloquium, which took place in Athens, Greece this year: we presented our current research projects, met other researchers and, apart from the conference itself, participated in the Strategy-as-Practice Research Community Platform (RCP) Community Day that Violetta Splitter helped to organize. We very much enjoyed our visit in Athens and participation in this year’s EGOS Colloquium, and would like to thank all the organizers for this inspiring event.

 


July 22nd, 2015, Violetta Splitter Successfully Finished her Doctoral Studies

 

We are very proud to announce that Violetta Splitter successfully defended her dissertation with the title: "The Situatedness of Knowledge and Practices: Studies on the Adoption of Pro-social Practices and Academic Knowledge". In exploring why corporate actors engage in CSR, and how relevant knowledge is constructed for both the research and the praxis domain, her dissertation illuminates and tackles important current theoretical challenges at the interface of organizational and social theory. Her examiners Andreas Georg Scherer and David Seidl (first supervisor) awarded her work with a 'summa cum laude'. We are happy that Violetta plans on staying at the Chair of Organization and Management, and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.

 


July 1st, 2015, Grades Online: "Organisation und Führung" & "Organization Theories"

 

Please click here to check your results of "Organisation und Führung" FS 15. The post exam review will take place on Tuesday, September 15th from 15-17h and on Wednesday, September 16th from 10-12h. Please send an email to Tania Weinfurtner to register for the event.
For the results of "Organization Theories" FS 15 please click here. For the post exam review please read the notes at the top of the PDF as well as the notes on OLAT.

 


May 4th, 2015, Announcement: Courses Autumn Semester 2015

In the Autumn Semester 2015 we offer the following courses: Change Management (Lecture Bachelor) on Thursdays from 10.15- 12.00 (updated); Führung von Familienunternehmen (Seminar Bachelor) from 09:00-16:00 on September 28th, October 12th/13th and November 2nd - please send your application (with CV, grades and letter of motivation) to Kalliopi Vagias till August 31st; The Practice of Strategy (Seminar Master) every second Wednesday from 09:00-12:00 starting on September 16th - please send your application (with CV, grades and letter of motivation) to Stéphane Guérard till September 2nd; Case Studies: Organisationsberatung mit Kooperationspartnern aus der Praxis (Seminar Master) on Fridays for 4-5 hours (8 sessions) - please send your application (with CV, grades and letter of motivation; all in one PDF titled "Nachname_Bewerbung Seminar Case Studies 2015") to Tania Weinfurtner till August 10th.


April 16th, 2015, Workshop in Management Classics

 

From April 10th to April 12th a small group of dedicated early career and established scholars met at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen to discuss the Management Classics in the Carnegie tradition, the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF). The workshop was organized by our colleague Katharina Dittrich in cooperation with the University of St. Gallen and the Zeppelin University. Leading scholars in the BTOF presented and discussed their insights with regards to these management classics and contemporary research: Philip Bromiley (Paul Merage School of Business, USA), Claus Rerup (Ivey Business School, Canada), Alfred Kieser (Zeppelin University, Germany) and Tomi Laamanen (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland). After two days of deeply diving into the BTOF and many intensive debates around its core topics, the participants enjoyed a video conference with James G. March (Stanford University, USA). Both participants and presenting scholars were enthusiastic about the workshop and encouraged the organizers to continue the tradition, potentially turning this newly formed group into a "hot group" to take research in the BTOF forward.

 


April 1st, 2015, Seminar with Theodore Schatzki on the Practice-Theoretical Perspective on Organizations

 

We are happy to announce an upcoming seminar, which is part of our Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series. The doctoral seminar with Theodore Schatzki (University of Kentucky, U.S.) on the "Practice-Theoretical Perspective on Organizations” will take place on September 7th-9th, 2015 at the University of Zurich. The seminar will focus on developing an advanced understanding of how organizations can be studied from a practice-theoretical perspective. If you are interested in participating, please send an email to Katharina Dittrich as soon as possible as spaces are limited.

 


March 18th, 2015, Just published: The Practical Relevance of Management Research

 

Alfred Kieser (Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen), Alexander Nicolai (University of Oldenburg) and David Seidl just published their paper with the title "The Practical Relevance of Management Research: Turning the Debate on Relevance into a Rigorous Scientific Research Program" in The Academy of Management Annals. In their article, they provide a systematic overview of the different streams of this literature, highlighting its strengths and shortcomings. They distinguish between two types of literature. On the one hand, there is the programmatic literature, comprising of studies that take the perceived lack of practical relevance as their main point of departure and suggest particular ways of dealing with the issue of relevance in management research. On the other hand, there is the largely neglected descriptive literature, which examines the interplay between management research and management practice. Please click here for the full paper.

 


March 18th, 2015, Magic Mountain Gargellen

 

At this years "Winter Magic Mountain" - our so called strategy workshop - we stayed three days in Gargellen, Austria. As always we used this time to discuss research, teaching and administrative related topics concerning the future of the Chair of Organization and Management. In between we had enough time to enjoy the great skiing and famous aprés-ski opportunities of Gargellen and the Montafon. Once again it was a fruitful strategy workshop and a great time with the whole team! For some photos please click here.

 


March 3rd, 2015, Katharina Dittrich at University of California, Irvine

 

From January to December 2015 our colleague Katharina Dittrich is visiting the University of California, Irvine, USA. As a visiting scholar she is affiliated with Martha S. Feldman and works on her current research project with the title "The Ecology of Organizational Routines". Next to her research Katharina visits a workshop on "Research and Writing" with Melissa Mazmanian and "Advanced Qualitative Methods" with Martha S. Feldman. Her stay has been made possible by the SNF Early PostDoc.Mobility Fellowship. On the picture you can see (from left to right) Allison Laskey, Deborah Lefkowitz, Martha Feldman, Katharina Dittrich and Victoria Lowerson. We wish her a great, inspiring and productive time in California!

 


Feb 23rd, 2015, Felix Langenmayr Finished Successfully his Doctoral Studies

 

We are very proud to announce that Felix Langenmayr successfully defended his dissertation with the title: "Organizational memory as a function: A Luhmannian perspective on the construction of past, present and future in organizations". His dissertation addresses one of the key problems in organization studies consisting 'in asking what kind of social structure is apt to deal with a temporal change that needs both routine behavior and innovation'. He convinced both his examiners David Seidl and Dirk Baecker (Zeppelin University, Germany) in his Dissertation Defense last Thursday.

 


Feb 12th, 2015, New Team Member: Tania Weinfurtner

 

We welcome our new team member Tania Weinfurtner! Tania just started last week as research associate and PhD candidate at our chair. Tania holds a Bachelor's degree in Corporate Management and Economics (CME) from the Zeppelin University (ZU), Friedrichshafen, Germany, and received a Master's degree in Management from the London School of Economics (LSE), UK. In her master thesis Tania analyzed the effect of self-control on the interaction between choice quantity and satisfaction. We wish her all the best for her PhD project and a fruitful and exciting time at our chair!

 


Feb 4th, 2015, Grades Online: "Change Management" & "Case Studies"

 

Please click here to check your results of "Change Management" HS 14. For the post exam review please read the notes at the top of the pdf as well as the notes on OLAT. For the results of the "Case Studies" Seminar HS 14 please click here.

 


Jan 14th, 2015, Workshop in Management Classics

 

Together with two colleagues from the University of St. Gallen and the Zeppelin University Katharina Dittrich is organizing a PhD and early career Workshop on Management Classics in the Carnegie Tradition. The workshop takes place from April 10th-12th, 2015 at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together PhD students and early career academics with more senior scholars that integrate management classics (e.g. Simon, 1947, March & Simon, 1958 and Cyert & March, 1963) into their research and to foster joint reading, understanding and integration of these works in the participants' research agendas. We were able to bring together a range of established and well-known scholars: Philip Bromiley (Paul Merage School of Business, USA), Claus Rerup (Ivey Business School, USA), Alfred Kieser (Zeppelin University, Germany), Tomi Laamanen (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) and David Seidl (University of Zurich, Switzerland). The workshop will close with a video conference with James G. March (Stanford University, USA). PhD and early career scholars interested in participating are invited to submit an application by February 15th 2015. For more detailed information please have a look at the official program.

 


Jan 13th, 2015, WK Organisation Workshop 2015 in Zurich

 

This years workshop of the "Wissenschaftliche Kommission Organisation" (WK ORG) is taking place from 11th - 13th February in Zurich and is chaired by our colleague Andreas G. Scherer. This annual workshop is part of the "Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaftslehre" (German Academic Association for Business Research). The workshop aims to foster the exchange on current research topics. David Seidl together with Constantin Schön (University of Zurich) and Katja Rost (University of Zurich) are presenting their paper with the title "The Proportion of Woman in Senior Positions and Career Advancement in Organizations". Next to this our colleague Violetta Splitter presents her paper on "The Construction of Relevance in Management Education". For more detailed information please have a look at the official website.

 


Dec 18th, 2014, Season's Greetings

 

We had a great 2014 with many highlights like conferences in Philadelphia (AOM) and Rotterdam (EGOS) or our awesome guests like Sally Maitlis, Royston Greenwood and Max Bergman. We say "thank you" to everybody, who has been involved and helped us making 2014 a great and exciting year! Nevertheless we are looking forward to 2015 and are curious about all the upcoming challenges and highlights waiting for us. In this regard please have a look at our upcoming Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series with guests like Feng Liu (May 11th, 2015) Theodore Schatzki (September 2015) or Ann Langley (October 2015). We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 


Nov 28th, 2014, Tutors and Semester Assistant Wanted!

 

We are currently looking for tutors for our BWL II assessment lecture taking place in spring 2015. Additionally, we are looking for a new semester assistant, who will help us coordinating lectures and other chair related tasks. For more detailed information please have a look at the following job descriptions: Tutor BWL II Details & Semester Assistant Details

 


Nov 20th, 2014, Paper Party 2014

 

It's Paper Party Time

Last Tuesday we celebrated a number of recently published or forthcoming papers with a paper party. Before the party started every paper was introduced to our guests for about 5 minutes. Please have a look at our papers:

 

We are looking forward to an exciting and successful 2015 and hope there will be another paper party soon! You can find some more pictures of our paper party here.


Nov 6th, 2014, Max Bergman on the Art of Interviewing

 

As part of our Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series Max Bergman (University of Basel) introduced us this week to the art of interviewing. The aim of this workshop was to demonstrate different interview strategies and analysis techniques in order to explore the possibilities and limits of modern interviewing for the social and related sciences. The workshop covered topics like the integration of interviewing research in a research design; appropriate research questions for interview research; construction of an interview schedule and interview question design; the conduct of interviews; analysis of interview data; presentation of interview research findings; interviewing within in a mixed methods research design; and quality criteria for interview research. Furthermore Bergman integrated these specific topics within the broader realm of qualitative as well as quantitative research designs.

 


Nov 3rd, 2014, Violetta Splitter on Family Firms in Switzerland

 

Our colleague Violetta Splitter just gave an interview on the specifics of family firms. In her interview with the "Aargauer Zeitung" she explains the advantages and disadvantages of family firms in general and their success in Switzerland in particular. Please click on the picture to read the whole interview.

 


Oct 21st, 2014, New PhD position

The Chair is looking for a new PhD. If you are interested please have a look at the announcement


Oct 13th, 2014, Just Published: The New CEO and the Post-succession Process

We are glad to announce that Shenghui Ma, David Seidl, and Stéphane Guérard’s paper “The New CEO and the Post-succession Process: An Integration of Past Research and Future Directions” has been accepted for publication in International Journal of Management Reviews. Based on existing literature, this paper examines ‘What new CEOs do’ in the post-succession process. This paper suggests that new CEOs are primarily involved in practices aimed at integrating the new CEO into the organization, and practices aimed at realigning the organization with its environment. Based on a critical assessment of existing studies, a concrete research agenda is developed in terms of topics, methodologies and theories.


September 30th, 2014, Workshop with Royston Greenwood

 

As part of our Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series Royston Greenwood (University of Alberta, Canada) held a workshop on the "Developments in Institutional Theory". During his three-day workshop the participants have been introduced to the foundations of institutional theory and had the possibility to present and discuss their own research projects. We would like to thank Royston for his inspiring workshop and wish him a great time here in Switzerland.

 


September 29th, 2014, Visiting the Ringier AG

 

Together with the best students of the assessment lecture BWL II Felix Langenmayr visited Ringier last week. Ringier is one of the leading media companies in Switzerland and pro­duces over 120 news­papers and mag­a­zines, runs sev­eral ra­dio and TV stations and well over 80 web and mo­bile plat­forms in 14 countries. The intention of this visit was to learn more about the different change processes at Ringier and how the organization is dealing with the digitalization of media content. On the picture you can see the students (Caroline Erni, Jack Gasser, Stefan Lehmann, Stephanie Wegmann, Robin Zobrist and Laura Zwyssig) together with Edi Estermann, the Chief Communication Officer and Roman Sigrist, who is a member of the CEO office.

 


September 26th, 2014, Katharina Dittrich Finished Successfully her Doctoral Studies

 

We are very proud to announce that Katharina Dittrich successfully defended her cumulative dissertation with the title: "The Accomplishment and Change of Organizational Practices and Routines". She convinced both her examiners Andreas Scherer as well as David Seidl (first supervisor) and received the best possible grade (summa cum laude). We are happy that Katharina plans to stay at the Chair of Organisation and Management. We wish her all the best for her future.

 


September 9th, 2014, Say Hello to Kalliopi Vagias

Since the beginning of this month Kalliopi Vagias is a new member of our team. She is the successor of Andrea Huber, who left our chair this summer. So first of all we would like to thank Andrea for her passionate working style within the last three and a half years. We wish her all the best for her future! At the same time we would like to welcome Kalliopi and wish her a great time at our chair! For more details about our actual team please have a look at our team section.


August 18th, 2014, Swiss Reception in Philadelphia at the AOM Annual Meeting

 

Together with the team of the Chair of Foundations of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm we organized this years Swiss Reception at the Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, USA. This time the event took place at the James Oliver Gallery. The location was great and we had an enjoyable evening with our colleagues from all over the world. We are already looking forward to next year's Swiss Reception in Vancouver, CAN. Here you can find some pictures.

 


July 28th, 2014, Just Published: Perspectives Issue of Organization Studies on Strategy-as-Practice

 

Together with Richard Whittington (University of Oxford, UK) David Seidl just edited a Perspectives Issue of Organization Studies on Strategy-as-Practice (SAP). In this issue previously published articles on SAP are republished that address the relationship between strategy practice and larger phenomena. According to this Whittington and Seidl argue in their introductory article for progress in strategy-as-practice research through more effective linking of 'local' strategizing activity with 'larger' social phenomena. Therefore they introduce a range of theoretical approaches capable of incorporating larger-scale phenomena and countering what they term 'micro-isolationism', the tendency to explain local activities in their own terms. Against this background, they develop three broad guidelines that can help protect against empirical micro-isolationism and thereby extend the scope of strategy-as-practice research. To have a closer look at the issue please click here.

 


July 8th, 2014, Grades Online: "Organisation und Führung" & Organization Theories

 

Please click here to see the results of the exams "Organisation und Führung" and Organization Theories FS 14. The post exam review for "Organisation und Führung" takes place on Monday, 25th of August between 10-12h. To get an indvidual appointment please send an email to Violetta Splitter. We also offer an exam check for Organization Theories on Friday, July 18th and Friday, July 25th between 14h00-17h00. Please register before July 15th by sending an email to Shenghui Ma.

 


June 30th, 2014, Felix Langenmayr Back from Copenhagen Business School

 

We welcome back our colleague Felix Langenmayr, who has been visiting Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Denmark from March 2014 to June 2014. Felix has been affiliated with Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy (MPP). It has been a great opportunity for him to extensively exchange with other researchers and to discuss his research project on organizational memory within this inspiring environment. On the photo you can see Felix with Niels Åkerstrøm on their way to the annual research colloquium on the Swedish island Ven.

 


June 13th, 2014, Katharina Dittrich Receives Best Reviewer Awards

 

We are very happy to announce that our team member Katharina Dittrich has been awarded by the Strategy Practice Interest Group of the Strategic Management Society (SMS) as "Top 5% Outstanding Reviewer" for this year's SMS 34th Annual Conference to be held in Madrid, Spain 20-23 September 2014. Furthermore she received the Award as Best Reviewer of the Strategizing Activities and Practices (SAP) Interest Group at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management to be held in Philadelphia, USA 1-5 August 2014. Both awards go to high quality reviews helping authors to develop their work further and push it to a higher level. We are looking forward to both events and would like to thank the judging committees for these recognitions.

 


May 11th, 2014, Seminar with Sally Maitlis on "Sensemaking in Organizations"

 

Last week, we welcomed Sally Maitlis from the University of British Columbia, Canada to our distinguished scholar seminar series. Sally engaged the participants in her course in an intensive, interesting and eye-opening seminar on "Sensemaking in Organizations". Based on joint readings of leading publications in the area of sensemaking, participants embarked on a collective effort to make sense of sensemaking, sometimes even drawing on instances of sensemaking in the course itself. Sally and the course participants investigated in-depth the seven properties of sensemaking, the triggers and processes of sensemaking, what sensemaking accomplishes and future directions for sensemaking research. We thank Sally for this enjoyable seminar.

 


May 5th, 2014, Just Published: The Three Schools of CCO Thinking

 

The idea of the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) is driven by three main schools of thought: the Montreal School of Organizational Communication, the Four-Flows Model (based on Giddens’s Structuration Theory), and Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems. In their recently published article Dennis Schoeneborn and Steffen Blaschke (both Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen) invited David Seidl to represent Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems in a dialogue with the other two schools represented by François Cooren (Montreal School of Organizational Communication) and Robert D. McPhee (Four-Flows Model). The interactive dialogue is structured around guiding questions addressing the epistemological, ontological, and methodological dimension of CCO as a theoretical paradigm. To have a closer look at the article please click here.

 


April 14th, 2014, Academic Mentoring Program

 

We are pleased to promote the academic mentoring program for young, female researchers pursuing an academic career. Do you want to actively propel your career? Are you interested in an exchange with a mentor and with peers? The program facilitates a mentoring relationship with an experienced academic, offers workshops adjusted to your career stage and organizes individual counseling and coaching sessions. Please have a look at the website for more information about workshop contents, dates and participation requirements.

 


April 1st, 2014, Doctoral Seminar on Time and Space

 

From Monday to Wednesday this week our doctoral seminar takes place. This time the seminar's focus is on the subject of time and space in organization studies. It is a great opportunity to develop new insights to the individual research from a temporal and spacial perspective. Besides reading and commenting on papers, the participants will have the opportunity to present their work in front of the group and receive constructive feedback.

 


March 20th, 2014, Magic Mountain St. Anton

At this years "Winter Magic Mountain" - our so called strategy workshop - we stayed three days in St. Anton, Austria. As always we used this time to discuss research, teaching and administrative related topics concerning the future of the Chair of Organization and Management. In between we had enough time to enjoy the great skiing and famous aprés-ski opportunities of St. Anton. Once again it was a fruitful strategy workshop and a great time with the whole team! For some photos please click here.


March 4th, 2014, Seminar with Sally Maitlis on Sense-Making in Organizations

We are happy to announce an upcoming seminar, which is part of our Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series. The doctoral seminar with Sally Maitlis (University of British Columbia, Canada) on “Sense-making in Organizations” will take place on May 7th and 8th, 2014, at the Universitätstrasse 84, Zurich. The seminar intends to introduce sense-making and shows how it is accomplished within organizations. Furthermore, the seminar focuses on the current debates of sense-making as well as on how sense-making research is done. If you are interested, please send an email to Stéphane Guérard as soon as possible, as places are limited (only 10 participants).


February 10th, 2014, Shenghui Ma Back from HEC Montréal

We welcome back our colleague Shenghui Ma, who has been visiting HEC Montréal in Canada from September 2013 to February 2014. During his research stay Shenghui has been affiliated with Ann Langley, who supported him with his project on new CEOs. It has been a great opportunity for him to extensively exchange with other researchers and to discuss his project within this inspiring environment.


January 29th, 2014, Alexander von Humboldt Lecture with David Seidl

Two weeks ago David Seidl has been invited to the Alexander von Humboldt Lectures at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. This lecture series is organized by the Department of Geography, Spatial Planning and the Environment and has been initiated in 1999 by the chair of the department of human geography Prof. Dr. Huib Ernste. For the Alexander von Humboldt Lectures every year a number of scientists are invited to Nijmegen for a period of about one week, to give lectures on selected themes relevant for the current debates within Human Geography and to discuss theoretical and practical issues with the members of the department and with a broader audience. In his talk with the title "Applied sciences as (productive) misunderstandings" David Seidl addressed the criticism on the lack of relevant knowledge within social sciences in general and management studies in specific. We would like to invite you to watch his talk online here.


January 13th, 2014, Support for Change Management Wanted

We are looking for a master student to support our bachelor lecture change management. You will support Prof. Seidl in preparing and delivering the lecture, including revising the lecture material, posting relevant material on OLAT and answering students' emails and questions on OLAT. More details: Job description


January 9th, 2014, ZU Summer School: "Next Society's Systems Theory"

We are pleased to promote this year's PhD Summer School 2014 at the Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, from May 12th to 16th, 2014. This year's topic is "Next Society's Systems Theory" and is aimed at young scholars interested in Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory as well as its further development. The course is split into five days each featured by a different scholar or scholars: Helmut Willke (Zeppelin University), Alfred Kieser (Zeppelin University) and David Seidl (University of Zurich), Elena Esposito (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Dirk Baecker (Zeppelin University) as well Niels Akerstrom Andersen (Copenhagen Business School). As the number of seminar participants is limited we encourage you to register no later than 31st March. For more detailed information please have a look at the flyer.


December 18th, 2013, Seasonal Greetings

We had a great 2013 with many highlights like conferences in Montréal or Orlando, great seminars and lectures, awesome guests and student events. We say "thank you" to everybody, who has been involved and helped us making it happen! Nevertheless we are looking forward to 2014 and are curious about all the upcoming challenges and highlights waiting for us. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


December 11th, 2013, Best Teaching Award 2013

We are proud and honored at once to announce that David Seidl and his team won the third price for best teaching within the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology. The award, which is annually granted, is the result of a lot of work we invested into permanently improving our course BWL II in specific and the rest of our courses and seminars in general. We are looking forward to next year's teaching and would like to thank all student as well as research assistants, namely Lilly Fan, Raphael Frey, Christian Davatz, Darius Affolter, Violetta Splitter, Katharina Dittrich and Felix Langenmayr, who have been involved in the preparations and realization of the lecture BWL II.


December 10th, 2013, Christmas Dinner

This year's Christmas Dinner took place at three different places. We started at Katharina Dittrich's place for the aperitif, for the main dish we went to Felix Langenmayr's place and last but not least we went to Violetta Splitter's place for dessert and drinks. As you might can see we had a lot of fun!


November 13th, 2013, Seminar with Jean-Pascal Gond

We are glad to announce a one-day seminar of Jean-Pascal Gond (Cass Business School) on the Sociology of Convention. The purpose of this seminar is to introduce the ‘sociology of convention’ also known as the ‘French pragmatist sociology’ movement, or as the 'The Economies of Worth' after the title of a foundational book published by Boltanski and Thévenot in 1987 and reprinted in an extended version in 1991. This stream of research has emerged in France as a reaction to the limitations of the over-determinism of Bourdieu’s structural sociology and to account for the paradox of collective action inherent to individualistic frameworks. It builds on the concept of ‘convention’ as developed by French heterodox economists and on a modelling of ‘reasonable social action’ in daily contexts in order to revisit the foundational question of political science: How do people with divergent views manage to live together? Central to this stream of research are the concepts of conventions, orders of worth, tests and justification that have a great potential to advance several lines of inquiry in organizational theory. The Economies of Worth model has recently been extended and developed to analyze the emergence of environmentalism, the dynamics of capitalism and the possibility to build a pragmatic sociology of critique. These extensions will be briefly presented, as well as several applications of the odel to organization and management theory. The seminar will take place on the 21st of November at the University of Zurich in our seminar room (Universitätstrasse 84). For any questions regarding the seminar do not hesitate to contact Stéphane Guérard.


November 8th, 2013, Insights Into the Leadership and Succession Planning of Family Businesses

Yesterday, Marcel Megerle a consultant of the WeissmanGruppe and an expert on strategy, leadership and succession planning of family businesses visited our seminar on family business. During his talk in the bachelor seminar, organized by Violetta Splitter and Katharina Dittrich, he provided impressive examples of how leadership and succession at family business work - and sometimes don't work. His experiences illustrated nicely the clash of the emotional system of the family and the rational system of the firm, with which family businesses have to deal professionally.


November 4th, 2013, Two New Student Assistants

We would like to introduce to you our new student assistants Alice Hengevoss (right) and Johanna Stephan (left). Both are working for our chair since the beginning of this semester. Alice studies economics in her seventh semester and is especially interested in behavioral economics and business ethics. Next to her studies she is volunteering for the aid project "Children's Garden Home and School" in Kenya. Johanna studies cultural analysis (major) as well as administrative science and gender studies (minor). She is now in her third semester of her master studies and is especially interested in management cultures as well as organizational culture. Next to her studies she is part of the editorial board of Bozzetto, a magazine for arts and culture. We wish both an interesting and exciting time at our chair!


October 22nd, 2013, Family Business Seminar Visits the Strotz AG

The Strotz AG is a 150-years old family business and the leading producer of umbrellas in Switzerland. Together with Violetta Splitter and Katharina Dittrich, 16 bachelor students of our family business seminar visited the Strotz AG in Uznach and were able to gain interesting and deep insights into the Strotz family, the business of producing umbrellas and how Edgar Strotz (4th generation) and Roman Strotz (5th generation) are able to combine family and business.


October 18th, 2013, Networking with Top Management Scholars

From October 13th to 15th twenty-one PhD students from a range of different disciplines and Universities came together to discuss their work. The workshop was funded by the University of Zurich and facilitated by Professor Steven W. Floyd (University of Massachusetts), Associate Professor Catherina Maritan (Syracuse University), Assistant ProfessorThomasMoliterno (University of Massachusetts) and Assistant Professor Xavier Castañer (University of Lausanne) and organized mainly by Katharina Dittrich and Violetta Splitter. The top scholars also shared their experiences in publishing and their personal views on what's hot in management research, how to manage an academic career and how to balance it with family and friends. In addition, there was ample time for networking during coffee breaks, lunches and a Swiss fondue. We thank the University of Zuich, the top scholars and all participants for making this a successful and inspiring event.


September 27th, 2013, Newspaper Article on Top Management Payments

Our Researcher in Residence Katarina Sikavica published a newspaper article on ownership structure and say-on-pay in Swiss firms. The article’s key message is that given high levels of ownership concentration – particularly among family owners and governmental shareholders – and the widespread use of dual class shares and voting restrictions make a radical change in the level of executive compensation in Swiss firms very unlikely. Instead, if anything at all, we may expect a higher pay-performance-sensitivity along with occasional mobilization of minority shareholders and other stakeholders. The article has been published in "Finanz und Wirtschaft" and refers to the current debate in Switzerland on the height of top management payments. The full article is available here.


September 24th, 2013, New Project Based Research Associate

Since the beginning of September, Marianna Zangrillo, who is pursuing her PhD studies at Aalto University (Finland), has joined our chair as Project Based Research Associate. Marianna holds a master degree in Laws (University of Rome, Italy), a LL.M. in contract and commercial law (University of Helsinki, Finland) and a MBA in International Management (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK).
During the past 12 years Marianna has worked in leading roles in listed Finnish companies, until she decided to relocate with her family to Switzerland in February 2013 and to take a break from the corporate life to complete her PhD studies.
During the time at our Chair, Marianna will work on the data collection for her dissertation on creating value through procurement: organizational architecture, attention and capabilities for exploration and exploitation.


September 16th, 2013, Welcome Back to the Autumn Term

We wish all students a good start to the upcoming autumn term 2013! We hope you all have a fruitful and successful semester and are looking forward to meet some of you in one of our seminars or lectures!


August 30th, 2013, Research Talents

We are happy to announce our new fellowship program for master or advanced bachelor students interested in research and an academic career. Fellows will gain first-hand insights into the life and work of a researcher and receive individual one-on-one mentoring by a research associate of the Chair. If you are interested, you can find more information here.

August 29th, 2013, New Researcher in Residence: Moritz Schellenberger

Since the beginning of August Moritz Schellenberger from the University of Hamburg is our new researcher in residence. Moritz studied economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU) as well as corporate management and economics at the Zeppelin-University (ZU) in Friedrichshafen. Moreover he has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Before his PhD studies he worked as a startup manager at the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE), which is affiliated with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His research interests are social networks in general and innovation and knowledge management in specific. During his time at our chair he works on a paper with the working title: "(Re)Integration of knowledge for innovation: Absorptive and desorptive capacity in inter-organizational collaboration". We wish him an inspiring and successful time at our chair!

August 27th, 2013, DEADLINE 1st September

We are pleased to announce the PhD "Meet Up Workshop: International Networking with Top Management Scholars" at the University of Zurich from October 13 to 15, 2013. The workshop is aimed at young scholars pursuing academic careers in the field of management. It brings together these scholars with top researchers through formal discussions and informal social interaction and networking. Prof. Dr. Steven W. Floyd and the top scholars he has selected will share their knowledge on management studies and their vast publication experience. Participating doctoral students are invited to present papers for development and publication preparation, orproject ideas for feedback from the experienced scholars.
We invite you to submit full papers or an extended abstract and your CV to Katherine Caves (katherine.caves@business.uzh.ch). The submission deadline is September 1, 2013. For more detailed information please click here.

August 22nd, 2013, Beware of the duck-dog!

We are proud to announce that our chair has a new team member! Mya just joined our team this summer. She is doing a traineeship and is already perfectly trained in "classical conditioning", "non-associative learning" and "operant conditioning". During her traineeship she reports to Andrea Huber and is responsible for sleeping and security issues. We wish her a great and inspiring time at our chair and are looking forward to take her for a walk!

August 12th, 2013, New dates for viewing exams „Organsiation & Führung”

We offer two exam checks on Sept 25th and Sept 26th (both between 13:00-16:00 o'clock). If you want to have a look at your exam please send an email to Karen Ariane Schweg before Sept 13th for registration and state which date and time you would prefer. Thx.!

July 19h, 2013, Magic Mountain Bern

This years "Summer Magic Mountain" - our so called strategy workshop - brought us to Bern. Our colleague Maike Dreuth, who still lives in Bern, organized a boat trip on the river Aare. We started at Thun and then went down the river to Bern where our strategy workshop took place. It is always a fruitful time together with the whole team in order to discuss recent and upcoming topics for which we do not find the time during the daily work. For more pictures of our boat trip please click here.

July 12th, 2013, Recent and Upcoming Publications

This week we received the print version of the actual issue of Organization Studies containing an article of Stéphane Guérard and our current researcher in residence Katarina Sikavica. In Guérard's article with the title "Turning Point Mechanisms in a Dualistic Process Model of Institutional Emergence" the authors investigate the emergence of a normative institution, namely the diesel particulate filter as a de facto standard for diesel cars in Germany and develop a dualistic process model of institutional emergence which reflects the fundamental oppositional character of institutional actors involved in a series of framing contests. In Sikavica's article with the title "Paradise Sold: Resource Partitioning and the Organic Movement in the US Farming Industry" the authors offer an answer to the question of how and when markets may partition in a stable way: by generating sharply defined specialist form identities whose definitional code includes limits to organizational growth. Moreover we are glad to announce the following recently published or forthcoming papers:

July 10th, 2013, 29th EGOS Colloquium in Montréal

We are back from the 29th EGOS Colloquium in Montréal. For the first time, the Colloquium of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) was held outside Europe! According to this the topic of the Colloquium "Bridging Continents, Cultures and Worldviews" fitted perfectly to Montréal, as the city is known for its bridging culture between North America and Europe. Our team presented their present research at the different sub-themes and got fruitful feedbacks for further improvements. Moreover, we used this possibility to meet Violetta Splitter and Stéphane Guérard, which are currently visiting researchers affiliated at the HEC Montréal and the Stanford University. We are already looking forward to the 30th EGOS Colloquium taking place in Rotterdam.

July 9th, 2013, Grades for Organisation Theories FS 13 available

To see your grade please click here. We offer exam check on Friday, July 12th and Monday, July 15th: 2pm-6pm, If you want to check your exam please write an email to shenghui.ma@uzh.ch in advance for registration.

July 5th, 2013, Grades for Organisation & Führung FS 13 available

To see your grade please click here. We offer two exam checks on Sept 23rd and Sept 26th (both between 13:00-16:00 o'clock). If you want to have a look at your exam please send an email to Karen Ariane Schweg before Sept 13th for registration and state which date and time you would prefer. Thx.!

June 25th, 2013, Violetta Splitter at HEC Montréal

From April to September our colleague Violetta Splitter is visiting HEC Montréal in Canada. During her research stay, she is affiliated with Ann Langley and Linda Rouleau, who support her project on strategy education. It is a great opportunity for her to have an extensive exchange with other researchers and to discuss her project within this inspiring environment. We wish her a great time with these outstanding scholars and are looking forward to meet her next week in Montréal at the 29th EGOS Colloquium!

June 24th, 2013, SMS Special Conference on Strategy in Complex Settings

Last week parts of our team joined the SMS Special Conference on "Strategy in Complex Settings" in Glasgow. The focus of the conference was on complex, multi-stakeholder settings which feature high levels of ambiguity, non-linearity, uncertainty and interdependence and asked whether new approaches to strategy and strategic management are required to deal with such settings. David Seidl together with Loizos Heracleous hosted a track on "Strategy Practices in Complex Settings". Moreover, Shenghui Ma and Felix Werle presented their current papers on CEO-succession and inter-organizational strategizing. On the photo you could see our conference delegation together with the two conference program co-chairs Robert MacIntosh and Donald MacLean. Do you find the Scots?

June 20th, 2013, Researcher in Residence: Paul Spee

This week Paul Spee (UQ Business School, Brisbane, Australia) is joining our team as a researcher in residence. To foster collaboration with our team, Paul (on the photo next to David) presented his current working paper "What are you talking about? Is it strategy?". The paper is part of Paul’s research, which conceptualizes strategy-making as a communicative process. In addition, Paul investigates the role of artefacts in strategizing activities, such as strategy tools or spreadsheets. Paul’s research visit is part of a research exchange scheme via the Strategy-as-Practice International Network. We wish him a great time at our chair!

May 30th, 2013, Master Thesis in Cooperation with Ringier AG

We offer an interesting and challenging master thesis in cooperation with Ringier AG. Since the digitalization of media content the media industry in general and the print media sector in specific struggle with the monetization of new media content. The master thesis aims to explore the challenges of new media in order to adjust the losses in the print sector. Ringi­er is the largest internationally operating Swiss me­dia compa­ny, produc­ing over 120 newspapers and mag­a­zines. It also runs print­ing plants, sev­eral ra­dio and TV stations and well over 80 web and mobile platforms. More detailed information could be found here.

May 21st, 2013, Semester Party with Deloitte

Last Thursday Deloitte hosted our annual semester party. All the members of the management talents were invited to the Bistro Quadrino at the top of the Zürichberg to celebrate the ending of this years spring semester. Once again the students took the opportunity to chat with consultants to learn more about this exciting profession. Many thanks to Deloitte for this great evening! If you want to learn more about our management talents program, which offers a range of extracurricular workshops and seminars for motivated and performance-oriented students, please check www.management-talents.ch.

May 14th, 2013, Qualitative Research with Nvivo

Nvivo is a software supporting qualitative and mixed methods research. QSR International will be offering a two-day workshop on Nvivo 10 on June 25th and 26th at the University of Zurich. The workshop will be in English and the fee will be EUR 390 for students and EUR 474 for academics. For registration and further information on the workshop, please contact Sarah Murphy.

May 13th, 2013, New Researcher in Residence: Katarina Sikavica

From today on Katarina Sikavica is our new researcher in residence. Kate is passionate about the notion of ownership in organizations. Beyond shareholdings and property rights, she wants to understand the cognitions and emotions underlying ownership of organizations and investigates the implications thereof for organizational members' behavior. Her research cuts across organizational layers to include investors, managers, and employees. She draws on both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques employing MAXQDA and Stata software packages. She holds an MA in communication science (University of Zurich) and a PhD in international management (University of St. Gallen). Moreover she received part of her training and conducted investigations at the Kellogg School of Management (NWU), the W.P. Carey School of Business (ASU), and the Wharton School (UPenn). She is the recipient of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Union's Marie Curie IEF fellowships.

May 04th, 2013, SOLA Relay Race 2013

This weekend our chair participated at the famous "SOLA Stafette", which takes place every year in and around Zurich. It is an annual sports event and consists of 14 sections over a total distance of 140 kilometers. More than 900 teams with around 12'500 runners participated this year. Our team with the name "Duracell Bunnies" achieved rang 751 with an average speed of 5:39 minutes per kilometer. We had a great time and are looking forward to the next SOLA in 2014! For more pics click here.

April 29th, 2013, New Research Project: "Research conditions, social capital and gender at the University of Zurich"

This month Katja Rost, David Seidl and Constantin Schoen initiated together with the Office for Gender Equality a new research project on gender equality. The project focuses on three basic questions: 1. Do we have gender differences in the research conditions at the UZH?; 2. Do we have gender differences in the social network behavior; and 3. If differences in research conditions and social network behavior appear, are we able to explain the differences in conditions with the help of gender-specific network behavior? The results have the aim to evaluate former gender equality measures and if necessary help to improve them. The project is part of the 2013 – 2016 action plans.

April 22nd, 2013, Stéphane Guérard at Stanford University

Stéphane Guérard has been invited by Richard Scott as visiting scholar at the Sociology Department of Stanford University. Since August 2012 he is at Stanford and works on research projects related to organizational deviance and institutions, spaces of institutional work as well organizational routines. As an informal member of SCANCOR, he participates in different activities and organizes guest speakers next to his research. Moreover he has been invited to present his work at UC Davis and at the University of Alberta. We are already looking forward to welcome him in Zurich this summer and wish him and his family a sunny and fruitful remaining stay in California!

April 18th, 2013, Martin Kornberger on Strategy as Performative Practice

Today Martin Kornberger (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark) visited our chair to give a talk on strategy as performative practice. Within in his talk he focused on the relation between strategy-as-practice and its power effects in the context of the strategy project "Sustainable Sydney 2030" executed by the City of Sydney. Moreover he introduced us into topics like city-planning, new public management and the notion of performativity. We wish him a pleasant stay in Switzerland and thank him for his exciting talk!

April 11th, 2013, New Team Member - Maike Dreuth

We welcome our new team member Maike Dreuth! Maike just started in the beginning of March as research associate and PhD candidate at our chair. Maike holds a Bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Fribourg and received a Master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Bern. In her master thesis Maike analyzed patient handovers at an hospital's emergency care unit with the help of qualitative as well as quantitative methods. Within her PhD project she explores the role of meetings in the strategy process of organizations. We wish her all the best for her project and a fruitful and exciting time at our chair!

April 10th, 2013, David Courpasson on Power and Resistance

This week David Courpasson (EMLYON Business School, Lyon) visited our chair to give a one day seminar on power and resistance. This seminar was part of our distinguished scholars seminar series and designed to introduce us to the theory of power and resistance in general as well as in the context of organizations. As power and resistance is a fruitful and broad concept all of us greatly benefited from this seminar. Thanks for coming!

March 28th, 2013, New Research Project: "The Role of Space in Institutional Work"

This project begins with the observation that there has been recent interest in conceptualizing institutional work as a collective phenomenon involving distributed agency. This trend supports the view that institutional change can be accomplished through "spatially dispersed" actors "with various kinds of levels of resources" and a set of "heterogeneous activities" (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007: 993). If institutional work – defined as the practices and activities related to creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions – involves spatially dispersed agents having access to different resources, the issue of where, how and with whom such work is performed is crucial since actors who may not have the legitimacy or the resources to operate in all settings at all times may be motivated to collaborate with others who can intervene in settings which would otherwise be difficult to access. These collaborations and activities occur in spaces of institutional work. In this research project we intend to examine where, how and with whom actors work in order to shape regulative and normative institutions. We will develop an in-depth longitudinal case-study with embedded unit of analysis. We are glad that this research project got subsidized by the SNF. For further questions please contact Stéphane Guérard.

March 19th, 2013, Magic Mountain Hasliberg

This years "Winter Magic Mountain" - our so called strategy workshop - took place in the Berner Oberland. We spend three days at the "Grini-Hüs", which is a nice little cabin with a great view of the famous Eiger north face and located in the small mountain village Hasliberg, Reuti. Within these three days we discussed research and administrative related topics concerning our team. In between we enjoyed the great skiing possibilities. Once again it was a fruitful strategy workshop and a great time with the whole team!

March 8th, 2013, Qualitative Writing with Karen Golden-Biddle

This week Karen Golden-Biddle (Boston University School of Management) visited our chair and introduced us to the theory and craft of writing work that is based on qualitative data. The seminar was conducted as a "studio" in which we used our time together to collectively examine and experiment with what is involved in academic writing and to give feedback on our own texts and questions. Therefore the course has been divided in class sessions and writing consults. Next to our team PhD students from the ETH Zürich, HSG and Warwick Business School were joining this exciting seminar. We had a great and fruitful time with Karen and would like to thank her again for coming over to Zürich!

February 26th, 2013, Goodbye Bo!

Last week Bo Chen left officially our team with a great Chinese Apéro. Bo has been part of our team since the founding of the chair in 2008. Since then he has done an excellent job and we are really sorry to let him go. We say THANK YOU once again for his great support and wish him all the best for his future!

February 18th, 2013, Welcome Back to the Spring Term!

We wish all students a good start to the upcoming spring term 2013! Enjoy the semester and the hopefully upcoming spring!!!

February 8th, 2013, Grades for Change Management HS12 available

To see your grade please click here. We offer two exam checks on Feb. 19th and Feb. 21st (both between 09:00-12:00 o'clock). If you want to have a look at your exam please send an email to Felix Langenmayr before Feb. 15th for registration and state which date and time you would prefer. Thx.!

January 28th, 2013, First Paper Party in 2013

Last Monday we had our first paper party in 2013. Together with Andreas Scherer and his team as well as Dominik van Aaken from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich we celebrated a number of recently published or forthcoming papers:

  • Baumann-Pauly, D., Wickert, C., Spence, L. & Scherer, A. G. (2013). Organizing Corporate Social Responsibility in Small and Large Firms: Size Matters. Forthcoming in Journal of Business Ethics.
  • Scherer, A., Palazzo, G. & Seidl, D. (2013). Managing Legitimacy in Complex and Heterogeneous Environments: Sustainable Development in a Globalized World. Forthcoming in Journal of Management Studies, 50(2).
  • Schoeneborn, D. & Trittin, H. (2013). Transcending Transmission: Towards a Constitutive Perspective on CSR Communication. Forthcoming in Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 18(2).
  • van Aaken, D., Splitter, V. & Seidl, D. (2013). Why do Corporate Actors Engage in Pro-Social Behavior? A Bourdieusian Perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility. Forthcoming in Organization.

We are looking forward to an exciting and successful 2013 and hope there will be some more paper parties!

December 23rd, 2012 - Tutors Wanted!

Looking for 4 tutors for our assessment lecture. We are currently looking for 4 highly motivated engaged tutors for our BWL II assessment lecture taking place in spring 2013. The tutors will support us with the OLAT forum, work with multiple choice questions and help with lecture materials. More details:

Tutor BWL 2 Job details

December 20th, 2012 - Seasonal Greetings

We had a great 2012 with many highlights like conferences in Helsinki or Boston, great seminars and lectures, awesome guests and student events. We say "thank you" to everybody, who was involved and helped us making it happen! Nevertheless we are looking forward to 2013 and are curious about all the upcoming challenges and highlights waiting for us. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December 13th, 2012 - Introduction to Social Movements with Klaus Weber

Last Wednesday Klaus Weber (Kellog School of Management) introduced us to the social movement literature. His seminar was part of our internal PhD colloquium and provided a general review of social movement research in the context of organizations and markets. Moreover Weber presented parts of his own research on social movements. In the afternoon some of us had the great opportunity to discuss with him their own research projects in order to get some inspiring comments. Thanks for coming and we wish him a great time here in Switzerland!

November 26th, 2012 - First "Talk Walk" Paper Session

This week our PhD Colloquium took place, within which all participating PhD students present their current research projects, as well as discuss additional papers. We mainly focused our readings and discussion on papers referring to sociomateriality and practice theory. The colloquium took three whole days and in order to revitalise in between one paper session was organized as a so called "talk walk". The idea is that talking-while-walking enhances thinking in ways not attainable behind a desk or in a seminar sitting down. Typically you decide on a topic and potentially some reading before the seminar and then go for a walk in pairs or threes and talk about it. The groups switches every 15 or 20 minutes so you get to talk to different people (e.g. signaled by whistles). The feedback was throughout positive and insofar we could highly recommend this way of refreshing discussions!


November 26th, 2012 - One-Day Seminar with Davide Nicolini

On the second day of our PhD colloquium last week, Davide Nicolini (Warwick Business School) gave a one-day seminar on practice theory. This seminar was structured on the assumption that a unified theory of practice does not exist. Practice theories constitute, in fact, a rather broad family of theoretical approaches connected by a web of historical and conceptual similarities. Accordingly while practice theories can offer a radically new way of understanding and explaining social and organizational phenomena, they can only be approached as a plurality. Accordingly during the sessions we discussed three different ways to approach phenomena from a practice-based perspective: workplace studies, activity theory, and the Heidegerrian tradition as it can be found in the work of T. Schatzki. We very much appreciate his visit and his comments on our individual research projects!


October 31st, 2012 - "Making Strategy" with Colin Eden

Colin Eden from the Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow, Scotland, visited us this week. In his hands-on workshop we discovered the concept of competitive advantages and the role of designed social negotiation in strategy making. The workshop illustrated the power of a group support system in making strategy. Colin Eden is the author of 11 books and over 150 peer reviewed articles in the field of strategic management, management science, problem structuring, group decision and negotiation, managerial and organisational cognition, collaboration, and project management.


October 17th, 2012 - Our colleague Katharina in Oxford

From October to December our colleague Katharina Dittrich is visiting the Said Business School at the University of Oxford. During her research stay, she is affiliated with Richard Whittington and works primarily on her data analysis. It is a great opportunity for her to have an extensive exchange with other researchers and to discuss her findings within this inspiring environment. We wish her a great time at the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Enjoy the spirit!


October 4th, 2012 - Magic Mountain at the Spitzingsee

This years Magic Mountain - our so called strategy meeting, which takes place once a semester - took place at the Spitzingsee (Bavaria). We spend two days at the "Blecksteinhaus", which is a nice little cabin in the middle of the beautiful bavarian alps. Within these two days we discussed our current projects and future aims as well upcoming tasks. In return for these two intensive working days we visited the "Wiesn" ("Oktoberfest") in Munich, which is taking place at the moment. Once again it was a fruitful strategy meeting and a great time with the whole team!


September 16th, 2012 - Qualitative Analysis with Martha S. Feldman

This week Martha S. Feldman (University of California, Irvine) visited our chair to hold a seminar on qualitative data analysis. The workshop was designed to introduce Ph.D. students to the theory and practice of analyzing qualitative data. The students learned using the analysis as a way not only to validate findings, but also to support creativity and imaginative theorizing. The course was split into a seminar session in which the students discussed the different ways of analysing qualitative data and a "hands on" session in which the students used different techniques to discover features of their individual projects. We really appreciated this great opportunity to dig deeper into our data and say: "Martha, thanks a lot for coming!"


September 16th, 2012 - Team "Sunrise" at our Chair

This week Niklaus Brühlmann, Raphael Frey, Stefan Grossmann and Fabian Mazzolini, who won with their team the Accenture Case Challenge 2012 visited our office to celebrate their great success. We are proud of their achievement and wish them all the best for their future challenges! For more information please read the article.


September 4th, 2012 - Nomination for the Louis R. Pondy Best Paper Award

We congratulate Stéphane Guérard for having been nominated for the Louis R. Pondy best paper award. His paper with the title "Testing, Contesting and Legitimizing Technology Diffusion in Regulated Environments" is nominated for the Louis R. Pondy best paper award based on a dissertation (OMT division), Academy of Management, July 2012. Based on a longitudinal case study approach, this paper shows that the legitimation processes of technology diffusion in regulated environments is subjected to distinct power struggles manifested in different framing contests. We wish him all the best for his nomination and are looking forward to the final results!


August 12th, 2012 - Best Student Paper Award goes to Felix Werle

At this years Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2012 in Boston our colleague Felix Werle won a best paper award. He received the Best Student Paper Award from the Strategizing Activities and Practice Interest Group of the Academy of Management for the paper "Inter-Organizational Strategizing as Extension of Sensemaking Capacities". Congratulations! Moreover our team had a great time in Boston and had been responsible for about ten presentations and talks at the conference. We are already looking forward to the next AOM in Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), Florida.


July 23rd, 2012 - Symposium on Practical relevance of SAP

At the upcoming Academy of Management annual meeting in Boston Violetta Splitter and David Seidl together with Loizos Heracleous (Warwick) host a Symposium on the topic: "Practical Relevance of Practice-based Approaches to Strategy". The symposium presents recent research discussing the prospects and challenges of attempts at making strategy research more relevant to management practice. For discussing this highly relevant topic they invited Richard Whittington (Said Business School), Jorgen Sandberg (U. of Queensland) and Eero Vaara (Hanken School of Economics). We are looking forward to this great possibility of exchange! For more information please check here.


July 15th, 2012 - Congratulations to the Team "Sunrise"

We congratulate the Team "Sunrise" consisting of Daniela Forrer, Niklaus Brühlmann, Raphael Frey, Stefan Grossmann and Fabian Mazzolini on winning the Accenture Case Challenge 2012. This case challenge is a competition advertised by the the consulting and technology services company Accenture. 500 students from 32 universities (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) took part in the competition. The finals and awards ceremony took place on 5th and 6th July in Frankfurt. It is the first time in the history of this highly desired challenge that a team from the University of Zurich won the finals! We encourage highly motivated students to take part in the next challenge, which is integrated in one of our seminars. For more information please read the article.


July 15th, 2012 - 28th EGOS Colloquium Helsinki

This years annual EGOS Colloquium took place in Helsinki, Finland. Our team followed the invitation to the northern part of Europe to present our actual research projects. Next to this there have been a lot of other informal possibilities to connect with other researchers for discussing our present challenges and projects. We had a great time in Helsinki and say "Thank you" to all the colloquium organizers! Now we are looking forward to the upcoming Academy of Management 2012 Annual Meeting in Boston. Cu there...


July 3rd, 2012 - Grades for Organization Theories available!

To see your grade please click here. We offer exam check on July 27th and July 30th. If you want to check your exam please send an email to shenghui.ma<at>uzh.ch before July 16th for registration.


July 2nd, 2012 - Grades for Organisation und Führung available!

To see your grade please click here.


July 2nd, 2012 - OM Ping-Pong Tournament

Last Tuesday the first "OM Ping-Pong Tournament" took place. Fourteen competitors started to play against each other, but only Patrick Haack (3rd place), Shenghui Ma, Peter Rosenkranz and David Seidl made it through the group stage. In the final David Seidl struggled with Peter Rosenkranz, who won after 3 thrilling sets the tournament. Congratulations!


June 19th, 2012 - Semester assistant in the IT area wanted!

We are looking for a semester assistent in the IT area from october 1st 2012 on. For more information please look here.


June 13th, 2012 - Shenghui Ma receives research grant

Our colleague Shenghui Ma receives the "Candoc Funding" from the University of Zurich for his project on CEO succession. This highly desired funding goes toward supporting superior PhD projects. Ma's project examines what new CEOs really do in the post-succession period. His research conceptualizes this period as two co-evolving processes of leader integration and strategic change. By longitudinal comparative case studies, his project aims to explore how the two processes co-evolve over time and how they shape organizational outcomes. We wish him all the best for his project!


June 6th, 2012 - Congratulations to the winners of our Accenture Case Study Seminar

The team "Sunrise" consisting of Daniela Forrer, Niklaus Brühlmann, Raphael Frey and Stefan Grossmann completely convinced the jury with their "house of social media" - we wish the team good luck for their presentation in the regional finale of the Accenture Challenge.


May 22nd, 2012 - Distinguished Guest Scholar - Loizos Heracleous

This week Loizos Heracleous from the Warwick Business School (WBS) joins our chair to talk with us about our research projects. Before joining Warwick Business School, Loizos was Reader in Strategy at the Said Business School and Official Fellow of Templeton College at Oxford University, and Associate Professor of Business Policy at the National University of Singapore. He has authored five books and over 50 articles published in leading journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Human Relations, Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. His research interests are in between strategic management, organisational discourse and organisational change and development. We are looking forward to some exciting talks and wish him a pleasant time here in Zurich.


May 11th, 2012 - Semester Party with Deloitte

Last Thursday Deloitte hosted our semester party. All the members of the management talents were invited to the Sphères to celebrate the ending of this years spring semester. Once again the students took the opportunity to chat with consultants and to learn more about this exciting profession. Many thanks to Deloitte for this great evening! For more information please check: http://management-talents.ch.


May 5th, 2012 - Workshops with PwC and ATKearney

During the last two weeks members of the "Management Talents" joined two exciting workshops. The first workshop was hosted by PwC. Within this workshop the students got to know how to present in front of a client and were able to improve their own presentation skills. One week later the students joined a workshop with ATKearney, where they got to know how job interviews work and how they could improve their chances within these interviews. For more information please check http://management-talents.ch.


Apr 29th, 2012 - Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series with Michael Lounsbury

Last wednesday Michael Lounsbury from the University of Alberta visited our chair and gave a seminar on the "Origins and evolution of new institutionalist thought". In the first part of the seminar he gave us a delightful insight into the origins and development of institutionalism. In the second part of the seminar we discussed current developments in institutional theory based on his book "The institutional logics perspective: A new approach to culture, structure and process".


Apr 16th, 2012 - Brown Bag Seminar with Florian Ueberbacher

This time we will have a special guest from St. Gallen: Florian Ueberbacher will present his work with the title "How New Venture Legitimation Practices Evolve: The Relevance of Cultural Knowledge for Strategic Legitimation".

If you are interested in this topic we would invite you to join us this Thursday, at 12:30 in the library at the Universitätsstrasse 84. Just write an email to katharina.dittrich<at>business.uzh.ch.


Mar 28th, 2012 - New Researcher in Residence - Claus D. Jacobs

We welcome our new researcher in residence Claus D. Jacobs. Jacobs is Professor of Strategy and Organization at the Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on strategic management and organizational change in general and on discursive practices of strategizing and organizing in particular. His current research project, «Strategy as Discourse – Reconstructing a Social Practice» (Swiss NSF sponsored project) explores systematically the discursive dynamics and patterns in distinctively different empirical settings, namely for profit, non-profit and public-private partnership. From June on he will explore how organizations in different pluralistic settings strive for the hard to attain balance between internal and external legitimacy as source of competitive advantage. We are looking forward to an exciting research stay and wish him a pleasant time here in Zurich!


Mar 26th, 2012 - New Student Assisstant

We welcome Julian Renninger as new student assistant. Julian is studying economics at the UZH for six semesters. Next to his studies he is an active member of the student union and is highly interested in the japanese culture. We wish him an interesting and exciting time at our chair.


Mar 17th, 2012 - Welcome David

We welcome our new chair child David and would like to congratulate the proud parents Diana and Stéphane.






Mar 6th, 2012 - Management Talents UZH

Finally: The old Champions League has its new website and was at the same time renamed to Management Talents UZH. We are very happy about our new look and name. Please visit us at our new homepage. We are also happy to receive promising applications from interested students. For further information please check www.management-talents.ch.


Feb 28th, 2012 - New Seminar on Network Analysis

Today our new seminar for master students with the title "Hidden networks - Practical application of network analysis in organizations" starts. It is a newly developed seminar, which is mainly based on the book "Unsichtbare Netzwerke" ("hidden networks") by Boris Ricken and David Seidl. In this seminar the two authors together with Felix Langenmayr are trying to link social network analysis with managerial topics like business processing, knowledge transfer or human resource management. For detailed information please click here.


Feb 14th, 2012 - "Change Management" Exam Results Online

The results of the change management examination are online. You can find your grade here.
There is the possibility to have a look at your exam (Prüfungseinsicht) on the following dates: March, 2nd from 10:00 to 11:30 and March, 5th from 14:00 to 15:30. Please send an email to Katharina to reserve a spot. Bring your Legi along!


Feb 10th, 2012 - New Researcher in Residence

Dominik van Aaken from the Institute of Production Management & Management Accounting (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich) is visiting our chair for a couple of month. He is the second official R-in-R visiting us. During his research stay at our chair he is working together with David Seidl on a project investigating the success factors of strategy workshops. We wish him an exciting and pleasant time here in Zurich!.


Jan 26th, 2012 - We are looking for committed Tutors

For the upcoming spring term 2012 we are looking for two tutors, who are willing to help us organizing the assessment lecture "BWL II". Your tasks would be: (1) supervision of the "OLAT-Forum"; (2) proof-reading of multiple choice questions; and (3) designing and revising slides. Therefore you would get 3 ECTS points and a lot of experiences. If you are interested please click here.


Jan 23rd, 2012 - First Brown Bag Seminar 2012

The Brown Bag Lunches are a series of informal meetings where junior and senior scholars interested in organizational theories and phenomena meet over lunch to discuss a current project or paper. Typically, one scholar presents his or her project/ paper informally (without PPP!) and afterwards a lively discussion ensues, providing the scholar with a great opportunity to receive feedback from likeminded peers. This time Hannah Trittin will present her work on: "„Too white, too German, too male“ - Reconstructing diversity as polyphony". If you are interested in this topic we would invite you to join us this Thursday, at 12:30 in the library at the Universitätsstrasse 84.


Dec 29th, 2011 - 2012 Gives Us a New Look

Just in time we managed to finalize the relaunch of our new website! We are looking forward to your feedback and comments!
Again best wishes for a happy, safe and prosperous 2012!



Dec 24th, 2011 - Season's Greetings

We wish you a peaceful holiday season and a happy prosperous new year. We really had a great time in 2011 and are now looking forward to 2012... CU there!





Dec 19th, 2011 - Christmas Dinner

Last monday our chair had his annual christmas dinner. After we had made our own "Raeblilichter" (traditional swiss lanterns made of a beet) and had brewed our own mulled wine, we walked to the famous "Chäsalp", which is located at the top of the Züriberg. The price for the most beautiful lantern went to Stéphane Guérard and Shenghui Ma. Congrats!


Dec 14th, 2011 - Ho ho ho

On December 8th we celebrated together with the Champions League members, hot spiced wine and grilled sausages the end of the semester. It was great fun to have all of you together for the evening and we look forward to the next semester and its Champions League seminars.


Nov 30th, 2011 - Mission and Vision Statement

We have completed our vision and mission statements. Over a period of two years we have met two times a year somewhere in the Swiss Alps to have one of our strategic meetings called "Magic Mountain" to discuss our aims and visions for the chair of organization and management. We are proud to present you the final result in the form of a poster, which summarizes our intensive, yet fruitful and manifold discussions. Because we really had a nice and productive time together, we are looking forward to the next "Magic Mountain", which takes place at the beginning of next year somewhere near Laax!


Nov 19th, 2011 - "Next Seminar" - Dirk Baecker on sociological systems theory and "next organization"

On Wednesday, November 23, 2011, 11 am - 1pm, Dirk Baecker (Zeppelin-University, Friedrichshafen) is going to visit our chair to talk about social systems theory within organization sciences and how organizations might look like in a society, that is highly influenced by the usage of computers and communication via internet ("next society"). If you would like to join his talk, just write Felix Langenmayr (mailto:felix.langenmayr<at>business.uzh.ch) a short email. In preparation for the session, we recommend reading: "The basic concepts of Luhmann's theory of social systems" (Seidl, 2005) and "Communication with computers, or how next society calls for an understanding of temporal form" (Baecker, 2007). For those, who are not yet involved in social systems theory, we would like to invite you as well to a short preparation session prior to the talk from 10-11 p.m. The talk as well the preparing session will take place at our seminar room (Universitätsstrasse 84; Room: UNK E 2).


Nov 14th, 2011 - Brown Bag Lunch with Stéphane Guérard and Bozhena Dimitrova

This time we will have a special presentation, with Stéphane Guérard and Bozhena Dimitrova (master student at UZH) discussing their project of "Theorizing from a case study: Institutional change and the wonder drug for breast cancer". It will take place at 12:30 in the library at the Universitätsstrasse 84. If you would like to join please write a short email to Katharina Dittrich (katharina.dittrich<at>uzh.ch).


Nov 9th, 2011 - The Semester Award goes to... Enzo Bertuzzi

The semester award for outstanding bachelor and master thesis, which comes with price money of 600 CHF goes to Enzo Bertuzzi. His bachelor thesis with the title "Dynamic Capabilities with regard to the Concept of Bricolage" won the price within the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology. In his work Bertuzzi links the concept of "Bricolage" with the concept of "Dynamic Capabilities" for exploring their micro-mechanisms. The thesis was supervised by our research assistant Katharina Dittrich. Congratulations! The awarded theses are published on http://www.uzh.ch/about/faculties/information/semesterprize.html.


Nov 3rd, 2011 - Welcome Dvora Yanow - Seminar on Organizational Ethnography

After we had a great time with Dvora Yanow in May 2011, when she introduced us to organizational ethnography within her first seminar here in Zurich, we are all looking forward to this second seminar on organizational ethnography. It is designed to explore the ins and outs of writing papers in organizational ethnography. The seminar will take place from Nov 7th-11th, 2011. At this occasion, she will animate a discussion on the place of organizational ethnography in organization studies and will provide individual feedback on papers.

Dvora Yanow's research has been shaped by an overall interest in the communication of meaning in organizational and policy settings. She is the author of How does a policy mean? Interpreting policy and organizational actions (Georgetown University Press, 1996); Conducting interpretive policy analysis (Sage, 2000); and Constructing "race” and “ethnicity" in America: Category-making in public policy and administration (M E Sharpe, 2003, winner of the 2004 ASPA and 2007 Herbert A. Simon-APSA book awards) and co-editor of Knowing in organizations: A practice-based approach (M E Sharpe, 2003), interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn (M E Sharpe, 2006), Organizational ethnography: Studying the complexities of everyday life (Sage, 2009), and the forthcoming Organizational spaces: Rematerializing the workaday world (Edward Elgar, 2010), as well as the new Routledge Book Series on Interpretive Methods. Current projects include comparative immigrant and integration policies, Dutch race-ethnic category-making, reflective practice and practice studies, policy frames and framing, science museums and the idea of 'science,' organizational museums in relation to state identity formation, and US Institutional Review Board and other research regulatory policies and practices.


Oct 4th, 2011 - Zurich Workshop "Pursuing an Academic Career across Countries"

Last week our doctoral candidates joined a workshop on "Pursuing an Academic Career across Countries", which was mainly organized by the chair of Uschi Backes-Gellner (UZH). Together with other postgraduates from Germany, Switzerland and the United States the participants presented and discussed their research projects. Next to this the workshop addressed the question "How to set up an international academic career?" The workshop was led by Edward Zajac (Kellogg School of Management) and supported by Shahzad Ansari (University of Cambridge), Uschi Backes-Gellner (University of Zurich), Peer C. Fiss (University of Southern California), Thomas Mellewigt (Freie Universität, Berlin), Kim-Chi Trinh (National University of Singapore) and Anja Tuschke (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich). At this point we would like to thank everybody, who was involved in the organization of this extraordinary workshop!


Weiterführende Informationen

Suggestions

Distinguished Scholars Seminar Series

Upcoming events:

Theodore Schatzki on practices
September 7th to 9th, 2015 (syllabus)

Julia Balogun on data analysis
October 19th to 20th, 2015 (syllabus)

Ann Langley on publishing qualitative studies
December 17th-18th, 2015


Last Speakers:

Feng Liu
May 11th, 2015

Max Bergman
November 3rd-5th, 2014

Royston Greenwood
September 24th-26th, 2014

Sally Maitlis
May 7th-9th, 2014

Martin Kornberger
April 17th, 2013

David Courpasson
April 8th, 2013

Karen Golden-Biddle
March 6th-8th, 2013

Klaus Weber
December 12th, 2012

Davide Nicolini
November 22nd, 2012

Colin Eden
October 31st, 2012

Martha Feldman
Sept 10th-13th, 2012

Loizos Heracleous
May 21st-25th, 2012

Michael Lounsbury
April 25th, 2012

Dirk Baecker
November 23rd, 2011

Dvora Yanow
November 9th-11th, 2011

Dvora Yanow
May 25-27th, 2011

Bill McKinley
May 18th, May 24th,
June 1st & June 8th, 2011

Mats Alvesson
October 4th, 2010

Ann Langley
September 29th, 2010

Kathleen Eisenhardt
May 17th-19th, 2010
(Seminar Cancelled)

Hari Tsoukas
December 2nd-4th, 2009

Paula Jarzabkowski
October 19th-21st, 2009

Bill McKinley
June 9th, 2009

Anne Huff
May 18th-19th, 2009

equis