Who should attend

Extreme contexts include organisational settings where operations are constantly exposed to risks of harmful events (e.g. oil drilling, storm chasing, prisons), organisations and occupations that are designed to respond to actual emergencies (e.g. emergency departments, police, firefighting), and when organisations are disrupted by unexpected and sometimes horrific events like wars, terrorism, natural disasters and pandemics (Hällgren, Rouleau, & de Rond, 2018).

The WBS one-day Summer School on Extreme Contexts research is tailored to be of interest to:

• doctoral students and early career researchers who have collected rich data in an extreme context but are stuck on how to move from data to theory.
• scholars who conduct research in extreme contexts as their primary interest;
• scholars who are ‘dipping their toe’ in this area by joining research projects that involve collecting data in an extreme context;
• scholars who are struggling with how to theorise data collected during Covid-19, when mundane organisational field-sites and workplaces became extreme through the pandemic disruption; and
• doctoral students and early career researchers who have collected rich data in an extreme context but are stuck on how to move from data to theory.

References:

Hällgren, M., Rouleau, L., & de Rond, M. 2018. A matter of life or death: How extreme context research matters for management and organization studies. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1): 111-153.

Wright, A. L., Kent, D., Hallgren, M., & Rouleau, L. 2023. Theorizing as mode of engagement in and through extreme contexts research. Organization Theory, 4(4): https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877231217310.

What will I learn?

The Summer School program features interactive sessions on the topics of:

• how physical danger, vulnerability and unpredictability impact on data collection through fieldwork in extreme contexts;
• how to analyse data in ways that are generative, reflexive and move beyond description of a context’s extremeness;

• how to theorise using four different modes of engagement: Adventuresome Inquiry, Instrumental Scholarship, Ideological Improvement, Reflexive Labor;

• how to write up extreme contexts research in ways that convince editors and reviewers there is an interesting empirical story matched with a novel theoretical contribution; and

• roundtable discussions and feedback on participant’s own research projects associated with extreme contexts.

Sessions will be taught by WBS scholars who are at the forefront of shaping extreme contexts as a field of scholarly inquiry, including April Wright, Derin Kent, Adrian Marrison, Lee Jarvis and Paul Hibbert.

To register, please make payment of £60.00 registration fee -

April L. Wright (Professor of Organisation Studies, WBS) is a senior scholar in the extreme contexts research community. April co-organises the global online Extreme Contexts Seminar Series, is a member of the EGOS Standing Working Group on extreme contexts, and is co-editing the forthcoming Oxford University Press book on Extreme Contexts and Process Studies. Her work on modes of engagement, published in Organization Theory, has helped advance theorising in extreme contexts research. In her empirical research, April applies organisational and institutional theory to explore frontline professional work in the face of risks, emergencies and disruptions. April has led a major program of longitudinal field research in hospital emergency departments in Australia, while other projects include investigating novice physicians in Africa, university teaching during Covid, and community responses to institutional disruption during floods and bushfires. Her empirical research has been published in leading journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and British Journal of Management. April is currently an Associate Editor of the JMS Says essay section at the Journal of Management Studies, and an editorial board member of the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies, and Organizational Research Methods. She is a former Associate Editor at the Journal of Management and Academy of Management Learning and Education.

Derin Kent (Assistant Professor of Organisation Studies, WBS) is an early-career scholar who has played a leading role in the development of the extreme contexts research community internationally in recent years. Together with April Wright, Markus Hällgren and Linda Rouleau, Derin has published on theorising extreme contexts as modes of engagement and co-organizes the

Extreme Contexts Seminar Series, an international and interdisciplinary workshop series bringing together the community of extreme contexts researchers. Derin’s empirical research explores how people work and thrive in extreme contexts that are physically or psychologically dangerous, embedding as an ethnographer where possible and investigating the potential for meaningful work and identity development in these contexts. He has conducted empirical studies of storm chasing teams, seafarers, and physicians responding to lethal viruses. Derin’s research appears or is forthcoming in the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies, Organization Theory, and Harvard Business Review.

Paul Hibbert (Professor of Organisation Studies, WBS) is an expert in reflexive practice and its application to research methods and lived experiences of vulnerability, including in extreme contexts research. Paul’s empirical and conceptual research is principally focused on reflexive practice within the broader context of processes of organizing and learning. His work has been published in international journals such as Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Leadership Quarterly, Organizational Research Methods, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Management Learning and Journal of Management Education. Paul is the current co-Editor-in-Chief of British Journal of Management, former Editor-in-Chief of Academy of Management Learning & Education, and former Associate Editor of Management Learning. Paul is currently an editorial board member of Organizational Research Methods, Management Learning, and Academy of Management Learning & Education. Paul is a Fellow of the British Academy of Management and the Academy of Social Sciences and former Chair of the international Academy of Management’s Management Education and Development Division. Paul’s published book on How to be a Reflexive Researcher (2021) is especially relevant for extreme contexts researchers

 

Lee Jarvis (Associate Professor, WBS) brings an institutional perspective to the study of extreme contexts, drawing on emotions, individual identity construction, and organisational stigma. His studies have looked at a diverse array of empirical contexts, including animal rights advocacy, addiction treatment organisations, and professional associations, and he is involved in a current research project exploring institutional disruption during extreme weather events. Lee’s work has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, and Organization Studies.

Adrian Marrison (Assistant Professor, WBS) is an organizational ethnographer who seeks to understand and explain how work is experienced, navigated and accomplished in organizational contexts that are risky and dangerous. He has conducted a twelve-month ethnography in a prison and has studied online paedophile hunters. Adrian’s research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal