9th Organizational Storytelling Seminar

Careering across boundaries - storytelling perspectives
29-30 June 2006
UEA

Organised and hosted by Norwich Business School at UEA
Convener – Professor Yehuda Baruch

Seminar Report

The focus of this seminar was on careers in a dynamic boundaryless organizational word. We explored how people and organizations plan, manage, and develop careers – the working-life related journeys. We benefited from a vibrant, engaging and inspiring exchange of stories in Norwich, the Fine City. A fair blend of academic contributions and practical experiences included the following:

Keynote speeches:

Miasma, Polluted identities, paralysed selves - Yiannis Gabriel, Royal Holloway, University of London
Crossing Boundaries: Narrativist to Poly-Dialogic Stories - David Boje, University of New Mexico

Academic presentations:

  • Mobile Professionalism: Interpretations of ‘Career’ within a Mobile Computing Company - Johanna Hunt, University of Sussex
  • Boundaryless careers and subjectivity: the case of Information Technologists - Marc Zund, Free University Brussels
  • From the Monastery to the Prison: Stories of a Career Crisis - Majella O’Leary, Exeter University
  • Career concepts and career success across cultures - Katharina Chudzikowski, Barbara Demel, and Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
  • Narrating Professional Development Across Organizational Boundaries - Svenja Tams, University of Bath
  • Business case for equality and diversity: significance of storytelling - Mustafa Ozbilgin & Ahu Tatli, Queen’s Mary University, London

Practitioners presentations

  • Transformation through the Power of Story in Norwich Union - Karen Stefanyszyn, Norwich Union
  • Are stories a legitimate business tool in today’s post modern organization - Mike Burrett: Vice President – Sensor, The Netherlands
A panel on Academic Careers’ stories, led by Yehuda Baruch

Workshops

  • A Master-class in Storytelling Techniques - Lily Pender & Josh Gaillemin, TheWholeStory
The participants also enjoyed a Tour of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and a City Tour – Life stories of Norwich People.