Call for Papers

There is a strong tendency to misrecognize, misinterpret, or ignore local contextual issues when studies discuss or represent the Global South in the domain of management and organization studies (MOS). This has been the dominant trend despite the significant efforts of some management and organization researchers (MORs). These MORs often critically interrogate their own positioning or situatedness within the research contexts of the Global South and participate in critical research from rich traditions of core and periphery, postcolonial, transnational feminist, and other alternative and radical perspectives (Alamgir et al., 2022a; Chowdhury, 2017; Faria & Hemais, 2021; Greco, 2019; Mir & Mir, 2013; Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2022). Nevertheless, the dominance of the Western-centric research tradition is prominent in MOS, and representational issues concerning research on and from the Global South are yet to be addressed (Alcadipani, 2012, 2017; Chowdhury, 2022; Jammulamadaka et al., 2021; Khan, 2008).
 
More specifically, the dominant Western-centric knowledge practices in MOS indicate how research methodologies are deployed and, at the same time, ignore, omit, sanction, and suspend the contextual particularities crucial to the realities and needs of the Global South (Alamgir et al., 2022b; Chowdhury, 2022). Alternatively, by assimilating the differences, exclusionary knowledge practices offer sanitized accounts of organizing and managing practices that can be globally understood (Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2023). In current MOS, the dominance of liberal knowledge politics which enatils the Western epistemological and methodological views are clearly privileged (Alcadipani et al., 2012).
 
Within such arguments, we position our sub-theme. First, we emphasize that methods of knowledge production and institutional mechanisms of knowing must consider ‘who is talking about what, where, and why?’ and ‘for whom’ (Mir et al., 1995: 266). Second, we argue that, by invoking the idea of the problematization of agency in the Global South, we can uncover how the organically emerged collective experiential learnings of a locality can challenge the politics of authenticity and emancipation. Third, self and political reflexivity should define the ways and methods of the research we undertake (Abdelnour & Abu Moghli, 2021) to challenge epistemic neocolonialism (Chowdhury, 2022), especially when researching the Global South.
 
Departing from the above perspective, we would like our community to reflect upon the dimensions of place and time, and for whom and with whom we do research. This is particularly relevant because mainstream research in MOS neglects the context where and in which our field of inquiry occurs (McLaren & Durepos, 2019) and is non-reflexive. Thus, first, we invite papers that take the Global South context into account while planning and conducting the research and theorizing from the data gathered. Second, time is an essential dimension while carrying out research. We invite discussions on the aspect of time in a non-Western-centric manner when researching organizations in the Global South. Third, we want to investigate the people for and with whom we do our research. In our current academic culture of “target and terror” (Ratle et al., 2020), it is crucial to investigate for whom research is carried out in the Global South. At the same time, we cannot assume that the Global South is a single and discrete homogeneity; rather, we must embrace its local or regional diverse political and ethnic-cultural complexities when producing MOS knowledge about the Global South.
 
We believe that much remains to be done to challenge, critique, and overcome the limitations of current research about the Global South in organizational research. Our sub-theme aims to bring together scholars interested in producing or facilitating the production of organizational knowledge respecting the Global South’s particularities and diversities. We encourage scholars to send papers that offer new insights into and reflections on researching the Global South. Potential questions and topics that could be addressed include:

• What are the challenges and specificities of MOS in the Global South?

• How can Global South contexts inform MOS about diverse marginalized regions, groups and individuals?

• What are the methodological challenges of undertaking MOS in the Global South?

• How can we theorize from the Global South, producing accounts that can contribute to theory while respecting the local nuances?

• How can we problematize agency in knowledge that reflects organically emerged wisdom and collective experiential learnings of a locality and, thus, challenge the politics of authenticity and emancipation?

• How do researchers negotiate writing on Global South issues with the various intellectual and emotional resources they mobilize in the process, such as language and translation that complicate the research and writing processes?

• What strategies can we use to distinguish and decenter critical theoretical frameworks by reading and writing studies of organizations ‘beyond’ the Global North without assimilation?

• How can we develop collaborative and interdisciplinary projects that provide a space for management and organizational scholars to work with feminists from other disciplines, including, for example, anthropology and sociology, and by addressing issues such as gender, caste, ethnicity, and race and/or combining these with Dalit, Black, and transnational-feminist scholarship?

 
These are just a few suggestions. In addition, we are open to contributions addressing issues not listed here but that are relevant to our overarching theme.
 

References

• Abdelnour, S., & Abu Moghli, M. (2021): “Researching violent contexts: A call for political reflexivity.” Organization, first published online on July 15, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084211030646.
• Alamgir, F., Hari, B., & Raza, M. (2022a): “Challenges and Insights from South Asia for Imagining Ethical Organizations: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Journal of Business Ethics, 177 (4), 717–728.
• Alamgir, F., & Alamgir, F.I. (2022b): “Live or be left to die? Deregulated bodies and the global production network: Expendable workers of the Bangladeshi apparel industry in the time of Covid.” Organization, 29 (3), 478–501.
• Alcadipani, R. (2017): “Reclaiming sociological reduction: Analysing the circulation of management education in the periphery.” Management Learning, 48 (5), 535–551.
• Alcadipani, R., Khan, F.R., Gantman, E., & Nkomo, S. (2012): “Southern voices in management and organization knowledge.” Organization, 19 (2), 131–143.
• Chowdhury, R. (2017): “The Rana Plaza disaster and the complicit behavior of elite NGOs.” Organization, 24 (6), 938–949.
• Chowdhury, R. (2023): “Misrepresentation of Marginalized Groups: A Critique of Epistemic Neocolonialism.” Journal of Business Ethics, 186 (3), 553–570.
• Greco, E. (2019): “Global value relations and local labour control regimes in rice farming in Uganda and Tanzania.” Organization, 27 (2), 213–231.
• Jammulamadaka, N., Faria, A., Jack, G., & Ruggunan, S. (2021): “Decolonising management and organisational knowledge (MOK): Praxistical theorising for potential worlds.” Organization, 28 (5), 717–740.
• Khan, F.R. (2008): “Representational Approaches Matter.” Journal of Business Ethics, 73 (1), 77–89.
• McLaren, P.G. & Durepos, G. (2021): “A Call to Practice Context in Management and Organization Studies.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 30 (1), 74–84.
• Muzanenhamo, P. & Chowdhury, R. (2023): “A Critique of Vanishing Voice in Noncooperative Spaces: The Perspective of an Aspirant Black Female Intellectual Activist.” Journal of Business Ethics, 183 (1), 15–29.
• Muzanenhamo, P., & Chowdhury, R. (2022): “Leveraging from Racism: A Dual Structural Advantages Perspective.” Work, Employment and Society, 36 (1), 167–178.
• Ratle, O., Robinson, S., Bristow, A., & Kerr, R. (2020): “Mechanisms of micro-terror? Early career CMS academics’ experiences of ‘targets and terror’ in contemporary business schools.” Management Learning, 51 (4), 452–471.
• Mir, R., & Mir, A. (2013): “The colony writes back: Organization as an early champion of non-western organizational theory.” Organization, 20 (1), 91–101.
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