Renate E. Meyer
EGOS Honorary Member 2024
Laudation by Silviya Svejenova
It is an immense honor and a great pleasure to present – on behalf of the EGOS Board and community – the 2024 EGOS Honorary Member: Renate Meyer. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate 50 years of EGOS and 40 EGOS Colloquia than with recognizing and warmly thanking Renate for her tremendous contributions to our field and community.
Below, I highlight – in the brevity of time and with generous help from Renate’s collaborators and friends – what makes
her an unrivaled honorary member: her being an exceptionally dedicated EGOSian, an impressive organizational scholar, and
an amazing human, with whom I have had the privilege to work closely at EGOS and whom I highly admire; a dear colleague and
a true friend!
Exceptionally dedicated EGOSian
EGOS has been a hospitable intellectual home for Renate from the very first moment she joined a sub-theme 25 years ago. Yet,
hospitable organizations, such as EGOS, do not just happen. They need incessant invisible work, which Renate has tirelessly
provided, serving in any possible (and impossible) capacity. She has been a colloquium co-organizer (Vienna 2007), EGOS Board
member (2008–2017), EGOS Treasurer, and EGOS Chair (2011–2014). In her multiple service roles, Renate has always deeply cared
for the community, ensured sound governance, and collectively curated a strong academic agenda. When EGOS has been through
some challenging times, she has provided clarity, direction, and continuity.
At EGOS Colloquia, she is ubiquitous (like in metaverse – everything, everywhere, all at once), organizing (and participating
in) sub-themes, sub-plenaries, Standing Working Groups, PhD workshop, and more; she is backstage, on stage, and not least
on the dancing floor! She is there for PhD students and for each of us, whatever the junction of our journey, with spot-on
feedback, cool ideas, and ongoing support. As our dear Angelika, Head of the EGOS Secretariat, who sees and knows it all confirms,
there isn’t a single aspect of EGOS that hasn’t profited from Renate’s wisdom, team spirit, and perceptive and inclusive leadership.
Renate’s EGOS contributions also involve its journal Organization Studies, of which she has been a co-Editor-in-chief, inspiring new initiatives and, I am told, taking one for the team. Our dear
Sophia, Organization Studies Managing Editor, emphasizes Renate’s impressive capacity to navigate even the trickiest intellectual maze with an “Eagle-Eye”
and a touch of magic. That also gives Renate superpowers as she transforms into the beloved coach of the journal’s soccer
teams (you can see her in fearless action at the Friday’s tournament!).
Renate is a trailblazer, building bridges for EGOS across geographies and research traditions. As EGOS Chair, she established
a close partnership with the OMT division of the Academy of Management, which has enhanced the quality and richness of organizational
scholarship. She became OMT’s first European-based female chair in 2021. As Organization Studies’ Editor-in-Chief, she co-founded OMEN, the Organization and Management Editors’ Network, to enable discussions of common
concerns.
A most impressive organizational scholar
Renate is a highly original organizational researcher with profound and broad intellectual roots, well-read also off the beaten
path, and eager to explore new directions. Her research with various collaborators has significantly advanced European institutionalism,
drawing on phenomenological understanding and major current concerns. She has expanded our knowledge of the institutionalization
of management
ideas and their translation to other contexts, as well as pioneered the organizational study of multimodality, among numerous
other contributions to organization theory, management, urban governance, and more.
Renate’s collaborators define her scholarship style as one of infinite curiosity, theoretical depth, methodological imagination,
and research craftsmanship, combined with a deep sense of responsibility, tenacity, and care. Immensely hard-working and prolific,
Renate has worked on numerous collaborative research projects and has a most remarkable (in volume and quality) record of
scholarly publications, from articles in leading academic journals to influential monographs, edited volumes and book chapters.
She is also an excellent educator of new generations of researchers, genuinely interested in their professional growth and
career, and an inspiring role model for all.
For Renate, research is a highly relational, team endeavor. Part of her team has remained at WU Vienna for a long time,
while others have spread out to Berlin, Hamburg, Liverpool, Sydney, and other places, sustaining the collaboration, developing
further the ideas, and expanding the network.
Impressively international, Renate’s scholarship is also very homegrown, deeply embedded in institutions where she has
had a long-term commitment. She is a highly regarded colleague (and much enjoyed as a person) both in her native WU Vienna,
where she has been for over three decades (particularly the Department of Management, of which she currently is Department
Chair), and in her second home (for the past 15 years) at the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, where
she also has numerous collaborators and friends, and where we enormously enjoy her presence and engagement.
An amazing human
Very modest, Renate is also a VIP (very interesting person). She has many talents: a gentle gardener of beautiful plants,
an ardent knitter, and a deft builder of whimsical and impossibly high Lego castles. Renate’s fabulous fantasy universe likely
stems from the fragrant magnolia trees and hortensias in her native home in Styria, the cover-to-cover reading of Harry Potter
with her son Elias when he was small, the enjoyment of music with her family, preferably Bach, and perhaps also being a quarter
Italian (her grandfather), which makes her honoring here in Milan extra special.
Renate’s friends coincide in that she combines skills and sensitivities that are rarely, if at all, found in the same
person: she is both toughest, able to unravel the most convoluted situations, and kindest, offering ongoing help; down-to-earth
yet also full of quirky ideas; sustaining sharp focus while making incessant connections; playful and disciplined, with sense
of proportion and justice; firmly anchored in the moment, the now, and anticipating implications far ahead into the future;
wise and fun-loving. Serious, humorous, or ironic, she has passion for life and contagious vitality. She is a true friend,
someone with whom to enjoy Cuban cupcakes, a glass of bubbles, or a visit to Brussel’s Babette!
Dear Renate, on behalf of the EGOS Board and the entire EGOS community, thank you so much for being such an exceptionally
dedicated EGOSian, an impressive organizational scholar, and not least an amazing human, for being who you are!