Provisional Table of Contents as of 2007-05-7. Four abstracts have been received and a further four have been promised. There is still room for further submissions. Publication date has been extended to late 2007 or early 2008.
With the intent of creating a better quality of management, this volume will assemble academic work concerning the application of positioning theory to leadership in business, government, military and other organisations. How can leaders position themselves to be better leaders? How can leaders position their subordinate leaders to be better leaders? How should leaders position their followers most effectively? How can followers position their leaders? How should the underlying mood be for effective leadership? Papers will be welcome from engineering, business, social science or other academic disciplines. The common theme is positioning theory applied to improve leadership. All papers will be double blind peer reviewed and, those accepted, included in a publication with an ISBN number that meets Australian Government, Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) requirements.
Briefly, Positioning Theory concerns the discursive production of selves. It is a social constructionist theory that follows a realist paradigm, in which it is understood that discourse - or ordinary conversation - is the source of how people construct themselves and others, as well as the realities they live and work within. Davies and Harre (1990) is the seminal work (also reworked as a chapter in Harre and van Langenhove (1999)). Realising that over one-third of the citations in this paper were informed by Foucault (including two of Davies own works) and that Goffman has explored similar issues as Foucault led me to explore Foucault's work and arrive at the following model.
One possible theme may be to use this social constructionist model as a framework. That is, the underlying mood of a society influences positions and positions can be imposed to influence the underlying mood. Such an ability to influence others and the collective underlying mood is an important component of leadership. Perhaps papers could focus on certain aspects of this model and explore them in more detail. Click on the image for an a4 sized pdf of the model.
However, it is not necessary to use the model as a basis of papers.
(There is a possibility of conducting a conference in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia if sufficient interest is shown.)
Submissions are invited from research students, academics and professionals. The format of submissions is as follows:
Information about positioning theory:
Some rough notes on positioning theory
Boxer, L.J. (inpress) 'Great Expectations and Coping With Risk', in 3rd Women and Work 2006 Monograph, Melbourne, edited by S. Charlesworth and M. Fasteanu, RMIT Publishing
Boxer, L.J. 2006 ‘Harnessing Hope to Achieve Opportunity’, in 2nd Women and Work 2005 Monograph, Melbourne, edited by S. Charlesworth and M. Fasteanu, RMIT Publishing
Boxer, LJ 2005a, "Discourses of Quality", in Quality in Higher Education, Dalrymple, J. (ed), Emerald
Boxer, LJ 2005b, "Sustainability and Entrepreneurship", in Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, Special Edition (Proceedings of Initiative 21 Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Sydney, July 2005, Vol. 1, Issue II, Oct 2005
Boxer, LJ 2005c, The Sustainable Way, Brolga Publishing, Melbourne, 2005
Boxer, LJ 2004a, "Being Able to do What You Aspire to do", in Women and Work Research Monograph, Fastineau, M. and Charlesworth, S. (eds), RMIT Publishing, 2004
Boxer, LJ 2003a, “Using Positioning Theory To Understand How Senior Managers Deal With Sustainabilty”, unpublished PhD thesis, RMIT
Boxer, LJ 2003b, “Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory”, in Harre, R and F Moghaddam 2003, The Self
and Others: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Political, and
Cultural Contexts, Greenwood Publishers, Westport, Conn
Boxer, LJ 2003c, "Positioning Theory Method for Culture Analysis and Development", in L.Boxer (ed) Excellence in the Face of Crisis, MAAOE03 Proceedings, Intergon, Melbourne, Oct 2003
Boxer, LJ 2002a, Improving Education Quality with Positioning Theory - QHE, 2002
Boxer, LJ 2002b, Assesing Organisational Effectiveness with Positioning Theory MAAOE, 2002
Boxer, LJ 2002c, “Assessing QMS with Positioning Theory” presented at ICIT2002:
Boxer, LJ 2001, “Using Positioning Theory to Make Quality Happen”, QIMC, 2001
Boxer, LJ and John, S 2000, “Using Positioning Theory to Make Quality Happen in Higher Ed.”, AQHE, 2000
Davies, B. & Harré, R. 1990, Positioning: The discursive production of selves, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), pp. 44-63.
Harri-Augstein, E. Sheila. Learning conversations: the self-organised learning way to personal and organisational growth. London; New Y| 1991. Routledge NY
Harré, R. & van Langenhove, L. (1991) Varieties of positioning, Educational Researcher, 27(8), pp. 393-407.
Harré, R. & van Langenhove, L. Editors, written by Berman L et al, (1999) Positioning Theory: moral contexts of intentional action, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford
Howe, K.R. 1998, The interpretive turn and the new debate in education, Educational Researcher, 27(8), pp. 13-20.
Howie, D. & PETERS, M. 1996, Positioning theory: Vygotsky, Wittgenstein and social constructionist psychology, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 26(1), pp. 51-64.
Ling, I.M. 1998, The role of the curriculum coordinator: An exploration through discursive practice. Unpublished DEd thesis, The University of Melbourne.
Harré, R, 1999, The Rediscovery of the human mind, 50th Anniversary Conference, Korean Psychological Association, Seoul, , accessed 22 Jan 00