From 2 to 4 July 2015, Prof. Maja Apelt, Professor of Organizational and Administrative Sociology, attended the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium in Athens. EGOS provides the unique opportunity to meet sociologists, economists and political scientists who are interested in organizational studies, not only from Europe but from countries all over the world. The EGOS Conference takes place every year in summer. It starts with a Pre-Colloquium, e.g. a PhD and Post-doctoral workshop and a Women’s Network meeting in which Prof. Apelt participated.
At the colloquium, plenary and sub-plenary sessions were available, hosting speakers like Robert Chia and Gareth Morgan. Prof. Apelt had the opportunity to attend a sub-plenary session with Roger Friedland from the University of California, who is known as one of the most important representatives of the concept of institutional logic.
The main idea for everyone is to join one of the 70 sessions for all of the 3 days that the conference takes place. Each session participant presents one of their papers, which is available to all other participants beforehand, giving all presenters the opportunity to receive feedback. The conference gives participants the chance to get to know their colleagues better and also to receive intensive feedback on their papers. Prof. Apelt joined the session about “Organizing organizations: dynamics and variation” with Nils Brunsson and Göran Ahrne and they discussed papers about meta and partial organizations. For example, they talked about the P 5+1 group to the Iranian nuclear program and about the Meta Organization FIFA, along with the German Employers’ Association (BDA).
Besides that, Prof. Maja Apelt was in Athens during the same week the Greek citizens voted on the requirements of the EU. There were demonstrations at Syntagma Square in the center of Athens every day, mostly against the demands of the EU. The trip was therefore interesting regarding scientific but also political life.
The next colloquium will take place in Naples, Italy in July 2016. It is highly recommend that the doctoral researchers join the EGOS and the Conference. The deadline for submission of short papers is on January 11, 2016. For more information, please visit: www.egosnet.org.