Call for applications
Calling all management and organization studies doctoral students and early career researchers: do you work with qualitative data, such as textual, visual and audio materials? And do you often experience "analysis paralysis" when making sense of this data from discursive, performative, affect, communication as constitutive of organization (COO) and other interpretive perspectives? Specifically, do you find when puzzling over empirical materials that you "stare yourself blind" and begin struggling to surface the materials' rich insights? If yes to the above, you are far from alone, and the good news is help is at hand!
You are invited to join an in-person and "hands on" collective data and theorisation workshop taking place from 17 to 18 September 2025 at the СŷÊÓƵ of Sheffield, UK. The workshop will provide a novel and welcoming space where attendees will collaboratively explore one another's data sets for intriguing hooks, suprising puzzles and potential theoretical connections.
The workshop lead (Dr David Hollis, СŷÊÓƵ of Sheffield) and invited qualitative methods expert (Dr Ellen Nathues, СŷÊÓƵ of Twente) will draw on their experiences of facilitating similar workshops at European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) and Academy of Management (AoM) conferences to help attendees discuss and debate what they are seeing, sensing, and feeling in the data. Whether presenting their own data or analysing the data of others, attendees will (re)formulate, apply, and discuss analytical and theoretical ideas and foster new working collaborations. Further, the workshop and the first-day evening reception will provide valuable community-building and paper collaboration opportunities.
With funding from The Society for the Advancement of Management Studies' (SAMS) Developing the Management Community scheme and Sheffield СŷÊÓƵ Management School's Organisation Studies Research Cluster, admission to both the workshop and evening reception is free.
Submission guidelines
The workshop will be open to two types of participants. You can join as:
- a presenter, sharing qualitative data
- a discussant, bringing your own interpretive and theoretical perspectives to the data shared by others
Prospective presenters will submit via e-mail to David Hollis (d.hollis@sheffield.ac.uk) by 17 August a single document (.doc, .docx or .pdf file) that includes the following information:
- Name, affiliation, contact details, and career stage
- A short introduction to the empirical data (including what intrigues or puzzles you about the data)
- An extract/description of or a link to the raw data (if the data is not anonymized or publicly available, the prospective presenter will be asked to ensure that they have acquired the needed consent)
Discussants will indicate their motivation to participate via by 17 August, providing the following details:
- Name, affiliation, contact details, and career stage
- A short text about their interest in attending the workshop and what sort of data and perspectives they typically or presently work with
- Questions, puzzles or concerns etc. they would like to collectively explore regarding the analysis process
If you have any questions about what promises to be a collaborative and productive two days of analysis, please contact Dr David Hollis.
