Welcome to the blog of the Conference "Organization and the New"


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Innovation and Newness is on the agenda of dynamic, accelerating societies: In the discourse on innovation, anything „new“ mightily takes hold of society (macro level), organisations (mezzo level) and individuals (micro level).
Innovation is part of the political agenda, and it is translated into the rationalities of institutions and professions. Innovation and Newness also occurs in the fringe areas or at the boundaries of what is perpetually accepted. As marginal and different practice, something new breaches the daily routines of social normality. Innovation and newness occurs as an alternative to existing patterns; it appears as “otherness”, difference and aberration.
Newness and Innovation can be examined in different perspectives – as relation between centre and periphery, between rule and exception, or between incremental and radical change. Given these different options, it is essential for any scientific analysis of newness and innovation to deal with the fundamental question: is “the new” really new or just occurring as new in the eye of the beholder? Does it reappear from the unconscious, the waters of forgetfulness – or it is new only, if it was never known before? What is newness and innovation aiming at - at the material or immaterial, at social structures or cognition?
An organizational learning perspective on newness and innovation is aiming at the change potential of social, organizational, discursive, more or less structured systems as cultural and symbolic arrangements. Our understanding of newness and innovation relates to discourses on newness, innovation, future, creativity and design. In those discourses the following questions seem to be of particular relevance: How is the pressure to change perceived and dealt with? How is change reflected and planned? Who are the actors and what are the relevant contexts of change? Which role do educational and pedagogical approaches on change and transitions play in the discourses on innovation and newness?