Magala, Prof. Dr. S.J.

Prof. Dr. Slawek Magala

Room: T8-01
tel.: +31 (0) 10 408 1943, 408 1980
fax.: +31 (0) 10 408 9015
email: smagala@rsm.nl

Prof. dr Slawomir J. Magala was born in 1950 and educated in Poland (M.A. in English in 1973, Ph.D. in philosophy of science in 1976, both at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan), Germany (in 1981 and 1984 he conducted postdoc research as a Humboldt fellow in Frankfurt am Main, under professors Essers and Habermas) and the United States (collaborating with Michael Burawoy and Martin Jay in Berkeley, George Ritzer in Baltimore, Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen at the New School for Social Research in New York and David Boje in New Mexico). In 1980 he was a co-founder of “Solidarity” in the Poznan branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is currently holding a chair in cross-cultural management and chairing a department of organizational sciences and human resource management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in Rotterdam working as a researcher, academic teacher and consultant for the European Union, predominantly in the area of organizational development and change, human resource management from the cross-cultural point of view and business education in the post-communist countries (China, Russia, Kazachstan, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary) and countries maintaining close relations with the European Union (Cyprus before ascension to the EU, Turkey, Egypt).

His research interests focus around cross-cultural comparative studies where he has been working with the founder of the discipline, Geert Hofstede, and with Hofstede’s critics (McSweeney, Holden, Schneider), successors (the GLOBE project supervisors - Mansour, Dorfman, den Hartog), the postcolonial revisionists (Jackson, de la Rive Box) and the representatives of critical management studies (Alvesson, Willmott, Gabriel, Czarniawska, Linstead, Hopfl). He is an editor in chief of the Journal of Organizational Change Management and member of the editorial teams of Qualitative Sociology Review, Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence & Management, and of the European Journal of International Management. In 1988 he organized (with Frits Engeldorp Gastelaars) an international conference on “Critical Theory and the Sciences of Management” at the Erasmus University (with 250 participants from all over the world), which triggered the emergence of Critical Management Studies. In 2007 he organized the international conference on “Cross-Cultural Life of Social Values”, which impacted the discovery of the “revolutionary privatization of national cultures”. Cross-cultural researchers presented new, multilayered, context-bound and negotiable concepts of culture, focusing on multiple cultural identities, dilemmas of “East,West,Best” and ethical management of inequalities. Far from resembling “software” made of values and implanted in individual mind by families, schools and workplaces, "culture" appears as a negotiable and mutable outcome of ongoing debates in the parliaments of our selves, as well as in public debates between representatives of various domains of cultural production. Both “debates” are influenced by pragmatic and contextual concerns, rocked by emotions and power struggles and result in highly hybrid and individualized personal cultural constructs. Studying them requires new approach towards detecting, tracing and explaining cultural diversity, primarily in professional bureaucracies as dominant forms of organizing and managing social processes.

Selected publications (fuller list can be downloaded from the ERIM METIS data base)

Books

• The Management of Meaning in Organizations (New York and Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2009)
• “Cross Cultural Competence” (Routledge, 2005)
• “Clash and Carry. Training Postcommunist Managers” (Eburon,2001),
• “Culture Between Stock Exchange and a Waste Dump. Simmelian Essays” (Slowo/Obraz/Terytoria, 1999) (in Polish: “Miedzy gielda a smietnikiem. Eseje simlowskie)
• “Class Struggle in Classless Poland” (South End Press, 1981, under the penname of Stanislaw Starski)
  
  

Chapters in books

• “Perplexing Images: Relational Identities in Cultural Tempospaces”, in: Lowe, Sid, ed., Managing in Changing Times. A Guide to Perplexed Manager, ( New Dehli, Thousand Oaks, London, Singapore, Sage, 2009), pp. 239-258
• “Competence, Identity and Translation: Metaphors Cross-Cultural Research lives by”, In: Nowak, Alojzy Z., Glinka, Beata (eds.), Management: Qualitative and Quantitative Research, 2008, Warsaw, WWZ
• “Social Life of Values. Cross-Cultural Construction of Realities”, in: Barry, David, Hansen, Hans, eds., Sage Handbook of the New and Emerging Theories in Management and Organization (London and Thousand Oaks, Sage)
• “Culture and Management in Poland: Hidden Injuries of the Cold War”, in: Davel, Eduardo, Dupuis, Jeran-Pierre, Chanlat, Jean-Francois, eds., Gestion en contexte interculturel: approaches, problématiques, pratiques et plongées, (Québec, Presses de l'université Laval et Télé-université), 2007 
• “Social History and the Armed Forces (Military Education and Social Change)”, in: Caforio, Giuseppe, ed., Social Sciences and the Military (London, Routledge, 2006) 
• “Landscaping Urban Imagination. Classes, Masses and Multitudes”, in: Klingen, Karin,. Kapert, Ines, eds., Thematic Landscapers (Berlin, Relations, 2006) 
• “Real Blood, Virtual Media. Human sacrifices in the Political Spectacle of the 21st Century”, in: Mamzer, Hanna, ed., Violence in Contemporary Culture (Poznan, A. Mickiewicz University Publishing House, 2006) 
• “Honing Professional Personality Frameworks”, in: Halas, Elzbieta, Konecki, Krzysztof, eds., Constructing the Self and Society: European Variants of Symbolic Interactionism, (Warsaw, Scholar, 2005)  
• “The Threshold of Statehood”, in: Farnen, Russell, ed., Nationalism, Ethnicity and Identity (New Brunswick and London, Transaction Books, 1994, 2004) 

Refereed papers published in scientific journals

• “Crosscultural Life of Social Values and Organizational Analysis: An Introduction to the Special Themed Section”, Organization Studies, 2009, vol. 30, no.9, pp. 925-931
• “Introduction to the special themed section on Cross-Cultural Life of Social Values”, Organization Studies (to be published in 2009)
• “Life of Social Values. Rotterdam May 18-19,2007”, in: International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 2008, vol.8, no.3, pp.363-369
• “Manageable Inequalities (theoretical landscaping of cross-cultural studies)”, The European Journal of International Management, vol. 1, Nos. 1/2, 2007, 56-68 
• “Competence, Identity, Translation: Tracing Humanistic Turn in Cross-Cultural Studies”, Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence & Management, no.5, 2007, 75-118 
• “Critical Theory: 15 Years Later”, Perspectives on International Business, vol.2, no.3, 2006 , 183-194 • “Omnia aura mecum porto. Walter Benjamin’s Illusions and Virtual Flaneurism of a Mass Consumer”, Art History Yearbook, vol. XXXI, 2006, 33-51  
• “Honing and Framing Ourselves (Individualizing and Organizing)”, Polish Sociological Review, no. 1/149, 2005, 3-13 (in English) 
• “Floating Opera of Cross-Cultural Globalization. (On Ritzer’s ‘Globalization of Nothing’)”, in: Gardner, Carol, Biberman, Jerry, Alhafaji, Abbass, eds., Global Business Perspectives. Business Research Yearbook, International Academy of Business Disciplines, vol. XI, 2004   
• “Local Identities in Global Dialogues (cross-cultural spectacle after Debord)”, Gardner, Carol, Biberman, Jerry, Alkhafaji, Abbass, eds., Global Business Perspectives, Business Research Yearbook, International Academy of Business Disciplines, X, 2003  
• “East, West, Best – Crosscultural Encounters and Measures”, Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence & Management, no.3, 2002, 85-114 
• “Elective identities (Culture, Indentization and Integration)”, Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies, No.17 (special issue on “Globalization and Identity”), 2002, 37-60  
• “Critical Complexities (from marginal paradigms to learning networks)”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol.13, no.4, 2000, 312-333
• “Tourists, Crusaders and Managers: re-engineering cultural sentiments in a society of global spectacles”, Biberman, Jerry, Alkhafaji, Abbass, eds., Global Business Perspectives. Business Research Yearbook, International Academy of Business Disciplines, vol. IX, 573-577 
• “Cold Wars, Hot Issues: Management of Responsibilities”, Human Resources Development International, no. 5/4, 2000,
• “Predictably Wild. Taking Liberties with the Corporate Image”, Corporate Reputation Review, vol.2, no.3, summer 1999, 231-248
• “Art as Moral Gamble: Phenomenological Aspects of Creative Responsibility”, Analecta Husserliana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, vol. LIII, 1998, 35-48 • “Weick’s Sensemaking in Organizations”, Organization Studies, no.18, issue 2, 1997, 317-339

Papers at conferences

• “Re-enchantment by Design”, paper for the XIXth annual Standing Conference on Management and Organization Inquiry, Orlando, April 1-4, 2009
• “Fly Towards Grace (Organizing and Novel Writing)”, a paper for the Essex University International Workshop “Novel and Organization, May 10-12, 2007, (submitted to Organization Studies) 
• “Saving Graces (personal pain in public spaces)”, paper for the XVIIth annual Standing Conference on Management and Organization Inquiry (sc’MOI), Las Vegas, March 29-April 1, 2007 
• “Soul of the Brain. Body of Thought (managing cultural inequalities)”, paper for the Standing Conference on Management and Organization Inquiry (sc’MOI), Washington, April 6-9, 2006, (used as a starting point for the project design of the application for the NWO grant in March 2007 - “Manageable Inclusions (Multidimensional Re-Rooting of Democratic Processes in Expanding European Union” within the stream “omstreden democratie”) 
• “His Academic Master’s Voice (co-narratives and anti-narratives in contemporary university)”, Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research, ESADE, Barcelona, May 11-13, 2006 (published in Polish translation as a chapter “Three Worlds of Academic community: Researchers, Teachers, Citizens” in Chlopecki, Jerzy, ed., University, Society, Economy, Rzeszow, WSIiZ, 2006, 5-28
• “Political Economy of the Senses. Frames, Mirrors and Windows of Organizing”, paper for the 4th International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge, July 4-6, 2005 
• “Cross-cultural Compromises, Multiculturalism and the Actuality of Unzipped Hofstede”, a paper for the European Academy of Management annual conference in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, May 4-8, 2004
• “Professional Elites in Classless Societies (from Marx to Debord), paper for the International Conference on “The Role of the Humanities in the Making of the European Elites””, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, September 10-12, 2003 (published in the Polish translation in Przeglad polityczny/Political Review, no.64, 2004, 88-100)

Teaching

His courses at the Erasmus University include:

• “Cross-cultural management and international case” as an obligatory course in the second and third trimester of the second year of IBA international bachelor program.
• “Culture Matters: Diversity and Change in Professional Organizations” as a master elective courses in master of change management program (open for the students from different specializations as well)
• a change/cross-cultural diversity and leadership management module for executive and in-company MBA programs (e.g. Schlumberger, Pliva, Smit Internationmal, Vopak, DSM).
• He teaches also organizational development and change courses at the master level and advanced organizational change in the executive and in-company MBA programs.
• Regularly appears as a guest lecturer for the GMP program of the CEDEP at INSEAD in Fontainebleau (on “Cross-Cultural Leadership: Global Clusters, Local Climates, Tacit Expectations”).
• His elective courses included “Machiavelli and von Clausewitz for managers” and “Global Networks of States and Markets”.
• He is the academic director of the International Business Administration’s bachelor program
• Coordinates the Introduction to International Business course
• Participates in the “boost the bachelor” re-engineering of this educational product.
• Member of the Board of Examiners for RSM’s MBA programs
• He participates in the HRM courses
• Supervises MSc theses in cross-cultural issues, organizational change and human resource management
• Coaches PhD theses in cross-cultural management, HRM, organizational transformations and management of change

Current research interests

His recent interests focus on the management of diversity as illustrated by his participation in “Management Through Collaboration: Teaming in a Networked World”, a joint process of developing the state of the art handbook of management (as hard copy, as online virtual resource and as teaching tool in Second Life simulation domains) coordinated by Charles Wankel (he contributed as writer and co-editor to chapter 15 of the “Organization” part, namely “Diversity in Multicultural Organizations”. His other interests include comparative human resource management (and development of alternative, non-Western, or non-managerialist approaches to the management of a multicultural workforce), cultural aspects of migration, immigration and re-immigration (and the proactive shaping of cross-cultural competences of mobile and networked generations), the rise of professionalism (and the influence of bureaucratized communities of knowledge upon the increasing deficit of democracy), re-emergent paradigmatic gambles (and the recurrence of the Kuhn-Popper debates in multidisciplinary research teams) and narrative management of memory and tradition (with the accompanying tendency to rediscover the microstorias and antenarratives in formal organizations).

Professional associations

• Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS)
• Standing Conference on Management and Organization Inquiry (sc’MOI)
• Critical Management Studies (CMS)
• International Academy of Business Disciplines (IABD)
• International Association of Cross-cultural Competence and Management (IACCM)
• Academy of Management (AoM)
• European Academy of Management (EURAM)
• Societas Humboldtiana Polonorum
• Humboldt Club Nederland