New article by Bernard Forgues in Organization Studies.
In this essay for the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium, we reflect on identity work and its leadership challenges in academic communities. We draw on our observations and experiences from 14 combined years of service as consecutive chairs of EGOS, a leading scholarly association in organization and management research with some 3,000 active members. We identify and expand on six paradoxical tensions that provide both challenges and opportunities for maintaining and (re-)shaping the identity of EGOS as an academic community. Paraphrasing the late Jim March, we hold that leadership roles in academic communities are about plumbing and poetry, i.e. the maintenance of a resilient community infrastructure that is malleable enough to allow the inevitable paradoxical tensions to be navigated with beauty, joy, and passion in academic work. We conclude with detailing some implications for identity work and collaborative leadership capacity in academic community.
Reference:
Eero Vaara, Renate Meyer, Silviya Svejenova, Markus A. Höllerer, and Bernard Forgues, Collective Leadership as ‘Plumbing and Poetry’: Navigating Paradoxical Tensions Through Community Identity Work. Organization Studies, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406251321622
Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, Public Domain.
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