Triple E.D.

We have the great pleasure of welcoming Paula Jarzabkowski, Professor of Strategic Management at University of Queensland, Australia and City St George’s, University of London, UK, to TripleEd. Paula’s bio below.

As part of her visit Paula will participate in the Non-Extremis workshop on June 2. She will also give a talk on June 3. Everyone is most welcome to attend the talk on the 3rd! The talk is titled

“Building the canoe as we’re paddling it”:
A withness process lens on generating collective responsibility for a societal challenge

Authors: Paula Jarzabkowski, Tyler Riordan, Katie Meissner, Rosie Gallagher

Abstract

This paper takes a ‘withness’ approach to explain the process by which responsibilization for a societal challenge shifts from an individual to a collective approach. Our study is grounded in the societal challenge of making people’s housing more resilient to increasingly extreme weather. Our paper draws from a longitudinal real-time qualitative research study of the implementation of a resilient homes program following widespread catastrophic flooding. Our data set includes observations, sequential interviews, field trips, documents, and email exchanges across multiple stakeholders in the program. Working with program staff and other stakeholders in co-creating our research, our theorisation of the phenomena as a shift in responsibilization emerged alongside our understanding about ‘what this is a case of’. Specifically, without a template to follow, our participants had to work out how to bridge between what the program offered and the ability of homeowners to take it up. As we and our participants lived forward with this process, we all gained new understandings about variations in individual capabilities to assume responsibility to access the program. We conceptualized this process as a shift from a policy of individual responsibilization to an emerging collective responsibilization in response to variations in homeowner capability endowments.

Bio

Paula Jarzabkowski is Professor of Strategic Management at University of Queensland, Australia and City St George’s, University of London, UK. Paula’s research takes a qualitative, practice theory lens to understanding how people in organizations address the complex problems or ‘grand challenges’ affecting society. A Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia, and the British Academy, Paula publishes this work in leading journals and has also co-authored several books. Her current research is interdisciplinary, examining how societies are addressing the growing threat of extreme weather disaster. Paula is also passionate about impactful research, with her industry and policy expertise widely recognised in roles such as a member of the OECD High-Level Advisory Board for the Financial Management of Catastrophic Risks.

Last Thursday, we held our final meeting with the TripleED Not-So-Secret Book Society. Throughout the spring, we’ve been reading Organizational Ethnography by Ybema et al. (2009), working our way through its chapters and discussing them along the way. It’s been a fun and rewarding experience — no two seminars have been alike.

Over the course of the semester, we’ve mixed things up: from classic seminar discussions to deep dives into a few targeted questions, from writing exercises to walking tours around campus. Each session took on a different shape, reminding us that talking about research doesn’t have to follow a rigid format. Doing the same thing every time quickly becomes tedious. Academia deserves better than that — it can, and should, be a place full of creativity and energy. We just need to keep reminding ourselves of this and continue to experiment.

So, how did we wrap up our book society discussions? With role play, of course!

Last Thursday, Niclas — or Dr. Hell as we affectionately call him (yes, his last name really is Hell, and yes, it has a slightly different ring to it in Swedish) — drew on his background as a game designer to introduce a playful final exercise. He presented us (there were more of us than in the photos) with three scenarios to act out and discuss, all inspired by Chapter 10, “But I Thought We Were Friends”, which explores betrayal in academia. It was a fantastic, thought-provoking, and fitting way to end a semester filled with lively discussions, new perspectives, and plenty of laughs.

Yesterday TripleED met as we are trying to do every second Thursday. As part of the plan for the spring, we are reading two chapters at a time in Ybema, Yanow, Wels and Kamsteeg’s book “Organizational ethnography”. This time it was two chapters on ethnographic practices and reading and writing as a method. As part of the idea to bring the spirit of joy and disruption from “In Extremis” to our “local” meetings, we did not just discuss the chapters, but we put them to practice. This time we also had a guest with us, the former B.A colleague Tommy Jensen, who now is a professor at B.A at Stockholm University.

We’re officially in business: our very first “Secret Book Society” meeting for TripleED took place today! We got so swept up in lively discussion that we totally forgot to snap a group photo—oops. Luckily, the “Bear Room” mascot was on hand to capture the moment, so we’ll let our furry friend stand in for us this time.

What are we up to? We’re diving into Organizational Ethnography: Studying the Complexities of Everyday Life by Ybema, Yanow, Wels, and Kamsteeg—two chapters at a time—then unpacking the big ideas, questions, and implications that emerge. In today’s session, we tackled topics like the role of theory, the challenges of gaining access to research sites, the intricacies of multi-site ethnographies, and the power of interdisciplinary perspectives. We were so engaged in the discussion that we forgot to take any photo so a photo of the bear in the Bear room where the discussion were held have to do!

Stay tuned for updates from our cozy corners as we continue exploring the fascinating world of organizational ethnography—secretly, of course.

Thank you everyone that joined us for a few days in Umeå, for “In Extremis 2025”. It is truly something amazing that happens when you bring together curious, friendly and open scholars from different disciplines, methods and theories to discuss things dear to their heart – preferably close to a fire outdoors. Thank you everyone for taking the time to join us! Looking forward to the year to come and the future beyond that! Of course Piggy joined us, too! 

This week the group met to discuss ways of furthering our research, spurred on by this video of mice and people trying to find cheese in a maze. The starting questions were:

• How do we stay informed about emerging trends in our field and ensure our research aligns with the evolving priorities of journals and funding agencies?
• What new methodologies, interdisciplinary collaborations, or innovative ideas could we explore to differentiate our work and stay competitive?
• What proactive steps can we take to make our research team more adaptable to shifts in funding landscapes or academic publishing norms?

Because the group is as interdisciplinary as they come, the discussion soon devolved into the true meaning of cheese in an academic context (funding vs. something more intangible such as research ideas), what is the cheese for (applied vs. theoretical research), and, of course, who is in charge of sharing the cheese and can/should we try to influence their cheese-sharing decisions (funding organizations vs. academia itself). Other, more minor, subjects were raised, such as the possible existence of other things in the maze (there could be sausage, maybe?) and whether the walls of the maze are as solid as they look.

No definitive conclusions were reached.

We will continue this discussion in a few weeks, once the cheese chaos settles down and we’ve had some time to mull the questions over.

This Thursday, we had the pleasure of discussing another paper and trying to collectively make sense of the reviewer’s comments and how to respond to them. This was a great exercise in interpretation, offering learning opportunities for seniors as well as juniors.

The photo includes this week’s participants but Nathalie had to run during the last few minutes and did not make it. Others had other stuff to do.