Prestigious award to Barbara Czarniawska
Barbara Czarniawska, Professor Emerita at Gothenburg Research Institute at the School of Business, Economics and Law has been awarded “the EURAM Edith Penrose Award for Trailblazing Researchers” for her outstanding research and pioneering contribution to the knowledge society.
The award was announced on 16 June 2023, at the 23rd annual EURAM conference hosted by Trinity Business School in Dublin. The motivation of the award is that Czarniawska, in her research, challenges established knowledge by proposing new, alternative, and complementary approaches, theories and methods. The awardees also acknowledged Czarniawska’s interdisciplinary and theoretical breadth, methodological pluralism, and critical perspective – all in relation to organizational theory and its historical and philosophical roots.
“I am very honored to receive this prestigious award and appreciate being associated with Edith Penrose, who challenged established research and blazed new trails,” says Barbara Czarniawska.
Over the years, Czarniawska has moved within a range of research areas, with organizations and organizing as a common focus, and social sciences as an overarching umbrella. She has studied complex organizations, large cities, welfare models, overflows, robotization, production of news, integration of immigrants, and gender issues.
Czarniawska has contributed new perspectives by connecting organizational theory to various disciplines, such as anthropology, ethnology, sociology, narratology, and philosophy. She has also added to organizational studies using new perspectives such as “actor-network theory”, and was able to show how ideas, objects and practices are “translated” in the global economy. In addition, she has engaged in writing and teaching about method, and has proposed new and complementary methods for fieldwork, such as “shadowing”.
“Barbara Czarniawska’s research is well cited and spread all over the world. Her research arouses curiosity, inspiration and engagement among researchers as well as students and society”, says Emma Björner, Interim Director together with Ulrika Holmberg, Gothenburg Research Institute.
The European Academy of Management (EURAM) has, since its inception in 2001, developed programmes and activities with the aim of supporting its members and academics in their careers. With over 2000 members, EURAM has in a short time developed into an important community and platform for organizational researchers in Europe. For the fifth consecutive year, “the EURAM Edith Penrose Award for Trailblazing Researchers”, sponsored by the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), was presented at the annual EURAM conference, this year awarded to Professor Emerita Barbara Czarniawska.
Edith Penrose (1914–1996) was an American-born British citizen who spent a significant part of her academic career in Europe. She first worked at London School of Economics and later became the first female professor at INSEAD. In her classic book “The Theory of the Growth of the Firm” from 1959, she challenged the then dominant view of the optimal size of companies. The book had a significant impact on strategic management research and the resource-based view of business. Penrose’s ideas continue to be used in many disciplines even today.