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Strategic discourses: views from my shed - inaugural lecture from Professor Lew Perren

Lew is in his twentieth year at the University of Brighton; over the years much of his time has been spent in his shed analysing management texts ranging from interview transcripts through to websites. Lew relishes eclectic approaches and this is reflected in the plethora of textual analysis methods that he has explored.

More recently Lew has been seduced by information systems and this led to a period as a consultant in industry. On his return to research he has been exploring ways of combining his previous experiences with his new interest in software development. By drawing upon computer aided corpus methods of studying language he has been developing tools that automate the labour intensive aspects of textual analysis.

In his lecture Lew will emerge from the shed, reflect on his experiences of textual analysis and illustrate his new interests by exploring critical moments when senior managers reveal the strategy of their organisation. His approach will combine computer aided and manual analysis techniques, and will follow Bhaskar’s critical realist framework. He will start with a surface level content analysis of the strategic discourse and draw out some initial cross-case patterns. He will then draw upon a range of competing theoretical perspectives and textual analysis techniques to develop insights into the mechanisms that might have generated the strategic statements. Finally he will go through a process of eliminating explanations to propose a new integrative model and to demonstrate his rationale for combining these diverse approaches.

views from my shed - inaugural lecture from Professor Lew Perren, 4 June 2009

Strategic discourses: views from my shed
Thursday 4 June 2009 at 6.30pm
Lecture Theatre G8
University of Brighton
Brighton BN2 4AT

Light refreshments will be served after the lecture.

All welcome.