May 6-8, 2026

Aalborg University, Denmark

The Doctoral School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Aalborg Universitet

Welcome to Re-imagining organizational socialization: The work of communication

Description:

The field of organizational socialization originates in the social sciences and is concerned with ways in which employees become integrated into organizations to meet corporate goals. This is, therefore, also often constructed as a management-centric endeavour, paying little heed to employee needs and well-being. However, changes in work, organizing, economics and politics in and around the post-modern organization requires new ways of thinking and talking about employees and organizations that address the uncertainties and unpredictability (such as job insecurity, precarity and anxiety) that follow from these changes.

The PhD-course takes a humanities perspective to this discussion, focusing on key concepts such as discourse, communication, identity, affect, power and relationality to understand organizational socialization and practices in the postmodern organization. This entails seeing the organization as a construct emerging through the joint communicative, material and embodied efforts of the people that populate it and hence, acknowledging the special condition of the employee. The PhD-course invites students to join the conversation on these concepts as well as relevant theories and methodologies to consider for their PhD-studies.

Guided by faculty with deep experience in relevant disciplines, the aim will be for students to leave this course with a more robust understanding of the field of organizational socialization set against current developments. Furthermore, students will be encouraged to use the insights from the course in the pursuit of their unique and diverse research interests.

Students must do course readings before the course to become acquainted with the scope of research. In addition, they must read fellow students’ papers to prepare them to engage in conversation about the themes of the course and potential applications.

For additional information, updates, and registration, please refer to AAU PhD Moodle via the link HERE.