The professionalization of festival organizations : A relational approach to knowledge management

In this article we examine the emergence of knowledge management (KM) within the professionalisation of festivals and events. The growing complexity of festival management places pressure on organisations to effectively manage ‘knowledge’ in order to succeed. Knowledge is commonly conceptualised as information that can be stored or itemised through checklists. We offer an alternative conceptualisation of KM as a relational construction shaped by the organisational culture and structure. We develop this relational approach through a case study of the Queensland Music Festival (QMF) to examine the construction of KM roles and responsibilities. Our ethnographic research and qualitative analysis identifies how QMF implicitly utilises chief knowledge officer, knowledge broker, and knowledge worker roles. These roles were successfully performed over a short duration and yet they were not defined or explicitly stated. We discuss how the culture and spatial organisation of work teams contributed to a collective understanding of the value of sharing and creating knowledge. With growing professionalisation we argue that festival organisations will increasingly develop a more self-conscious awareness of the significance of KM language and practice. The findings will enable festival managers to better understand how KM processes are embedded within an organisational culture and contribute to organisational learning.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Appreciating Formal and Informal Knowledge Transfer Practices within Creative Festival Organizations

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Raphaela Stadler, and Simone Fullagar, "Appreciating formal and informal knowledge transfer practices within creative festival organizations", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 20 (1): 146-161, January 2016, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-11-2014-0484.Purpose – Problem-solving approaches to research have dominated the not-for-profit festival management field. Little attention has been paid to how festival organizations successfully create cultures where knowledge transfer is practised within the high intensity of a festival lifecycle. Drawing upon insights from Social Practice Theory and Appreciative Inquiry (AI), our purpose in this article is to offer a different conceptual approach to understanding how knowledge transfer ‘works’ as an organizational practice to produce a collaborative festival culture. Design/methodology/approach - This article draws upon an ethnographic case study with the highly acclaimed Queensland Music Festival organization in Australia. The research questions and methods were framed around an appreciative approach that identified formal and informal practices that ‘worked’ rather than a conventional problem focused analysis. Findings – Our research focused on appreciating the cultural context that shaped the interrelationships between formal and informal knowledge transfer practices that enabled trust and collaboration. We identified a range of knowledge transfer practices that contributed to the creation of a shared festival ethos and the on-going sustainability of the festival vision. Practical implications - The not-for-profit sector brings numerous challenges for festival organizations and there is a need to appreciate how collaborative and creative knowledge transfer can occur formally and informally. Festival organizers can benefit from understanding the relational and practice dimensions of knowledge management as they are performed within specific organisational contexts. Originality/value – An appreciative understanding of knowledge transfer practices has not yet been applied to not-for-profit festival organizations where problem-solving approaches dominate the field. Article classification - Research paperPeer reviewe

Critical moments of (un)doing doctoral supervision: : Collaborative writing as rhizomatic practice

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Simone Fullagar, Adele Pavlidis, and Raphaela Stadler, ‘Critical moments of (un)doing doctoral supervision: collaborative writing as rhizomatic practice’, Knowledge Cultures, August 2015. The Version of Record is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.22381/KC5420173. Published by Addleton Academic Publishers, New York.Despite the proliferation of doctoral training courses within universities, little attention is paid to the complexity of supervision as a process of becoming for both students and supervisors. As post-qualitative researchers we explore how collaborative writing can be mobilised as a rhizomatic practice to open up engagements with supervision that counter hierarchical master/apprentice models of knowledge transmission. Researching-writing through our own knowledge practices and affective investments we reflexively engage with supervision as multiplicity. We created a more democratic learning alliance through an electronic writing forum. These collaborative e-writing practices generated insights into the critical moments that disrupted the doctoral experience (writers block, self-doubt, misunderstanding). We theorise collaborative writing as a rhizomatic practice that refuses ontological assumptions of linearity, causality and rationality, instead following the embodied lines of thought, affective intensities and problematics that haunt the supervision relationship. We recast supervision as an improvisation through which academic dilemmas/possibilities are negotiated and performed anew.Peer reviewe

Leisure practices as counter-depressants:Emotion-work and emotion-play within women's recovery from depression

This paper draws on post-structural feminist theories of emotion to explore the significance of leisure within women's narratives of recovery from depression. I engage with the stories of 48 women in rural and urban Australia to identify the gendered discourses governing depression and recovery. Leisure figured as a site of identity transformation where women enacted creative, embodied, and connected subjectivities. The performance of gender through leisure enabled women to practice a different ethic of care for self and, hence, different relations of care for others. These stories make visible the cost of women's emotion work by identifying how negotiations over leisure and the embodiment of emotion play can facilitate recovery in ways that biomedical treatments cannot.Griffith Business School, Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel ManagementFull Tex

An ethnographic exploration of knowledge practices within the Queensland Music Festival

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the utilisation and application of reflexive ethnography as an interpretative methodology for researching knowledge practices within festival organisations. Design/methodology/approach – The ethnographic approach incorporates two methods of data collection in the research design; participant observation and in-depth interviews. Findings – The research identified that knowledge management practices and processes are often invisible to festival staff when they are embeddedwithin a cohesive organisational culture. Ethnography enables the researcher to make explicit the tacit and normalised ways of working that contribute to the success (and failure) of festival organisations to manage knowledge. The immersion of the researcher in the ethnographic process provided a rich understanding of the relational dimension of knowledge management that would be difficult to elicit from in-depth interviews alone. Research limitations/implications – New fields of study require a range of research methodologies to inform theoretical and practice-based knowledge related to event participation and management. This article contributes to the growing event management literature through a unique focus on ethnography as a research method that offers a deeper understanding of knowledge practices within festival organisations. Originality/value – Limited research has applied an ethnographic approach to festival and event management. This article builds upon early adopters and provides critical insight into the benefits and constraints of ethnographic research.Peer reviewe

Gendered cultures of slow travel:Women's cycle touring as an alternative hedonism

Griffith Business School, Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel ManagementFull Tex

All in good fun:Governing camp experiences through discourses of ‘good’ and ‘fun'

<p>Summer camps have been conventionally associated with the positive development of individual character through the promotion of recreational ‘fun.’ However, popular narratives obscure more critical questions concerning the power-knowledge relations that have shaped the provision of summer camp fun as a significant site of child development in Canadian culture. In this article we examine how camp counsellors mobilise particular discourses about the benefits, or ‘good’, and ‘fun’ of camp to govern themselves and the campers that are in their care. We draw on Foucauldian notions of governmentality to problematise that which is often assumed as the ‘truth’ of camp experiences. We discuss how the ‘good’ of camp often draws on psy-discourses and those of entrepreneurial selves to improve or add value to campers’ lives. Additionally, ‘fun’ discourses and practices can work to produce manageable and docile campers. We conclude the article by identifying the implications of the research for developing a critical approach to the management of young staff who work to provide a broad range of recreational experiences where benefits and fun are promised.</p> <p><br></p><p>Baker, M., Fullagar, S., & O’Brien, W. (2018). All in good fun: governing camp experiences through discourses of ‘good’and ‘fun’. <i>Leisure Studies</i>, 1-14.</p