Research seminar: Associate Professor Tracy Wilcox
Join us in welcoming Associate Professor Tracy Wilcox from UNSW Business School Australia to Trinity Business School on Tuesday, 15th of April 2025.
Please REGISTER HERE.
Seminar Title: A convenient amnesia? Organizational forgetting and narratives of identity in Qantas Airways
Abstract: This study explores the ways in which organizational forgetting and associated identity-based mnemonic struggles played out in the global airline Qantas. We consider the ways in which a once-central occupational group was marginalized and silenced through political processes of forgetting. We unpack the processes of silencing – a key element of forgetting work – and show how silencing, and hence forgetting, comprises two distinct but interconnected elements: material ‘dismembering’ and symbolic ‘de-membering’. The term dismembering draws attention to substantive corporate strategies to reduce the size and power of the group through restructuring, outsourcing and job losses, while de-membering refers to the writing out of the occupational group from corporate identity narratives, and the de-legitimation of the work unit by powerful corporate actors, particularly the Chief Executive and the Board of Directors. In exploring the political nature of these silencing and forgetting processes, we also consider how these processes were contested by the occupational group in response. Their reactions were those of a mnemonic community pursuing material and symbolic ‘re-membering’ through an alternative reframing of past -- and future. Our study extends understandings of forgetting work within organizational settings, and adds to existing historically-informed studies of global corporations.
Bio: Dr. Tracy Wilcox is an Associate Professor at UNSW Business School Australia, and former Academic Director for Postgraduate Programs. Tracy has been teaching and researching business ethics for over fifteen years, with particular interest in business ethics education and ethical management practice. Her research also explores how business contexts enable or constrain ethical management action. Tracy has received several university awards for her work in business ethics education, social impact leadership and online learning. She has also presented at a range of industry events. Tracy served as HRM and HRD Section Editor at the Journal of Business Ethics for six years and is currently the Developmental Editor at this journal. Tracy joined academia following a career in quality management and scientific leadership roles with global organisations.