A Virtual AOM Conference, A New Membership Committee, 5-year Review, and Election Results
Dear SIMians, I hope you are well. I am sure that many of you have had some tough moments in this horrible COVID environment. I sincerely hope that things are turning around. Personally, I admit that my anxiety is heightened, despite trying hard to find moments of peace. Tough times for so many people. I sincerely hope you are all OK.
Speaking of anxiety…the SIM governance group has been patiently waiting for the Academy of Management to outline exactly what they are going to do regarding the annual meeting. Just this week they rolled out a plan for virtual conference. If you are a member of ONE, you will see that Judith Walls quickly summarized the plans after the first explanatory zoom session (darn it…she is always faster than me!), and AOM has suggested we follow her template/summary, as follows (although I have included SIM-specific info, of course):
In today's conference call of division and interest group (DIG) leaders AOM conveyed a basic outline of how things will go on. Many details are still being worked out; however, here is some key information:
- The full program will go ahead virtually. AOM is centrally coordinating an online event through a platform. This will kick off August 6th – 11th. However, each division has flexibility in how it implements the annual meeting experience.
- AOM has suggested that at least 10% of sessions will be held live, including the Doctoral Consortium and Junior Faculty Consortium (headed by SIM with ONE this year). The Call for Participants has already gone out for the JFC (thank you, Pushpika Vishwanathan), and the DC will soon follow (thank you, Michelle Westermann-Behaylo and Jared Peifer).
- The 10% suggestion also applies to PDWs, symposia, and paper. Katherina Pattit (Program Chair) and Colin Higgins (PDW Chair) will be leading this effort. The Call for Papers for the Manuscript Development Workshop has already gone out (thanks Kathy Rehbein and Annie Snelson-Powell).
- Many sessions will be "asynchronous". These will have pre-recorded elements. But they will be made available for online interaction, for example via some kind of online discussion forum, that will be available for a period of time (to be determined). It may be possible to have some sessions in June or July, as STR is doing, and then offer the recording during the scheduled AOM meeting. Again, more to follow on that.
- Time zones are an issue. Sessions will be planned in different time slots to allow for all members to have some sessions in their normal daytime hours.
- WE WILL NEED VOLUNTEERS to "chair" digital sessions, both live and asynchronous. I believe that AOM will send a message out to this effect to ask you to volunteer. These volunteers will be our ambassadors for this new format: however, AOM is providing support with a Digital Producer for each live session and a Digital Curator (either AOM -assigned or DIG-assigned) volunteer.
- There will be many networking opportunities at the AOM level, with possibilities at the Division level. Again, we will be figuring this out as we go. We will have a Business Meeting, most likely during our "usual" slot on Monday afternoon/early evening.
- AOM is preparing a schedule of milestones – when we have more information, you will hear from us or the PDW and Program Chairs.
- There will be a fee for attending the virtual conference (currently planned at USD200 for academic members and USD100 for students). This fee allows you to formally register and gain access to the entire conference, papers, presentations, sessions (live and asynchronous), social events and so on. Some people have pointed out this fee seems high. AOM is planning to communicate about the fee and where the money will go. If you have already paid the extra amount and want a refund, AOM sent you an email asking you how you would like the money refunded (pasted again here: visiting this link and making your choice-full refund, apply to the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting, or apply to the 2021 Annual Meeting, 30 July-3 August, in Philadelphia, PA, USA).
In sum, we will be working hard with AOM to make this conference happen. However, I would like to personally thank Katherina Pattit and Colin Higgins, who continue to be creative and accessible while carrying on this extra duty. Please, please help them out. Volunteer to assist Katherina as a Digital Session Chair (email: glac6548@stthomas.edu) and help Colin facilitate PDW's (c.higgins@deakin.edu.au).
Other Business (Good news!!):
- A New Membership Committee!
On a happy note, I would like to announce that Sara Stephens (U of St. Gallens) has agreed to be chair of the Membership Committee, with new committee members Barrie Litzky (Drexel U), Sebastian Hafenbradl (iese) and Frank de Bakker. Go team! You may know Sarah from her wonderful job as the official blogger for Business & Society. She has some great ideas about engaging and growing our membership. More to follow.
- A Successful 5-year Review of SIM!
Thanks to David Wasieleski and the subcommittee (me, Michelle Westermann-Behaylo and Rich Wokutch), we passed our 5-year AOM SIM Division Review with flying colors! Membership is up, initiatives are encouraging, good response rate and feedback from our survey…all good. We received some helpful feedback to keep us growing. Both the SIM Report, and the AOM Report Response will be posted on the SIM Division home page shortly.
- Congratulations to our incoming PDW Chair, Cristina Neesham and our two new Reps at Large, Pushpika Vishwanathan and Nancy Kurland. We are excited to have you representing us.
Whew! Apologies for the long message. Thanks for your patience with AOM planning and beyond. If you have any questions/issues, please email me at jbrown@bentley.edu .
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Jill Brown
Professor
Bentley University
Waltham MA
(781) 891-2407
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