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July 2020

Dear Friends of SIM,

I am not quite sure what to say here, this year, as our world continues to deal with a pandemic, and we try to adapt with a virtual Academy of Management Annual Conference.

So many people have worked hard to put this together at the broader AOM level, as well as within our Division. Our Program Chair, Katherina Pattit was dealt a terrible card this winter/spring in putting together an entire program, only to have to dismantle it, and start again with a smaller program and a variety of delivery options. Colin Higgins, our PDW Chair, fared no better—basically scrapping an entire program only to find out he was really limited in his final options. Andy Wicks, the Division Chair Elect has spent a large part of the summer working with awards committees and trying to figure out how we notify award finalists, deliver their plaques and certificates to them, and allow them time to present some of their ideas. And me…well…I have been trying to lead the orchestra here, with much help from our past Division Chair, David Wasieleski.

A few announcements:

First, a hearty congratulations to Cristina Neesham, our incoming PDW Chair. I mentioned this in my spring message but I don’t think I gave enough of a shout-out. Yay, Cristina!! We also welcome our new Reps-at-Large, Pushpika Vishwanathan and Nancy Kurland, with thanks to Naomi Gardberg and Michelle Westermann-Behaylo who are finishing their terms. Many thanks to all. Additionally, in response to feedback from the Academy of Management’s Board of Governor’s 5-Year Review, we now have a new Communications Director, Jae Hwan Lee! Jae has a team of people he works with who are incredibly responsive (Florian Findler, Ben Alexander, Dani Alonzo, Enzo Vastola, Kam Phung). Thank you thank you thank you, all!!

Second, we have had some very active things going on behind the scenes of the Academy program.

1. Doc Consortium - Michelle Westermann-Behaylo and Jared Peifer have put together an AMAZING doctoral consortium. I don’t understand how they did it—the AOM instructions were preposterously vague—but they have a great program of synchronous and asynchronous elements designed to appeal to all time zones. We were able to allocate monies from the SIM Social budget to provide scholarships to all student participants.
2. JFC Consortium - Similarly, Pushpika Vishwanathan and her counterpart at ONE have put together a fantastic Junior Faculty Consortium—even with lots of confusion about membership issues and registration issues this year. We were able to allocate monies and waivers to provide assistance for these participants as well.
3. Amelia Carr – If you don’t know Amelia, you should really get to know her. As our Treasurer, she has been trying to manage a new normal with registration fee complaints, waiver requests, funds reallocation, tracking down sponsor commitments…this is just a general shout-out to her for a very trying Academy conference.
4. SIM Research Committee/Manuscript Development Workshop - Kathy Rehbein is once again facilitating this, along with newcomer (to this, anyway), Annie Snelson-Powell, as well as Trish Olsen, and under guidance from Jim Weber, who is retiring from his role on the Research Committee. Great response for a virtual meet-up!
5. Membership Committee – Newcomer Sarah Stephen and her enthusiastic committee (Frank de Bakker, Sebastian Hafenbradl, Barrie Litzky) have already begun their new initiatives, including a SIM NETworking event, which is also receiving great response, as well as helping with the Virtual Cocktails/Coffee event that I will host after the Doc Consortium. More to follow!
6. Ad Hoc Committee on Racial Justice – Paul Harper and Robbin Derry are beginning a series of initiatives to endorse and promote not only our diversity and inclusion commitment in our Division, but also to investigate ways that we might address racial justice in pedagogy, research and practice. Their Committee was heartily endorsed by the SIM Governance Committee. Paul and Robbin will take a few moments in our Business Meeting to talk about this new committee.
7. COVID - I hope you are all OK, both mentally and physically. By now I think you know that I mean that sincerely. We continue to post scholarly comments with ONE on the COVID Tab on our website.

That is all for now…except for an invitation:

Dear SIMians & friends,

The SIM Governance Committee warmly invites you to an online coffees & cocktails on Friday, the 7th of August, at 3 p.m. (EST), hosted by Division Chair Jill Brown. As we cannot meet in person, this will take place by Zoom and you may, of course, bring a drink of your choice!

If you would like to attend, please RSVP via this link: https://forms.gle/jPxBNEdaRJCWYx72A

The event is open to all SIMians & friends. You do not need to be registered for the AOM Conference, and you can certainly invite a friend from another Division as this is off-program.

We hope to see many of you there for an hour of drinks & conversations!

Cheers,

The SIM Division