The SIM Communications Committee is excited to share a message from our Global Scholars Committee Chair, @Maria Jose (Majo) Murcia, with updates on current Global Scholars Committee events.
The Global Scholars Committee has focused on outreach and capacity building across underrepresented regions, with an emphasis on increasing awareness of SIM, supporting early-career scholars, and strengthening pathways into AOM and SIM activities.
Looking ahead to 2026
• LATAM: We highlight continued momentum in the region, including an upcoming #Journal of Business Ethics Paper Development Workshop on March 27, 2026 in Buenos Aires aimed at supporting scholars' publication trajectories. More details can be found here.
• Eastern Europe: An in-person academic writing course ( June 2026 )at UNWE (Sofia/Bulgaria), led by Prof. Nicolay Dentchev. The course offers a strong opportunity to integrate a SIM-aligned session or PDW component, further aligning SIM's inclusion goals with local capacity-building needs.
Recent highlights
• MENA region: Special thanks to Petya Koleva for leading an excellent MENA-focused webinar that served as a strong kick-off for regional engagement. The session demonstrated how targeted outreach can support future AOM Conference submissions and provides a replicable model for other regions in upcoming conference cycles.
• Eastern Europe outreach: Eva Van Mensel represented SIM at two academic events in Bulgaria
· Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Conference (Oct 2025): A SIM session engaged around 30 early‑career scholars, with strong interest in SIM's mission-especially academic writing support and international visibility. Budget constraints were mentioned as key barriers to sustained engagement. Several participants expressed interest in SIM mission, and conference organizers agreed to help disseminate the upcoming SIM questionnaire
· UNWE Young Scholars Conference (Nov 2025): Discussions highlighted high demand for Paper Development Workshops and structured writing support. A potential PDW linked to an academic writing course is under consideration, offering a promising entry point for deeper regional engagement.
• Asia-Pacific engagement: Connie Zheng shared SIM updates at a research seminar at Curtin University (27 November), reaching over 30 participants. While opportunities to present SIM initiatives were limited at the ICOH Conference in Vietnam due to time constraints, the event nonetheless expanded regional visibility and connections across a highly international audience (240 participants from 33 countries).
Overall, these initiatives underscore the value of regionally embedded, skills-oriented outreach as a high-impact, low-barrier approach to expanding SIM's global scholarly community.
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Nabi Ebrahimi
Doctoral Student
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell MA
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