To all:
Because the SIM Newsletter has been delayed, announcements of highlights of this year's SIM Program have not gone out to the full membership. Although the listserv does not reach everyone, I hope that the descriptions below are helpful to those of you who may be getting ready to leave for Chicago. I have attached a copy of my full Program Chair report, as it was to have appeared in the newsletter.
In fact, I look forward to a terrific meeting. There are a lot of new things being tried this year.
Besides a new Academy schedule that has the PDW sessions on Friday-Saturday, the all-Academy theme sessions on Sunday, and the regular panel, interactive panel, and visual paper sessions on Monday-Tuesday, we have some significant changes and innovations in the SIM Division offerings. My consistent goal throughout has been to do things that will promote research in SIM. Here's a quick outline of what is changed and what is new. All SIM sessions, with the exception of the Interactive Paper Panels, are in the Fairmont Chicago Hotel.
The SIM 09 Program
Think of the SIM sessions as sorting into three parts:
First, the PDW sessions: Friday is the Doctoral Consortium. Saturday is the Research Development Workshop (RDW) with its three components: the Manuscript Development Workshop, the Ask the Experts session with journal editors, and the Research Roundtables. Also on Saturday is the Junior Faculty Workshop (cosponsored with ONE) and the evening Keynote Address (offsite at the Allerton Hotel, where the Society for Business Ethics is meeting and cosponsored with SBE). Shawn Berman is our 2009 PDW Workshop Chair and has put together a great set of panels.
Second, the SIM Special Sessions: These sessions were made possible by the Academy allowing us to use rooms that were sitting empty on Sunday and during the regular panels, plus the "free" session that the Academy provides to each division, to offer a special set of five SIM-specific panels. We've never been able to do anything like this before – run what is virtually a mini SIM meeting alongside the competitive paper sessions. Much of what we are trying is entirely new:
• On Sunday the Best Dissertation Award Finalists present their work (4-5pm, Regent Room; Ben Wempe, chair).
• The SIM Salon follows in the same room, from 5:15-6:15pm. The SIM Salon is meant as a forum for lively (even raucous) discussion and debate of research issues under the SIM umbrella. This year the topic is "CSR1, CSR2, CSR3, CSR4, CSP, CC, or CS RIP? The Academic Uses of CSR Talk." Donna Wood and Jeremy Moon will offer contrasting views of the CS* literature: Each gets to present, alternating, for five minutes, after which backbench interruptions are permitted from the assembled members.
• A panel with an entirely new format, the SIM Push Panel, follows from 8-9:30pm Sunday evening in the Crystal Room, after a small reception beginning at 7:30pm. A limited number of drink tickets are reserved, first come, first served, for participants at the PDW doctoral and junior faculty consortia, but all members are strongly encouraged to attend the panel (the main SIM Reception is Monday afternoon). It's 40 years since the publication of Edwin Epstein's classic work, The Corporation in American Politics. We will celebrate that anniversary with a panel of eight leading scholars who will mine that work to create new concepts, theoretical nuggets, and other clever turns that push the insights of a classic into advances for today's social science. Whether or not you have research interests in business-government relations, you should stop by to see inventive and provocative scholarship at work.
• Part of the special SIM panel series, but beginning the regular SIM Program schedule, is the SIM free session, "Focusing on Fields: Continuing the Tour of SIM for a Second Year" (8-9:30am, Gold Room). Do the main areas of research in SIM take on the appearance of true, cohesive "fields" of work? Last year panelists examined behavioral ethics, CSR/CSP/corporate citizenship, stakeholder theory and networks, public affairs/issues management, and corruption/codes of conduct. This year the focus is on corporate governance (Ann Buchholtz and Lori Ryan), theoretical/conceptual ethics (Tom Donaldson), corporate political activity (Kathy Rehbein and Doug Schuler), and social repair: alleviating poverty with the base of the pyramid (Ted London). Duane Windsor, editor of Business & Society, will conclude the session by offering an editor's perspective on the fields of the discipline.
• The final special SIM panel is in the last group of panels scheduled on the last day, Tuesday: The 2009 Program Chair (me) and the 2010 Program Chair (Shawn Berman) will offer a session on "The Craft, Science, and Ethics of Reviewing for the SIM Program" (Tuesday, 3-4:30pm, Chancellor Room). I'd like one of our goals for the next few years to be a careful effort to improve the quality of reviewing in our division. I don't think reviewing for SIM is any more problematic than reviewing for any of the other 23 Academy divisions, but we need to work on ways to give our members better and more consistent feedback on their submissions. We'll talk about what makes for good reviewing, I'll discuss how the Academy handles the submission and review process, and we'll talk about our plans for improving SIM's process.
• Of course, no one should forget to attend the SIM Business Meeting (Monday, 4:45-6:15pm, in the Moulin Rouge Room). This is open to all members, and all members are strongly encouraged to attend. At last year's meeting SIM members discussed whether to change the Division's name and domain statement. The officers expect to continue the discussion of the domain statement replacement as well as other major concerns for our Division. Immediately following the SIM Business Meeting is the SIM Reception, in the Gold Room (see below).
Third, the SIM Competitive Papers Sessions: These include the regular, traditional program panels; the interactive (IP) paper panels; and the visual paper (VP) sessions. This year I developed content tracks for the regular program panels (I don't have control over the scheduling or composition of the IP panels), e.g., tracks like "ethics and management," "corporate social performance," "CSR & corporate citizenship," "public affairs and issues management," and so on. Each regular panel has such a label. I produced a two-page color-coded guide to the SIM Program, called "SIMTRACKS," so members can more easily track their areas of interest through the program. I've sent copies out via the listserv, so you may already have received your electronic copy. I'll try to bring a few hard copies of SIMTRACKS with me to the meeting, as well.
A major change is that all the Visual Papers will be at the Reception, rather than next to the exhibit area at the Hyatt. I hope having the papers at the reception will provide the kind of attention that has often been lacking in the Academy's somewhat distant Visual Village.
See you in Chicago!
Barry
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Barry M. Mitnick, Ph.D.
Professor of Business Administration and of Public and International Affairs
Katz Graduate School of Business
University of Pittsburgh
261 Mervis Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Mobile: 412 551-9956
Tel.: 412 648-1555
Email: mitnick@pitt.edu
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