Dear SAP members,
As we are putting out our calls for paper and symposia submissions to the Strategizing Activities and Practices (SAP) Interest Group, we are aware that many of our members will be wondering about how to think about AOM next year. On the one hand, there is still a lot of uncertainty about whether we will be able to travel due to Covid19 restrictions. On the other hand, it might be unclear what to expect from a hybrid AOM conference and what the experience will look like. To help aid you in your decision-making, we wanted to share a few reflections:
- In face of the uncertainty around travel restrictions, we as the Executive team adopted a policy of "we will try to come on a best-effort basis." This acknowledges the possibility that we might have to cancel our travel plans as travel restrictions increase, while at the same time allowing us to commit to the AOM meeting. It would be great to see as many of you face-to-face in Seattle as possible.
- Advantages of joining us in Seattle from 5-9 August 2022: 70% of all sessions will be face-to-face in Settle, with the majority of these being available only to onsite participants. A few online sessions will take place on the day before and after the onsite meeting, i.e., August 4th and 10th. If you are traveling on those days, you can catch up on these sessions later as they will be recorded.
To make up for two lost years of in-person interaction we plan to organize a host of social activities around the official program, including the traditional SAP Friday dinner (an informal dinner in a relaxed environment to meet old and new SAP friends), SAP breakfasts (particularly enjoyed by those who due to jet lag or other circumstances are up early) and the SAP Business meeting and Social on Monday evening. So make sure not to miss the great opportunities to catch up with old friends and colleagues and meet new ones.
- If you cannot join us in person, you can join us online on the virtual meeting platform from 4-10 August 2022. You will have access to 50% of all sessions. As the last two years, we will also create space for some social interactions, e.g., through the SAP virtual cafes and the SAP Open Virtual Meeting Space. You can also access all recorded sessions during the time after the conference.
- As you prepare your conference submission, please decide which option you, your co-authors and co-organizers prefer and let us know in your submissions.
- Financial support for the conference registration fees can be provided for a limited number of SAP member-accepted submissions if, due to post-Covid constraints or other circumstances, support to enable conference participation is needed. If you have any queries, please contact our treasurer Carola Wolf C.Wolf@liverpool.ac.uk.
- This year, we planted 153 trees for each SAP members that attended the conference. This is to symbolize our commitment to our members and to our planet. The map below shows the global distribution of the participants of AoM 2020. Next year we will continue our tree-planting activities. For every member that travels to Seattle, we will plant two trees, and for those attending online, we will plant one tree. Some universities now also allow off-setting the Greenhouse gas emissions from your flight. Please check with your local university.
Below, please find attached the call for submissions to the scholarly and PDW program. Please also sign up as reviewers, as it helps us offer terrific feedback to each other on work we are each developing. Please do not hesitate to contact us in case of any queries or concerns about attending AOM next year.
We look forward to seeing you in Seattle or online in August!
The SAP Executive Committee
Virpi, Leonhard, Eric, Fleur & Katharina
STRATEGIZING ACTIVITIES AND PRACTICES (SAP)
Program Chair: Eric Knight, Macquarie University
2022 Division Scholarly Program: Call for Submissions
The Strategizing Activities and Practices (SAP) Interest Group invites intellectually bold and stimulating research for submission to the 82nd Academy of Management's Annual Meeting 2022. The conference will be held in a hybrid form – offering both physical and online options. Over the past few years, the SAP interest group has established an inclusive and diverse community that sheds light on the everyday practices and activities that constitute strategy work in the established and more contemporary organizations. Some of the key questions for the SAP interest group are what, when, why, and how organizational members carry out strategic work - and how this work matters.
The theme of AOM 2022 is "Creating a Better World Together" and aims to address how organizations tackle the new realities brought by the global Covid-19 pandemic. The SAP lens can help illuminate the way that these changes are impacting organizations in a number of ways. Firstly, scholars could investigate the open strategy practices that organizations use to collaborate with other organizations and stakeholders. By zooming in to individual strategic practices attention can be paid on how these have changed with the new trends of technology paying a much stronger role and employees demanding more work from home or flexible working conditions. On the other hand, scholars could zoom out to investigate how strategy and strategy practices have been affected around the world, comparing, for example, strategy across countries with different lockdown and strategies. Even more, a dialectical and paradox lens could investigate new practices that might have arose during the pandemic and how these interact with the older ones. Therefore, SAP research could help reveal key questions from the AOM 2022 theme.
We encourage the submission of conceptual and empirical studies as well as methodological reflections that focus on the specific conference theme, works that address other issues within the general domain of the SAP Interest Group, and those that explore the intersections of SAP with fellow divisions such as ENT, STR, OMT, ODC, RM, TIM and MOC. We also warmly invite symposia that seek to change the conversation on existing scholarly approaches and develop new questions and ways of looking at strategy-related phenomena. We strongly encourage the submission of manuscripts that are inspired by the theme "Creating a Better World Together", addressing questions relating to how organizations are coping with the new world arising from the global pandemic.
The hybrid program will be organized in the following way:
4-10 August 2022 – Virtual Meeting
Some sessions are to be scheduled for the day before and the day following the on-site meeting, but most synchronous (live) and all hybrid scholarly sessions will be scheduled to occur during the on-site meeting days.
5-9 August 2022 – Seattle, WA USA
The Academy of Management will be holding its 82nd Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington, USA with sessions taking place at the Washington State Convention Center along with several other nearby hotels, and on the Virtual Annual Meeting platform.
On-Site, Virtual, and Hybrid Sessions
- Most submission types are to be scheduled interspersed across the 5 days of the program
- On-site in-person sessions; roughly 70% of all sessions
- A selection of on-site sessions is to be live streamed on the virtual meeting platform (hybrid); roughly 30% of the on-site sessions
- Asynchronous (on demand) and Live Virtual-only sessions on the virtual meeting platform; roughly 30% of all sessions live virtual-only
- Asynchronous (on demand) sessions on the virtual meeting platform
The submission deadline for the 82nd AOM Annual Meeting is Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 17:00 (5pm) ET (NY Time). Paper and symposia submissions must be made through the AOM Submission Center (opens early December 2021). Please carefully review all the submission information and formatting instructions especially before submitting symposia. The scholarly program takes place from Friday, August 5th to Tuesday, August 9th 2022.
Last but certainly not the least, allow us to emphasize that strong scholarship requires good reviews. Reviewing peers' works is a fundamental process through which knowledge advances in a community. If you are submitting to the SAP Interest Group this year, please also consider reviewing for SAP! For more information on Strategizing Activities and Practices, please visit the SAP Interest Group website.
STRATEGIZING, ACTIVITIES AND PRACTICES (SAP)
PDW Chair: Fleur Deken, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
2022 Division PDW Program: Call for Submissions
The Strategizing Activities and Practices (SAP) Interest Group invites creative and forward looking proposals for the professional development workshops (PDWs) to be held during the 2022 Academy of Management Annual Meeting.
Given that the SAP Interest Group investigates what managers do when they take part in strategy making – both within and across organizational boundaries – SAP research is well-positioned to shed light on the role of business organizations and managers in "Creating a Better World Together", as reflected in the AOM 2022 theme. Practice theoretical concepts such as relationality, dialectics, and paradox can provide fertile ground to study strategizing in the context of societal challenges (e.g., climate change, health, and inequality). At the same time, however, a focus on a better world, calls for theoretical advancements in SAP research, such as how radical uncertainty affects strategizing processes and how to organize the participation of wider (external) stakeholders. One way forward is to deepen our engagement with other practice-based scholars, including those studying collaboration, innovation, communication, technology, and institutions. A focus on Creating a Better World Together also invites methodological innovations needed for empirically tracing and connecting local micro-actions and macro-level global phenomena.
Building upon such a reading of the AOM 2022 theme of "Creating a Better World Together", we specifically invite PDW proposals that connect SAP research across other practice theoretical research streams. Some possible themes include:
- Comparing, contrasting, or integrating a variety of practice-based approaches and theoretical concepts for understanding strategizing activities for societal challenges
- Exploring how collaboration and cooperation between heterogeneous actors, including business organizations, public organizations, knowledge institutes, and other stakeholders allows for addressing societal challenges
- Exploring methodological innovations to empirically study how micro-actions relate to meso or macro-level outcomes
- Providing doctoral students and early career scholars with tools to navigate the changing academic environment
Please note that PDW sessions may take place at any day during the Annual Meeting, Friday, August 5th – Tuesday, 9 August 2022. We strongly encourage PDWs that appeal to a wide range of audiences and themes beyond the SAP community by building linkages with other divisions and interest groups. Please indicate potential co-sponsors in the submission document (e.g., ENT, OMT, OCIS, ODC, MC, RM, STR, TIM). The minimum duration of a PDW is 2 hour, but submitters are welcome to request a duration of 1.0 hours if they feel it would better serve the workshop, session flow, and attendee engagement. The 1.0 hour duration request must be documented in the uploaded proposal document itself at the time of submission and the PDW Chair will subsequently reduce the duration to 1.0 hour on the submitter's behalf.
The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 17:00 (5 pm) ET (NY Time). Financial support for the conference registration fees will be provided for a limited number of SAP member-accepted submissions if, due to post-Covid constraints or other circumstances, support to enable conference participation is needed. Submitters are strongly encouraged to discuss potential PDWs with SAP PDW chair, Fleur Deken.
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Katharina Dittrich
Warwick Business School
COVENTRY
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