Dear colleagues,
please do not forget to register for the upcoming contest on aimed at teaching ideas and innovations for SAP! Among others, this contest is for everyone who
- needs teaching innovations to meet tenure criteria
- would like to contribute to the continuity of SAP's relevance and impact: Teaching is a key lever for infusing practice with SAP thinking
- wants to be (even more) visible in the AOM world: The winning innovations will be visibly published
You find all details below. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
All the best,
Matthias
Call for SAP Teaching Innovations
Teaching innovations in the area of strategy are important for many reasons: to sustain the relevance of management education, to harness our impact as strategy educators, to comply with tenure criteria, etc. Therefore, the AOM Strategizing Activities and Practices Interest Group (SAP IG) is conducting a multi-stage contest for teaching ideas and innovations that enhance the content and/or formats of teaching strategy practice in management education. Teams that need financial support for joint project work may be eligible to receive travel funding.
Please consider participating! Sign up-individually or as a team->> here << until August 10, 2025.
Objective
Strategy as practice (SAP) advocates a distinct approach to strategy anchored in 'what managers actually do' when strategizing. This approach shapes SAP both as an AOM IG and an area of research that is increasingly acknowledged as part of mainstream strategy (Jarzabkowski, Lê, Seidl, & Vaara, 2024). In keeping with this established position, SAP thinking was recognized for advancing strategic management education (e.g., Bell, Filatotchev, Krause & Hitt, 2018; Grant & Baden-Fuller, 2018). Following primarily a case study-based research design, SAP research provides a strong foundation to advance the global teaching practice of strategic management, building on rich and innovative insights from corporate and not-for profit organizations.
However, SAP is and remains a vibrant stream of and approach to strategy (Li & Jarzabkowski, 2025). SAP scholarship continually generates new insights and innovative ideas in response to strategic, organizational, and entrepreneurial challenges that arise in today's complex organizational landscapes. Bringing these insights and dynamics into the classroom exhorts teaching innovations on SAP. By "teaching innovations", we refer to alternative, less conventional ways of conveying SAP thinking in the classroom in both content and format-potentially played out through experiential in-class exercises, role plays, simulations, audiovisual or interactive books, etc. Hence, while SAP offers powerful insights for understanding and explaining organizational complexities as well as educating students in the management of these complexities, SAP's relevance in management education will likely erode in the absence of teaching innovations that breathe life into these in the classroom.
Therefore, the objective of the contest is to foster teaching innovations on and for SAP. Specifically, it aims to advance new content and formats through which SAP thinking can be applied in the classroom. The target audience of the teaching innovations are educators of strategy at universities and business schools around the world for any level of learners.
The Contest
The contest includes two stages. Stage 1 relates to the generation of ideas for teaching innovations, designed to identify a winner as well as the ten best teaching ideas to be further developed as tangible teaching innovations. At this stage, submissions will be video-based pitches, handed in by August 31, 2025. These videos will be no longer than 3 minutes, come in any technically feasible form, and outline the relevance, contours, novelty, and usefulness of the teaching idea.
Stage 2 relates to the completion and submission of teaching innovations as well as the selection of the "top 5" published for educators' use on a dedicated AOM website. Instead of a video pitch, submissions (deadline: September 30, 2025) will include all completed materials of each teaching innovation.
Alex Christian, Fannie Couture, Paul Spee, Matthias Wenzel, as well as AMLE editor-in-chief Dirk Lindebaum will act as jury members. At both stages, the selection and ranking criteria are:
- Clarity: In terms of the learning objectives, core audience, and teaching note
- Novelty for SAP: what is the novelty in terms of developing new insights into a strategy theme
- Application: Technical and procedural feasibility of using the (envisioned) teaching innovation in a broad range of classroom settings
- Student engagement: how does the innovation engage students (online participation, in-class, hybrid, etc.)
The development of teaching ideas and innovations will be accompanied by online events: a check-in meeting in Stage 1 for all individuals or teams who are signed up for the contest, and an update/progression meeting in Stage 2 for all individuals or teams who pass Stage 1. The meetings are aimed at responding to open questions and giving feedback on emerging teaching ideas and innovations. To accommodate varying time zones, there will be several parallel events, hosting participants located in North, Middle, and South America (led by Fannie Couture); Europe, Middle East, and Africa (led by Alex Christian and Matthias Wenzel); as well as Asia, Australia, and Oceania (led by Paul Spee).
Eligibility
The contest is open to anyone who is interested in teaching innovations around strategy practice across the boundaries of Divisions and Interest Groups. The initiative invites the development of teaching innovations by members of any career stage. Individual and team-based submissions by 1–5 scholars at all career stages and in any team constellations will be eligible. To reflect the geographical diversity of SAP thinking, we explicitly encourage geographically diverse teams. At least one participant per team is expected to be an active member of the SAP IG. However, attending the AOM Annual Meeting is not a requirement to participate in the contest.
Central to this contest is to render emerging "top 5" teaching innovations accessible to strategy educators. Therefore, by signing up for the contest, you agree to the publication of your teaching innovation on AOM's new "digital teaching content platform" (coming soon).
Timeline
Until August 10, 2025 – Contest sign-up >> here <<
Until August 1, 2025 – Application for travel grants >> here << (see more below)
Mid-August 2025 – Check-in meeting (North and South America: August 13, 2025, 3 pm Montréal time; Europe, Middle East, and Africa: August 13, 2025, 3 pm CET; Asia, Australia, and Oceania: August 13, 2025, 1 pm Brisbane time)
August 31, 2025 – Submission deadline for submitting 3-min video pitches (the submission modalities will be communicated in the check-in meeting)
Early-September 2025 – Idea screening and pre-selection by the jury, feedback expected by mid-September and communicated via email
Mid-September 2025 – Update/progression meeting for the pre-selected teams (North and South America: September 18, 2025, 3 pm Montréal time; Europe, Middle East, and Africa: September 18, 2025, 3 pm CET; Asia, Australia, and Oceania: September 18, 2025, 1 pm Brisbane time)
September 30, 2025 – Deadline for submitting the completed materials of the teaching innovation (the submission modalities will be communicated in the update/progression meeting)
Early-October 2025 – Identification of the "top 5" teaching innovations by the jury, results expected by mid-October and communicated via email
Late-October 2025 – Publication of the top-5 teaching innovations on AOM's digital teaching content platform
Financial Support for Traveling
The contest offers travel grants to five scholars from the "Global South" who are signed up for the contest, and who are in need of funds to meet team members so as to develop and complete their teaching innovations outside the annual conference. Individual travel grants amount to max. $1,500/person depending on actual financial needs. Funding decisions will be made swiftly on a rolling basis within a specified time window (see above) based on the "first come first serve" principle, combined with a credible justification of financial needs. Like all contest participants, grant recipients are expected to participate in the online events described above. Travel expenses will be reimbursed after the submission of teaching ideas.
Apply for a travel grant >> here <<
Questions?
Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions. We look forward to your ideas!
Matthias Wenzel (matthias.wenzel@leuphana.de)
Alex Christian (alex.christian@tum.de)
Fannie Couture (fannie.couture@hec.ca)
Paul Spee (p.spee@business.uq.edu.au)
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Matthias Wenzel
Professor
Leuphana University of Lüneburg
Lüneburg
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