Montréal, August 6-10, 2010:
Dare to Care: Passion and Compassion in Management Practice and Research

Professional Development Workshops (PDWs) have become an integral part of the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.  Their purpose is to provide members with creative learning opportunities that will help them update and refine their professional skills related to research, teaching, and professional practice such as consulting.  

PDWs are distinct from scholarly programs in their personal and professional skill orientation.  In addition to the long-standing tradition of doctoral student consortia and junior faculty workshops, PDWs have included tutorials, panels, debates, round-table discussions, and even off-site visits to companies.  As long as an event brings learning value to the participants in terms of skill enhancement related to their professional activities, the sky is the limit.  The theme of the 2010 meeting, Dare to Care: Passion and Compassion in Management Practice and Research, will offer interesting opportunities to creatively explore how the knowledge we produce in teaching, research, and professional practices may contribute to the wellbeing of the larger society in which we live and work.

As part of the conference program  re-design (Friday morning through Tuesday), the PDW program will span two full days, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.  You have the flexibility to design a PDW for any length of time (in two-hour blocks), ranging from two hours to 12 hours (or more).  During these two days, divisional, interdivisional, interest group and theme committee PDWs will be presented.  Sunday will be devoted to the All-Academy Theme PDWs which is chaired by Joshua Margolis ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).  Please visit the AOM 2010 Website for detailed information on PDW policies and rules, submission guidelines and processes.  The PDW resources page has suggestions and ideas on creating and managing a good professional development workshop as well as samples of past PDW proposals that have resulted in successful experiences for participants.

Successful PDWs have many common features, but the most important of these is captured by the word “interactive.”  Skills are enhanced through active engagement in discussions or experiential activities rather than passive listening.  I would suggest that you develop a schedule with 30-minute time segments.  If you find your proposal involves speakers talking more than 30 minutes each time or more than 50% of the time of the session, please seriously consider changing the design.  I invite you to read the paper “A Guide to Good PDWs” for excellent ideas on developing interactive and developmental PDWs.  Be creative, think outside the box, and experiment with new ideas. If you are not sure of an idea, contact your division PDW chair for informal feedback. Do this early and don’t wait till the last minute.

The division PDW chair is available for consultation until December 15, 2009. The submission deadline for PDW proposals is January 14, 2010.  You can indicate as many co-sponsor divisions as desirable for your proposal but you will submit it to only one division.

  We encourage proposals that draw interest from members of multiple divisions.  PDWs offer an excellent opportunity to move outside the boundary of a single division to explore issues and ideas across divisions.  Try to involve the theme committees, such as international, practice, mentoring, and teaching.  Engage international members as presenters or leaders of the workshops.  PDWs are excellent opportunities to learn about research and teaching practices in other countries and to develop potential collaborative projects.  PDWs can be a vehicle to bridge research and practice by engaging practitioners and scholars in dialogues regarding their mutual challenges and aspirations. While the scholarly program is a structured presentation of research results and scholarly ideas, PDWs tend to be informally structured events that offer serious learning in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.  Start planning your PDW now and let Montréal in 2010 serve as fertile ground for creative opportunities to meet the professional development needs of Academy members. See you in Montréal.

Ming-Jer Chen
University of Virginia
2010 Academy of Management Meeting
Chair, Professional Development Workshops