President's Message

Tom Lee
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington 

As I enter my year as President of the Academy of Management, I would like to share some most excellent news on our organization.  To begin, I must congratulate our 2007 Program Chair Angelo DeNisi, Professional Development Workshop (PDW) Chair Jim Walsh, and all of the division and interest group program and PDW chairs, as well as our program specialist Jimmy Le, for putting together an outstanding Annual Meeting Program in Philadelphia. We must also recognize that our ability to carry out such a large meeting would not be possible without the many volunteers who work behind the scenes to serve our members, including our local arrangements committee and its co-chairs, Eric Stein and Denise Potosky, the Director of Exhibits, Ayman Tarabishy, the Director of Placement, Janice Black and her team, Geralyn Franklin our Sponsorship Director, and so many others at the division and committee levels.

August is also a time when the terms of office for many volunteer positions end, and we thank those who are rotating off for their many years of service.  We also welcome those who are signing on to do the work of the Academy.  Please see the article thanking the volunteers in this newsletter, identifying these hard working members, and please congratulate our many award recipients this year.  

 Without doubt, the Philadelphia AOM meeting was a tremendous success.  For example, we again set records in attendance and member participation.  Equally impressive, we had very good attendance at the various sessions.  At the Philadelphia meetings, for example, 9,372 people attended; 7,962 people were on the program and 4,900 people served as reviewers.  Further, an untold number of dedicated members served in many other volunteer roles such as event organizers, awards committee chairs and members and the heads of placement and exhibits.  To these many, many people, I cannot thank you enough on behalf of our 17,838 members from 105 nations (as of late September, 2007).

As we begin thinking about the 2008 meetings in Anaheim, California, I would like to encourage everyone to participate in its planning and submission reviewing, and of course, to attend next August.  As I write this message, our 2008 Program Chair, Jim Walsh, is already quite busy in the planning and coordinating on a host of issues.

Board of Governors

As we start the new academic year for the Academy of Management, I would like to introduce the 2007-2008 Board members.  In addition to my role as President, the officers of the Board of Governors, who constitute the five-person executive committee, are: Angelo DeNisi (Tulane University), President-Elect; Jim Walsh (University of Michigan), Vice President and Program Chair; Susan Jackson (Rutgers University), Vice President and PDW Chair; and Ken Smith (University of Maryland), Past President.  

The at-large members of the Board of Governors are Harry Barkema (Tilburg University), Albert Cannella, Jr.(Tulane University), Miriam Erez (Technion-Israel Institute of Technology), Javier Gimeno (INSEAD), Karen Golden-Biddle (Boston University), Karen Locke (William & Mary College), Anne O’Leary-Kelly (University of Arkansas), Margaret Peteraf (Dartmouth University) and Gretchen Marie Spreitzer (University of Michigan).  Our Executive Director, Nancy Urbanowicz, serves as an ex-officio member of the Board.  Please feel free to contact any of us on matters of the Academy that are important to you. Our directory of addresses is available on the Academy’s Website.

Institute of Medicine

My predecessor, Ken Smith, spoke in previous newsletters about our efforts to bring the knowledge of members to bear on public policy issues, most notably our work with the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Chartered by the U.S. Congress as one of the National Academies of Science, the IOM is an independent body of the nation's most eminent professions that is called on to examine public policy matters pertaining to health and  medicine.  The US Congress and federal agencies most frequently call the IOM to action.  I am pleased to convey that the work of our recent task force was successful in demonstrating how our members' research might be useful to the IOM's work.  Unsurprisingly perhaps, the IOM had not made much use of management and organization scholars in their policy work.  Yet, the serious issues addressed by the IOM have wide scale management and organization implications, including difficult challenges related to the implementation of report recommendations.  As a result, we have been asked (and expect to be asked in the future) by the IOM to recommend management and organization scholars to participate in their highly illustrious panels. Nominees have just recently been submitted to the IOM for service on a panel to review the Title X Family Planning Program, which is carried out by 4000 clinics under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services.  We are hopeful that one or more of our nominees with expertise in organizational change, program evaluation and project management will be selected for this prestigious service.

Electronic Community Building

The Financial Strategies Committee proposed that some of the interest payments from our financial reserves be utilized for an experimental innovation that provides a platform for communities to flourish in the Academy.  More specifically, we will be providing new technology that allows groups with a common academic interest or some other affinity to more easily and effectively communicate and to build community.  With almost 18,000 members, and with greater diversity than ever before, creating opportunities for members to build and sustain connections is increasingly important.

In 2005, for example, the Board of Governors approved the establishment of communities of practice in the Academy, or, more simply, networks. These groups are organic and self- forming without the governance and annual meeting program planning obligations required of divisions and interest groups.  They were envisioned to form around projects and scholarly interests.  Networks actually have always existed in and around the Academy (e.g., the Leadership Network, the Evidence-Based Management Collaborative, and the Diversity Coalition).  These networks have not had the tools to raise their visibility so others might know about them, or to facilitate communication and collaboration among network participants.  In addition to new and emerging networks, divisions and interest groups are communities of a different type that have long been adept at building connections with members.  The proposal from the Financial Strategies Committee seeks to strengthen the community building by providing them with the platform and incentives to facilitate productive and meaningful interaction all year long, not just at the annual meeting or through listservs.  Staff will be communicating soon with divisions about this initiative.

Expanded Publishing Opportunities

In the current year, the board continues to explore the possibility of expanded publishing opportunities.  The Board’s foray into expanded publishing began in 2001 with the Academy’s Statement of Strategic Direction, which envisioned initiatives to “create new forms of information dissemination and publication of management knowledge that meet member needs while enhancing services to existing journals.”  Expanding this Statement of Strategic Direction, the Board of Governors voted unanimously in April 2004 to implement a vision of expanded publishing activity that increases and expands the impact of the Academy as an academic organization and a key knowledge provider to scholars, teachers, researchers, practitioners and the public throughout the world.  Our first initiative was to launch the Academy of Management Annals which will debut this December.  At the August Board meeting, we discussed the possibility of developing teaching materials and requested that staff investigate the use of a publishing consultant to assist in identifying market needs and framing the Academy’s publishing strategy.   This is a long term venture and we will keep the membership informed of our progress.

Placement

Beginning in 2008, our job placement service will give way to a more robust career center.  The new placement service will offer enhanced features such as: advanced and custom search capabilities; customized alerts for new postings; applicant/job matching; hiring organization profile and recruitment information; applicant pre-screening for employers; tracking mechanisms for successful placements, applications and position specific statistics; “one time sign-up” career center for job seekers.  Needless to say, we hope to better meet the hiring needs of members

In closing, I am very excited on the overall health and directions of the AOM, but I am also quite humbled in having the honor of leading the Academy as your President.