Program Chair Report



2019 Program Chair Report

Renate Meyer, WU Vienna

2020 OMT Division Chair-Elect

 

Dear Fellow OMTers,

 

We are looking back on a great 79th Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Boston! I’d like to start by thanking everyone who worked so hard to create a successful program. The authors and organizers, reviewers, presenters, session chairs and discussants, attendees and participants all contributed to a diverse, rich, and intellectually stimulating program. You all helped to encourages us to study the inclusive organization.

 

A special thanks to the OMT Membership Group (OMG) created and coordinated by Emily Block, which again helped put together an exciting mix of off-program events. Aimed at fostering personal relationships and opportunities for activity, friendship, and discourse outside of the traditional division activities, the off-site events included OMR Runs, OMT Yoga, OMT Eats, and of course the OMT Cafes on a variety of topics. The success of these events has led other divisions to follow our template and offer events that allow their members to connect, network, and be engaged. If you want to find out more or would like to get involved, perhaps by organizing a café or becoming an OMG ambassador yourself, please check here.

 

As you might remember from the business meeting, OMT received the highest amount of submissions ever – 632 paper submissions and 142 symposium proposals were handed in, which even exceeded the Vancouver meeting of 2015. In particular, symposia submissions increased again. Compared to 2017, there was a strong growth of 157%. With 1,089 reviewers from 53 countries signing up, the numbers remained nearly as high as last year (1,110 reviewers from 55 countries). Please keep reviewing for OMT! Thank you so much for all your work, especially those who stepped up and served as emergency reviewers and those who reviewed for the first time (241 reviewers). Our 94.25% completion rate made it possible to assign 3.25 reviewers per submission on average.

 

We were able to accept 312 papers and 101 symposia. 94 of these symposia were co-sponsored – 26 with another division, 68 with two other divisions. The topics were wide-ranging and included Status Hierarchies, Networks, Categories, Stigma, Future of Work, Social Innovation, Board Structures, Inequality, Learning, Identity, Paradoxes, Digitalization, Temporality, Institutional Pluralism, Communities, Hybridity, and many others. The table below provides you with an overview of the most prevalent keywords chosen by both paper submitters and reviewers and, in brackets, the change compared to 2018.

Data Table

 

Grouping the submissions into sessions is a key aspect of the program creation, and perhaps one of the most challenging ones. In this regard, I would especially like to thank Dennis Jancsary (WU Vienna) and Nikolai Staudinger (WU Vienna) for their help.  

 

As in previous years, we again recognized a number of our members with awards, including those for the ABCD Best ReviewersBest Published PaperBest PaperBest Student PaperBest Paper on Environmental & Social PracticesBest International PaperBest Entrepreneurship PaperBest Symposium, and the Louis Pondy Award for Best Paper from a Dissertation. Many thanks to Lori Yue and the Research Committee Members for their valuable work!

 

On Monday, August 12th the recipient of our Distinguished Scholar Award, Lynne Zucker, gave her lecture entitled “Institutional Theory at a Crossroad.” Built on Lynne’s reflection on the present and future of institutional theory, it was an inspiring and moving highlight. Our communication team took photos of her speech, and if you were not there (or if you want to review or relive any part of it) you can find the photos here.

 

At the business meeting on Monday, the Distinguished Educator Award this year went to Andrew Van de Ven for his exceptional contributions to educational practices within the broader OMT field.

 

Our sincere congratulations again to all the awardees!

 

Martin Kilduff is already working on next year’s program around the theme 20/20: Broadening our Sight, as Program Chair. Together with Eva Boxenbaum, who is now joining him as PDW Chair, they will make the 2020 meeting in Vancouver another terrific success. Please feel free to contact us, or any of the other Division Officers, if you have ideas about how we can further build the OMT Community and improve the OMT Program for everyone.

 

Thank you for all your contributions and looking forward to seeing you all and continuing to make OMT the Place to Be!

 

Best wishes,

Renate

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Renate E. Meyer

OMT Division Chair-Elect 2020