The SIMian Online
SIM Division Leadership Messages
2022-2023 Division Chair Message
Colin Higgins
Deakin University
Dear SIMians,
How good was it to be back face to face in Seattle! It was fantastic to connect with new and old friends – and even to provide ways for many of us to connect virtually. From the many conversations I had around the conference halls, the coffee shops, and in the elevators – there was a sense of energy and vibrancy as we came together to share our work, give feedback, and connect. Many also commented on how much they’d missed those random, chance encounters – whether it be over a drink at the social or by sitting next to someone in a session – from which new relationships flow.
There is no doubt that the last two years were tough. But, the SIM division has come through stronger than ever. I know I speak for all in our leadership team when I say how grateful we are that we kept our community together – and striving – through the COVID pandemic. Despite the challenges, 2022 is a bumper membership year for us – with 2036 members signed up for the division (up from 1885 in 2021, 1910 in 2020 and essentially back to where we were in 2019 – 2051 members). There have been lots of new initiatives – including the online ‘coffee and cocktails’ that have provided us with new opportunities to connect. I’m looking forward to working with our fantastic membership committee over the coming 12 months to see how we build on the new ways we’ve learned to connect.
It is truly a great honor to serve as SIM Division Chair for the next 12 months. I want to acknowledge the huge number of volunteers who make our division tick. While many of the SIM volunteers are highly visible – more on that below – I want to shout out to those that are much less so. Firstly, those who step up and work tirelessly on our division awards! We all know how important our awards are. They are a signal to others about the work going on in the division – and provide important recognition of the work that is shaping our field. You can check out details of our award winners on pp.19-28 page of the newsletter or online. But, special thanks to our Best Ethics Paper team led by Kam Phung and included Aishwarya Shahrawat, Laura Albareda, and Harry van Buren. We’re delighted that this award continues to be sponsored by the Journal of Business Ethics. The Best Paper group had Michael Pirson as chair, who was ably supported by Kendy Hess and Hong Bui as members. The Best Student Paper was selected by Carolyn Dang (chair), Xinran [Joyce] Wang, Yan Bai, and Lucas Amaral. A special thanks also goes to the committee that selects the Best Dissertation winner: Lea Stadtler (chair), Gabriela Gutierrez-Huerter, Kate Odziemkowska, Greg Molecke. Finally, the Best Book Award winner was chosen by Petya Koleva (chair), Yussuf Sidani, and Theodora Issa.
I really do want to make special mention of those who work hard to put on the program. For a while we were unsure what form the conference would take, how many would turn up, whether the hybrid format would work – and how best to put together the program. It was very heartening to see that more than 70% of those who registered for the conference attended in person. Cristina Neesham did an absolutely superb job navigating the challenges of scheduling and technology to put on a fantastic conference! This year we ended up with nearly 390 submissions and nearly 270 submissions. The high acceptance rate is testament to the quality we continue to see being submitted. As we look forward, the hybrid format is here to stay for the foreseeable future. As we learn the lessons of virtual and hybrid meetings – I hope that this provides us with a new, ongoing, more sustainable and more inclusive way for us to connect.
The PDW sessions this year continued our very strong orientation to cross-disciplinarity and leadership in the field. There were very stimulating insights provided on topics such as racial justice, social justice, business and global piece, and flipping the classroom. We continue to see convergence with many ONE-related topics – most particularly sustainability and the SDGs – but also new insights from other divisions (eg OMT and the use of new management theories). The PDW program provides an early indicator of the direction our field is moving. The meeting was rounded out by an excellent doctoral consortium (thank you Jo-Ellen Pozner and Julia Roloff). A very success online event – enabling us to provide this opportunity to 50 participants. I also want to acknowledge Susana Esper and Jason Pattit who stepped up to provide an opportunity for our Junior Faculty to consort with our friends in the ONE division. It was great to see 19 junior faculty participate (in hybrid format), with 20 senior faculty also taking part. Well done everyone!
As the new year for the leadership team gets underway, we’re looking ahead to some of the strategic work that needs to be done. Over the past two years we’ve undertaken a thorough review of the division – stimulated in part by the Academy’s own five year review process but also as part of our efforts at continuous improvement. Erica Steckler along with colleagues Jean-Pascal Gond, Emilio Marti, Pushpika Vishwanathan, and Sandra Waddock) did an incredible job providing a deep understanding of SIM’s contribution to the Academy and SIMs future). We’ll be picking up on this work over the next 12 months – as we also strive to incorporate the new learnings from our virtual and hybrid experience.
As I take on the role of Division Chair from Katherina this year, I’m looking forward to working with Erica Steckler as incoming PDW Chair, and Michelle Westermann-Behaylo as incoming program chair. I’m very grateful to be standing on the shoulders of Katherina and Andy who have so ably led the division over the past two years. I do encourage you to follow our communications and social media presence – and we have a fantastic team led by Jae Hwan Lee with the help of a nimble and creative team – Vincenzo Vastola, Daniel Alonso Martinez, Julia Grimm, Onna Van den Broek, Lucas Amaral, Benjamin Alexander, and David Skandera, Seham Ghalwash, and Ige Oyinkansola.
In closing, I also want to pay my respects to Prof John Mahon – former Program Chair and Division Chair of SIM, the 2002 Sumner Marcus Award winner, former Editor of Business & Society, and founding member of IABS – who sadly passed away in October last year. Those of us who know John will remember fondly his larger-than-life personality – but also his generosity, kindness, and genuine interest in us, our field, and the work we do.
Once again, it is my pleasure to be leading the SIM division over the next 12 months. I’m looking forward to the new conversations that we’ll have, the new insights that we’ll share, and the new ways we’ll find to connect and grow our community.
Best,
Colin Higgins
SIM Division Chair, 2022-2023
2021-2022 Program Chair Message
Cristina Neesham
Newcastle University
Dear SIMians,
It has been another challenging year – this time in post-pandemic peak recovery mode, with new kinds of challenges requiring new solutions. Our division received 414 submissions in total, out of which 359 were papers and 55 were symposia. This means a 20% overall increase from last year, however we are still down about 20% from the ‘normal’ levels of 2020 and previous years. Similar to 2021, there were caps of 65% for papers and 75% for symposia. Accordingly, we accepted 234 papers and 42 symposia. In line with this, there were a total of 187 papers and 32 symposia accepted.
The diversification of session delivery modes has been by far the greatest challenge for all of us: with five different modes to consider (in-person, hybrid interactive, live synchronous open, live synchronous presenter, and virtual on demand) and with significant infrastructure and resource constraints (e.g. 24% cap on hybrid interactive and 20% total cap on all three virtual-only modes considered together), many individual needs could not be fully satisfied. We are very grateful to all SIM participants who reached out to each other within their respective sessions and organised local technical solutions amongst themselves to make the most of their time together: abundant evidence of how mutual understanding and cooperation triumph where large systems are unable to respond. We are also grateful to the AOM Program team for being as supportive as possible within the given limits.
With regard to the topic areas, CSR and performance continues to be the most representative category (42%), followed very closely by ethics (41%). Sustainability is firmly on the rise (38%), while stakeholder theory and relationships (at 30%) have experienced an 8% decline from last year. The ‘Other’ category continues to be selected quite frequently (36%), which indicates that, despite adjustments made to refine the keywords available for selection on submission, we still have significant work to do in capturing the emerging topic areas in SIM. While some areas seem to become more constant now (e.g. gender, social impact, entrepreneurship, partnerships, diversity), others (e.g. trust, social value) tend to fluctuate considerably from one year to the next. Due to these variations and nuances, the automated reviewer matching system can only go some way towards supporting reviewer allocation: as a result, most allocations this year have been done manually (a labour-intensive task that requires further attention and support moving forward).
With regard to reviewing, beside the need for manual allocations we have experienced similar issues as last year. Although the number of reviewer sign-ups has increased by almost 6% (from 380 to 404), this has not guaranteed reliable, timely, good quality returns. A nearly 20% increase in Associate Editors from 2021 has been critical to assuring the integrity of our review process. Our deepfelt gratitude goes to the 63 AEs who laboured through, sometimes at very short notice, to provide sound recommendations and meaningful feedback. Special thanks go to Steve Brammer and Sandra Waddock, who were so graciously ready to turn into emergency reviewers when it was most needed! To address the persisting issues around reviewing, I reiterate the need to make it a requirement for all submitters to sign up for review, as well as the need for reviewer training worldwide, to ensure the norms and standards around reviewing are well understood in all regions of the globe. As the number of submissions from all regions is growing (which is indeed the progress we wish to see), reviewing experience also needs to keep up with this trend.
This year’s SIM Program (and the AOM Meeting overall) have demonstrated the priority value given by our members to collaboration and networking, and the importance of in-person sessions and events to facilitate these activities. We need ongoing feedback from you, all SIM members, so we can better understand your changing needs and work out better solutions for our future Programs.
Wishing you the very best,
Cristina Neesham
SIM Program Chair, 2021-2022
2021-2022 PDW Chair Message
Michelle Westermann-Behaylo
University of Amsterdam
Dear SIMians,
The 2022 PDW program attracted a total of 10 submissions, and they were all terrific; it would have been difficult to choose between them. Fortunately, the Academy program team allowed SIM to have a 100% acceptance rate. We followed the SIM tradition of including PDW sessions advancing three aims: research, teaching, and professional development. The subject matter of SIM PDWs was varied and interesting and the sessions I was able to visit were well attended—both live and virtually. Topics of SIM PDWs included: Integrating SDGs into Management Courses; Research and Realities of Asians/Asian-Americans in Academia; Building Strong Interdisciplinary Research Clusters; A New Logic of Sustainability; The Next Wave of CSR Research; Managing for Social Justice; Flipping the Classroom to Teach Social Issues; International Business & Global Peace; Addressing Human Health Grand Challenges, and a Human Rights Approach to Management Educations.
In addition, the four annual SIM developmental sessions were also on the program—we are grateful to the organizers as well as all the doctoral students and junior faculty who participated, and especially to the senior SIM scholars who served as mentors, panelists, paper reviewers, and networkers. Congratulations are due to Jo-Ellen Pozner and Julia Roloff who stepped in and put together a successful and very engaging SIM Doctoral Consortium. Much appreciation also goes to Sarah Stephen and Pushpika Vishwanathan who implemented some thoughtful innovations in their organization of the SIM Speed Networking event. We must recognize Jason Pattit and Susana Esper for their great job chairing the super informative SIM-ONE Junior Faculty Consortium for SIM (working with Amanda Williams and Ju Young Lee from ONE). Finally, much credit is due to Tricia Olsen and Mark Sharfman for organizing a supportive and helpful SIM Research Development Workshop.
In addition to SIM sponsored content, SIM was able to co-sponsor 47 additional PDW sessions with 18 other divisions, sharing sessions most frequently with CMS, ONE, GDO and OMT. These also engaged a wide array of topics, including: Institutional Investors, Family Owners and Activism; Inclusive Structural Responses to Inequality and Marginality; Beyond-Human Methodologies; Studying Organizational Elites in an Unequal World; Organizational Research in Developing Country Contexts; Sustainability Performance Measurement; Organizing for Good; Business Responses to Climate Change; Decolonizing Management and Organization Studies; Stigma versus Stigmatization; Understanding the Firm’s Dependence on Nature; Social Movements, Stakeholders & Nonmarket Strategy; Race, Embodiment and Ethics; Organizing Degrowth for a 1.5C Planet; Diversity and Inclusion; the Business of Immigration; and the Power of Collective Action in Restoring Academic Well-being.
Many thanks go my colleagues in the SIM leadership team for their support in organizing the PDWs, the AOM Program Team for their clear instructions, the SIM Research and Membership Committees for their innovative sessions, and all SIM members and scholars who were involved in SIM sponsored/co-sponsored PDWs.
Looking forward, I send a warm welcome to Erica Steckler, who is our incoming PDW chair. Next year I will be honored to serve as the Annual Meeting chair. Watching all of Cristina Neesham’s work to put together the program this year was impressive, and I humbly hope I can perform these duties as well as she. To do so, I will need your help: Please do not forget to sign up to be a reviewer for the 2023 AOM in Boston!
Best regards,
Michelle Westermann-Behaylo
SIM PDW Chair, 2021-2022