***This is a message for AOM MED Members and other list-members interested
in the AOM and management education.
Greetings to all!!
As MED representative to the Academy of Management Council, I have been
asked to share with you the CURRENT DRAFT of the Academy's statement of
strategic direction (attached and copied below) and get any feedback both
from the MED membership in general and, in particular, the MED Officers.
The attached copy is a REVISED document after a round of feedback from this
past fall.
In particular, the Board of Governors wishes feedback on the following
questions:
* Is the direction described here consistent with what you view as a
desirable for the Academy?
* What modifications, additions or deletions do you wish to make in any
parts of this statement?
As you review this document and address these questions, please also
consider what role MED may play in this direction's implementation and how
it aligns with the current MED domain and objectives. The Academy is taking
input and suggestions for the next few weeks and then will continue to
develop and implement this strategy over the years ahead. In order to
consolidate responses back to the Board, please provide your thoughts and
ideas to me by February 10, 2001.
Please reply directly to
mhornyak@uwf.edu if you prefer to avoid
broadcasting your responses to the entire MG-ED-DV listserve community.
Thanks for your input into this important process.
Marty Hornyak
MED AOM Council Representative
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Marty Hornyak
mhornyak@uwf.edu
Assistant Professor of Management
Department of Management/MIS
University of West Florida
Pensacola, FL 32514-5752
(850) 474-2039
-----Original Message-----
COPY OF AOM BOARD OF GOVERNORS' STRATEGIC STATEMENT REVIEW REQUEST
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*************
To: Members of Academy of Management Board of Governors, Council, and Chairs
of Divisions and Committees
From: Tom Cummings, Larry Greiner, & Andy Van de Ven
Subject: Web Board Discussion of Second Draft of Strategic Statement
Date: January 10, 2001
After receiving excellent feedback from AoM divisions, committees, and the
Council on the initial statement developed last August by the AoM Board of
Governors, the Board met again December 2 to prepare the a second draft of
our Statement of Strategic Direction attached. Prior to the meeting, all
Board members reviewed the reactions that were posted on the web board. We
decided to make it a brief and positive statement directed at the future,
rather than an analysis of the current situation. At the end of the
document are a few words about our thinking that lead to this statement.
This statement consists of three parts:
1. A contemporary restatement of the Academy�s mission and values (from the
Bylaws of the Academy of Management). We intend the mission and values
statement to reflect the core, enduring identity of the Academy.
2. Five strategic directions that evolved from our discussions to date.
They are intended to be the guiding principles that link or translate our
mission and values into the operational services we provide and the
initiatives we undertake.
3. A list of operational services and specific initiatives that we propose
to undertake within service areas. These services and initiatives should be
consistent with our strategic directions for advancing the Academy�s
missions and values.
We again would like your feedback. In particular, we would appreciate your
sharing this statement with your constituents and receiving your comments on
two questions:
� Is the direction described here consistent with what you view as a
desirable for the Academy?
� What modifications, additions or deletions do you wish to make in any
parts of this statement?
The Web Board discussion of this second draft will remain open until Friday,
February 23. We will then proceed to the next steps in our process as
outlined in the attached file (NextSteps.doc).
Thank you for your consideration and guidance in creating our future!
Academy of Management
Statement of Strategic Direction
(Second Draft, January, 2001)
Mission
The Academy of Management is a not-for-profit professional association
dedicated to creating, applying, and disseminating knowledge about
management and organizations. Its members primarily include professors and
doctoral students at colleges, universities, and research institutions, as
well as individuals from business, government and non-profit organizations.
The Academy�s overriding goals are to advance the scholarship of management,
enrich the professional development of its members, and enhance the
profession of management. These goals are guided by the following values:
� Develop and disseminate high-quality scholarship that contributes to
knowledge about management and organizations--its theory, practice and
pedagogy
� Provide a supportive and dynamic community for learning and sharing among
management scholars
� Encourage and appreciate pluralistic perspectives from members throughout
the world
� Build cooperative relationships with other associations committed to
advancing the scholarship of management
� Advocate ethical and responsible research, teaching, and practice of
management knowledge.
Strategic Directions
The following strategic directions are proposed to advance the mission and
values of the Academy of Management. These strategic directions serve as
the guiding principles for organizing the Academy�s services and
initiatives.
� Member Needs. The Academy exists to serve the needs of its members.
Academy members are not homogeneous; their needs for professional
development, training, and expression change over time and differ by career
stages and interests. Current and future needs of members, as identified in
periodic surveys, should be the primary criterion in deciding what
initiatives and activities are undertaken by the Academy.
� Scholarship. The Academy seeks to foster the intellectual and
professional development of its members in advancing the scholarship of
management research, teaching, and practice. Because they are viewed as
equally important, the Academy should balance its priorities on the
research, teaching, and practice of management knowledge.
� Distinctive Focus. The Academy should focus on its distinctive competence
of serving those needs of members that emphasize the scholarship of
management research, teaching, and practice. Other professional development
needs of members should be addressed by establishing relationships or
alliances with other associations and institutions.
� Growth. The Academy does not advocate growth in membership for its own
sake; instead, it seeks growth in the enrichment of the membership. While
most Academy members are academics, we seek and encourage members from all
walks of life who share a common interest in advancing management knowledge.
� Internationalization. The Academy is a citizen of a global and
pluralistic profession of management scholarship. Globalization is a state
of mind that is encouraged among members within the Academy. The Academy
maintains alliances with other international associations that advance a
variety of approaches to management scholarship. It also welcomes members
from all countries for adding their valuable contributions to what we have
called intellectual pluralism.
Services and Initiatives
Guided by these strategic directions, we propose undertaking the initiatives
listed in bullets below each of the major services that the Academy provides
to advance its mission and values. We envision a three-year time frame to
launch these initiatives. If they are to be enacted, these initiatives will
require wide participation and leadership from throughout the Academy.
Several concrete and hypothetical examples of possible action steps are
shown for initiatives in each service area. We encourage you to add your
own suggested initiatives. Once various initiatives are decided upon, we
believe that specific actions will be undertaken by many members of all
Academy committees and divisions.
1. Annual Conference - Each year we hold a major conference consisting of a
variety of important activities, ranging from workshops to paper
presentations and job placement interviews. It is also an occasion for
members from around the world to come together and renew professional and
social relationships. Partial proceedings of the conference are made
available on CD disk.
� Seek out innovative ways to make the annual meeting more engaging and
developmental (e.g. conference within a conference, second winter
conference, web circulation of paper sessions beforehand, more symposia,
incentives to divisions for innovation, sharing of best practices across
divisions, theme meetings across divisions, etc.)
� Provide wider recognition to members whose important contributions may be
less visible (e.g. give public recognition during annual conference at
luncheon, front tables, posters/pictures, etc.)
2. Journals and Publications - We publish three major journals of the
highest quality, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management
Journal, and Academy of Management Executive. A fourth journal, the Academy
of Management Learning and Education Journal, is anticipated to come on
stream January 1, 2002. In addition, a quarterly Newsletter contains news,
events and activities of the Academy. Divisions and interest groups also
produce newsletters.
� Create and sponsor new forms of information dissemination and publication
of management knowledge (e.g. Academy of Management Press, branding with
publishers, etc.)
� Add services to the Journals (e.g. web-based reviews, advance publishing
of future journal issues on the web, greater diversity in editorial boards,
etc.)
3. Job Placement - Each year we make available to members and universities
extensive resources for facilitating the job placement of members, from
those just beginning their careers to those more established in the
profession.
4. Website - While still early in its development, the Academy website is
increasing the range and value of services and information sources it
provides. We anticipate that it will become more interactive and user
friendly.
� Enhance the website so that it becomes more friendly and a more useful
tool for providing services to members (e.g., MyAcademy.Com that allows
customization, and journal services mentioned below, etc.)
5. Relationships with other organizations - The Academy maintains active
relationships with a variety of organizations engaged in management
scholarship, from book publishers to various affiliates and professional
associations. Each of these relationships is aimed at advancing the
scholarship of management and organizations.
� Encourage member involvement in the professional development services
provided by affiliated associations, including attending their conferences
and subscribing to their journals.
� Explore relationships between the Academy and other associations that
support the advancement of management scholarship as a profession (help to
share innovative practices across regions, build closer ties with other
groups abroad and domestically, AACSB, SMS, etc.)
6. Membership Committee � The charge of this long-standing Academy committee
was expanded last year from not only recruiting and orienting new members,
but also to identify and develop recommendations to serve the needs of all
Academy members. The initiatives below are consistent with this expanded
domain.
� Develop more frequent surveys of the membership to identify their needs
and to assess the quality of various services and activities (survey
reactions to journals, website, annual meeting, the profession etc.)
� Investigate the possible enlargement of personal services to the
membership (e.g. legal advice on intellectual property issues, etc.)
7. Theme Committees � Last year the Board restructured three all-Academy
Theme Committees that are devoted to increasing the visibility and launching
activities that increase the professional development skills of all Academy
members in teaching, management practice, and international programs.
� Continue to move ahead with this recent priority given to improving the
scholarship of teaching and the scholarship of practice (e.g. new theme
committees, distance learning research and methods, consulting theory and
intervention, etc.)
8. Organization - The work of the Academy is largely carried out by hundreds
of member volunteers and leaders. Their work is supported by an executive
director and staff members at the Academy of Management headquarters. The
Academy�s Board of Governors, Council, and Division officers are elected for
fixed terms by the membership, causing a continuous turnover in leadership
throughout the Academy. The Academy's leaders, officers, and committees
must take on responsibility rapidly, learning from the past, planning for
the future, and giving voice to all its members. These leaders must
continually act to renew the Academy's services and activities so as to
attract new members and fully engage the current membership.
� Enhance the public relations effort to explain and communicate what the
Academy does to a wider audience of professionals and institutions (e.g.,
develop literature about the Academy, increase PR consulting assistance,
expand media coverage at annual meeting, etc.)
Commentary on the Board's December Discussion
A few comments are in order to explain the thinking behind the above
document. We engaged in a lively discussion and debated many issues, and in
the end we seem agreed on the following points.
� We prefer to call this a "Statement of Strategic Direction" rather than a
"Strategic Plan." The word �plan� appears to us to be too mechanical,
specific, and presumptuous for an organization that will move forward
through the actions of many people at many levels of the Academy. Our
preference is to propose a guiding set of principles that point us in a
general direction but which the membership can build upon over the years.
Initiatives follow from these principles and link them to specific actions
and plans. While the mission statement may endure for some time, we adopted
a three-year time frame for specific strategic initiatives.
� We discussed the core purpose and identity of the Academy. We conceive of
the Academy of Management as an association of scholars that exists
primarily to serve the scholarship needs (research, teaching, and practice)
of its members, as distinguished from a special interest group advocating
social or political change.
� Another key area for discussion was the meaning of "scholarship." Our
conclusion was that we should interpret scholarship to include the
overriding goal of advancing knowledge of management research, teaching and
practice. In other words, we agree with Ernest Boyer�s broad view of
�scholarship� as including the scholarship of discovery, teaching, practice,
and integration. Rigorous thinking and inquiry should, we believe, pertain
to all these domains, and we should not limit ourselves only to one domain.
� We also discussed the meaning of "globalization" for the Academy. We are a
professional association providing professional development opportunities
for scholars interested in the subject matter of management and
organizations. Furthermore, we focus primarily on the needs of academics
who follow the �brand of scholarship� normally identified with American
universities. Given that the subject matter we study is increasingly taking
on an international flavor, it is important that our membership have
opportunities to broaden their understanding of the internationalization
process. Of course, we will continue to welcome scholars with diverse
perspectives from around the world who are interested in the mission,
services and activities of the Academy.
� We debated the term "growth" and clarified that the Academy does not
pursue growth in size as a cause. Growth, however, may be an outcome of
fulfilling our mission of member enrichment.
� We also debated "who" are we attempting to attract as members of the
academy. Here we believe that while we will continue to attract mainly
academics, we should also be open and encouraging to others who share a
strong interest in advancing the scholarship of management research,
teaching and practice.
� We found it useful to distinguish between strategic initiatives that
obligate agents of AoM to take action (e.g., start a new book series, create
partnerships with other associations, etc.) versus initiatives that
encourage members of AoM to take action (e.g., encourage innovative
management practices through management scholarship, encourage a global view
of management practice, etc.).