Editorial Guidelines

In addition to this guide, AOM relies on The Chicago Manual of Style as our guide of reference and Merriam-Webster as our spelling and punctuation guide.

The Academy of Management Name

As we work to strengthen the Academy of Management brand, we must concentrate on how we refer to ourselves and the Academy. Upon first reference in body copy, always use the full name “Academy of Management (AOM).” Subsequent references should be limited to AOM.

• Academy of Management and AOM are the only names that should be used.
• Do not use “the Academy,” “A of M,” “AoM” or any other abbreviation such as “Acad. of Mgmt.” or other variations on the name.
• When using AOM, “the” should not be used before AOM.
• Use AOM as a first reference preface. Example: AOM scholars, AOM members.

Members

All AOM members are equal in relation to their country or residence. Do not refer to members from another country as “international members”. Instead, refer to a member from another country as “member(s) from [country/region]”.

• Use “Academy of Management members” or “AOM members” when referring to AOM members as a whole. Use “members” for subsequent references.
• When referring to a subset of AOM members, such as editors, divisions, follow the same rule as above: Academy of Management [subset group] on first reference and AOM [subset group] on subsequent references.
• AOM Career Division member or AOM Member of the ENT Division
• Volunteers are AOM members who are doing volunteer work with AOM in an editorial or governance capacity.
• AOM Scholars for marketing purposes are members who have published in an AOM journal or presented at an AOM event.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

In general, avoid “alphabet soup” – the unnecessary use of acronyms or abbreviations that creates a sense of insider communications and may exclude or confuse non-members and those who are not familiar with AOM's acronyms. For outsiders who don’t know AOM, they don't know what DSDP, MED, DIGs or SCI stand for. Using these exclusively creates confusion among readers who are not as familiar with our inner workings as we are.

When necessary, spell out the first reference followed by the acronym or abbreviation in parentheses: Academy of Management (AOM). Subsequent references can use the acronym alone: AOM.

Divisions and Interest Groups (DIGs)

Academy of Management Journals

AOM journal titles should always be in italics when the full name of the journal is written out. Journal acronyms are not italicized. “The” should not be placed before a journal title. Ex: Academy of Management Annals, NOT “The Academy of Management Annals” or “The Annals.”

AOM Programs

Teaching and Learning Conference

The Teaching and Learning Conference is a collection of sessions held as part of the Annual Meeting and are often grouped together during a single day. The common abbreviation for the Teaching and Learning Conference is TLC@AOM and should be used after the full name of the conference is referenced first.

Specialized Conferences

Specialized Conferences (plural) is the name given to a series of events, started as an AOM initiative. When referencing the overall program, use the plural form. When referencing a specific, singular event, use the singular, Specialized Conference.

Examples:

• AOM’s Specialized Conferences are held globally.
• The Specialized Conference in Mexico City was cancelled.

The naming convention for Specialized Conferences is as follows:

Academy of Management Specialized Conference[Conference Title]Hosted by [Host Institution]In Collaboration with [DIG/GROUPS]

When shortening the conference name, use the first part of the conference name, followed by the location, such as: Responsible Leadership: Slovenia or Big Data: UK

Academic Degrees

Capitalization (See also Titles)

Capitalize a job title when it immediately precedes a person's name. The title is not capitalized when it is incomplete, follows a name or is on second reference:

• Academy of Management President [Name]
• [Name], president of the Academy of Management
• Professor [Name], Associate Professor [Name]
• the president
• the 80th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management

AOM Member Types

Lowercase member when referring to a member in general and capitalize when referring to the membership type itself.

• Joe is an AOM student member….
• Joe registered as a Student Member to attend the Annual Meeting…

• Academic Member
• Emeritus Member
• Executive Member
• Student Member
• AOM Scholar (for PR purposes)

City and Country References

Depending on global awareness of specific cities or countries, it is not necessary to indicate the city, state/province, and country at all times. See Cities and States from Princeton and AP Style Datelines as references.

When referencing locations for AOM events or member locations, list the city and country for locations outside the United States and city, state and USA for locations inside the United States.

• Bled, Slovenia
• Mexico City, Mexico
• Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Currency

When indicating a costs or fees, use the correct currency code and symbol. A list of global currency symbols is available at TransferWise.

• United States: $1 USD
• European Union: €1 EUR
• Great Britain: £1 GBP
• Mexico: $1 MXN

Dates and Times

AOM uses the international date and time format to represent dates and times.

• Day Month Year (DD MM YYYY) without any separating commas. Example: 31 December 2019
• 24-hour time (HH:MM) without any am or pm designation. Example: 17:00 instead of 5 pm
• Indicate the Coordinated Universal Time (formerly Greenwich Mean Time), displayed as UTC/GMT, to indicate global time zones. A time zone converter, such as World Time Buddy, can be used on the web to display the indicated time zone and the user’s local time zone.
  • Eastern Standard Time (EST) is UTC-5/GMT-5
  • Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) is UTC-4/GMT-4

By default, use US Eastern time, the location of AOM headquarters.

Example: Submissions are due on 1 January 2021 at 12:00 EST (UTC-5/GMT-5)

When specifying a time in a specific location outside AOM HQ, indicate the local time and include the UTC/GMT time difference.

Example: AOM 2025 begins at 09:00 (UTC+2/GMT+2) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Numbers

Spell out numbers one through nine and general numbers in narrative text:

• There were seven people at the meeting.
• There were 36 members in the session.
• There are approximately 5,000 members.
• There are a thousand reasons.

When a number is the first word of a sentence, spell it out.

Punctuation

Commas

Use serial commas for three or more items in a series. Example: Meetings, Publications, and Membership met to discuss scheduling.

Periods and Colons

Use one space after periods and colons.

Quotes

Do not italicize direct quotes. Normal style in narrative writing is to use quotes, not italics. You may italicize words within a quote for added emphasis. Ex: “I can say with certainty that it was not me.”

Em and En Dashes

Em dashes (—) should be used where needed—not hyphens with spaces on either side. (Never add spaces around Em dashes within a sentence.) (On a PC, type Alt, 0151)

En dashes (–) should be used for date ranges or time ranges. Again, no spaces around them.

Hyphenations

Do not hyphenate compound adjectives or nouns such as coworker, coauthor, coeditor. Most “co” words do not require a hyphen.

Taglines

The following are the official and approved taglines for AOM:

• Academy of Management Insights: Actionable evidence for the workplace
• AOM News: Improving management, scientifically

Telephone Numbers

Use country and area/city codes with hyphens for all telephone numbers. Alternatively, use “+1” to indicate the use of a preceding country code. If an extension is needed, follow the phone number with a comma, the “ext.” abbreviation and the extension. Do not use “.” periods or “/” slashes in phone numbers.

Example: 011-914-326-1800, ext. 890 or +1-914-326-1800, ext. 890

Titles (see also Capitalization)

Only capitalize titles when linked to a specific person. Do not capitalize when referring to the person in general.

• AOM President Jacqueline A-M. Coyle-Shapiro attended the meeting.
• Jacqueline A-M. Coyle-Shapiro, President, Academy of Management, attended the meeting.
• The AOM president attended the meeting.

Do not use courtesy titles (Mr., Miss, Ms., Mrs.).

Use the title Dr. only when referring to a medical doctor.

Names followed by Jr., Sr. or a Roman numeral do not have a comma after the last name:

• Martin Luther King Jr.
• James Hart III

Web and Online Terminology

Use the following terminology for web and online references, noting specific capitalization and punctuation uses.

• email (or Email at the beginning of a sentence)
• e-news, e-newsletter, e-book
• Facebook page
• homepage
• internet
• internet of things
• LinkedIn
• Sign in, sign out (verb) AOM preferred
  • Login (noun): this is your login name
  • Log in (verb): you need to log in first…
• online
• the web
• webpage
• Twitter feed
• YouTube
• website

URLs

In text, use the shortest URL possible, such as aom.org/join or program.aom.org. For root-level sites, do not use "https://" or the "trailing slash":

Example: aom.org, not https://www.aom.org/main/

In actual links, make sure to use https, not http, to ensure secure connections.

Example: https://www.aom.org, not http://www.aom.org

To request a shortened URL, redirect link, or custom AOM bitly URL, please submit a ZenDesk to Communications and Marketing.