2024 Conference Theme: Innovating for the Future
Submission Center Opens: Early December 2023
Submission Deadline: Tuesday, 9  January 2024 at 17:00 ET (UTC-5/GMT-5)
Scholarly Sessions: Friday, 9 August- Tuesday, 13 August 2024

The Management, Spirituality, and Religion (MSR) Division welcomes scholarly submissions to the AOM 2024 meeting. The 2024 Annual AOM theme is of high appeal to the MSR Division which accommodates a wide range of scholarly inquiry. However, submissions that fall within the MSR Domain but do not directly address the AOM theme are also welcome. Given the cross-disciplinary and challenge-led nature of the theme, we also welcome submissions that span different domains and scholarly fields.

MSR Domain Statement

Management, Spirituality, and Religion explores how spirituality and religion influence organizational dynamics and affect management outcomes. MSR is devoted to defining the relevance and impact of spirituality and religion in management, organizations and society. Major areas of study include theory building and empirical research around the issues of faith, spirituality and religion as they influence principles and practices in management. MSR research has made important contributions to better understand the meaning of work, the impact of spirituality and spiritual leadership in the workplace, the purpose of business, the effects of religious pluralism in the workplace, and the distinctive elements of individual religious and spiritual beliefs that cultivate inner awareness and promote wisdom for the common good.

We particularly wish the MSR scholarly program to relate AOM’s theme of Innovating for the Future to the role of spirituality and religion as an inspiration for developing novel managerial and organizational purpose driven solutions in a collaborative and co-innovation approach with multiple stakeholders.  Specifically, we hope you will be excited to explore how innovating for the future can be pursued by showing how respect, acceptance, understanding, and cooperation can challenge structures of oppression and demoralization in work environments around the world. We are excited to receive papers that connect spirituality and religion to personal management, regardless of one’s position and prominence in organizations. In exploring these ideas, we hope to receive papers that embed scholarly activism, alternative ways of being (e.g., separate and selfish versus compassionate and connected), alternative ways of knowing (e.g., emotional, sensing, intuition, wisdom). Emancipatory and transformative research methods based on ways of knowing other than Western based reason and logic are also welcome. For example, some ancient approaches to leadership called for future leaders to engage in contemplative practices as a means of knowing themselves as one with the cosmos and all on the earth. If leaders experience themselves as one with all, what kind of innovations might unfold in business? How might the current paradigm of business and leadership shift away from Milton Friedman's narrow assumption that individuals are rational self-interested maximizers, providing amoral theories that disconnect students and business from moral responsibility (Ghoshal, 2005, p.84).

The dramatic technological shifts coupled with amplifying environmental and public concerns serve as the backdrop for the 2024 theme. Instead of focusing on organizational reactions to the ever-changing complexities of our world, Innovating for the Future urges scholars to delve deep within organizations. By reimagining the organization from the inside out and considering the interplay of innovation, policy, and purpose, the theme seeks to unlock a wave of innovative insights and evidence-based contributions that pave the way for a brighter future for workers, managers, organizations, and society at large. Excerpt from AOM’s 2024 Theme Introduction by Vice President and Program Chair: Tammy L. Madsen, Santa Clara University

Examples of specific questions, related to Innovating for the Future, within the MSR Domain might include:

• How do our methods of researching spirituality and/or religion within organizations shift in perspective the perspective in business from that articulated by Milton Friedman to a broader more inclusive perspective?
• How could spirituality and/or religion encourage or discourage greater collaboration and fulfillment for workers?

How might spirituality and/or religion contribute to addressing the questions below?

• What innovations in organizational policies, processes, and practices can help employees and managers cope with intractable problems while staying true to their purpose?
• What innovations in organizational policies, processes, and practices can help employees and managers cope with intractable problems while staying true to their purpose?
• In what ways can managers and loosely connected stakeholders align incentives and cultivate productive relational arrangements to ensure that co-innovated solutions are developed and utilized in a manner that remains true to purpose driven objectives?

Innovating for the Future

We welcome three types of submissions: scholarly papers, presenter symposia, and/or panel symposium submissions for the 2024 MSR Scholarly Program:

• Paper submissions involve one or more authors submitting an academic paper. If accepted, scholarly papers are then grouped by the MSR Program Chair into themed paper sessions.  
• Presenter Symposia involve a series of authored papers that you, the submitter, organize around a theme of your choosing.  Titles and authors/presenters are associated with each presentation.
• Panel Symposia are intended to engage a group of panelists in an interactive discussion. There are no paper titles associated with the panelists’ presentations. Proposals should include a clear description of the topic and the procedure that will be used to manage the discussion among panelists and with the audience.

Along with the Call for Submissions, MSR also makes a Call for Reviewers. If you plan to submit a paper, please also sign-up to review.

Process Overview

The following overview is intended to outline the broad steps involved that take us to the finished MSR Scholarly Program:

• Submissions to the Scholarly Program segment of AOM must self-identify a single sponsoring division or interest group (i.e., MSR). However, symposium submitters are encouraged to identify other divisions/interest groups whose members might find their submission relevant. The submission is initially reviewed by the primary sponsor. If it is accepted for inclusion into MSR’s Scholarly Program, the submission becomes visible to the other divisions/interest groups that have been listed and they are invited to co-sponsor the symposium.
• Based on the reviewer feedback, the MSR Scholarly Program Chair selects specific submissions as:
  • MSR Showcase Symposium – These are the best symposium submissions received and are expected to attract a large audience. They do NOT need to address the conference theme. The MSR Scholarly Program Chair may select up to 10% of symposia accepted by their division to be designated as showcase symposia.
  • MSR Best Paper Award – This is the best paper submission received that ???
• Based on the reviewer feedback, the MSR Scholarly Program Chair recommends a single accepted submission for the following AOM Program Awards:
  • William H. Newman Award for Best Paper Based on a Dissertation
  • Carolyn Dexter Award for Best International Paper

It is an honor to be nominated for these awards and the papers are designated as nominees on the program. More information on the annual meeting program awards is available on the AOM website

We welcome scholarly paper, presenter symposium, and/or panel symposium submissions for the 2024 MSR Scholarly Program:

• Paper submissions involve one or more authors submitting an academic paper, which if accepted, is grouped by the MSR Program Chair into a themed paper session.
  • Full paper submissions should not exceed 40 pages
  • In addition to full paper submissions, in 2021 MSR are also experimenting with a call for developmental papers of up to 3000 words. Developmental papers should be clearly-marked “Developmental Paper” on the front page and their purpose is to enable authors to discuss their work while it is in its developmental stage, so comments and feedback obtained at the conference can be incorporated in the final stages of research and writing up. Following, developmental papers should typically include:
    • Introduction and proposed research question
    • Brief literature review
    • Proposed methodology and/or initial findings
    • Potential contribution
• Presenter Symposia involve a series of authored papers that you, the submitter, organize around a theme of your choosing.  Titles and authors/presenters are associated with each presentation.
• Panel Symposia are intended to engage a group of panelists in an interactive discussion. There are no titles associated with the panelists’ presentations. Proposals should include a clear description of the topic and the procedure that will be used to manage the discussion among panelists and with the audience.

Along with the Call for Submissions, MSR also makes a Call for Reviewers. If you plan to submit a paper, please also sign-up to review.

We look forward to the range of teaching, practitioner, and scholarship research that will crystalize our 2024 MSR effort to “cultivate inner awareness and promote wisdom for the common good” (MSR Domain Statement).

The "rule of three" applies: individuals may submit, appear in, or be associated with up to three PDWs.

Final Notes

• Submitters do not need to be members to submit a proposal to the Annual Meeting.
• If a proposal is accepted, participants must register to attend the Annual Meeting.
• All participants attending the Annual Meeting must be AOM Members and registered for the Annual Meeting.

Submitters who are unclear about the submission process, please review the submission guidelines.

Dates to remember

• Reviewer Sign Up Opens: Early December 2023
• Submission Center Opens: Early December 2023
• Submission Deadline: Tuesday, 9  January 2024 at 17:00 ET (UTC-5/GMT-5)

Reference:
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(1), 75-91.