CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES (CMS)

The Critical Management Studies (CMS) Division is inviting scholarly submissions on the AOM 2024 theme, "Innovating for the Future: Policy, Purpose, and Organizations". At the heart of this theme is ‘rethinking conventional ways of leading, managing, and organizing’ innovation (AOM 2023).

The CMS Division interprets ‘rethinking’ as a process of considering alternative ways of engaging in and with innovation, based on an understanding of the shortcomings of past, current and emerging forms of innovation and approaches to innovation. Critical thinking exposes imperialist, capitalist, neo-colonial, managerialist, essentialist, masculinist and exploitative agendas that drive simplistic views of innovation while threatening to undermine its potential for progressive change. One progressive goal for CMS scholars is to understand and identify potential solutions for promoting social innovation for the good of organizations and society.

We therefore invite paper submissions including but not limited to the following:

The nature and purposes of innovation:

• Appraising the inherent idea that innovation is future-oriented.
• Reflecting on innovation as a black box—critically delving into the opaqueness of innovation and its effects upon individuals, organizations and society.
• Critiquing the senselessness of innovation, and innovation for the sake of innovation, e.g., bullshit innovations.
• Exploring the interconnectedness of innovation and creativity—critically reflecting on both the philosophical and practical implications.
• Exploring non-market driven innovations and inventions (e.g. frugal, jugaad, and other types of innovation).

Ethical and social aspects of innovation:

• Interrogating the means, actions and behaviors of innovators, users and policy-makers (deontological aspects) and their organizational and societal impact.
• Examining the consequences of innovating, innovation and its usage upon individuals, organizations and society (teleological aspects).
• Critiquing public and policy-maker attitudes/inclinations towards innovations, and their broader effects, e.g., willful blindness regarding (white-collar) crime and innovation.

Identity and inequality in innovation:

• Critiquing the identities of innovators—who is considered an innovator, and how the innovator identity is implicated by demographic dimensions such as age, gender, sexuality, and racial category, among other aspects.
• Scrutinizing the identities of innovation sectors, and conceptions of innovation-ability or innovation non-ability ascribed to social groups, sectors and geographies.
• Reflecting on innovations by First Nations people and Indigenous communities.
• Approaching decolonial ways of innovation.
• Addressing the inequalities generated by innovations, e.g., AI and cryptocurrencies, among others.
• Interrogating the social and economic/financial value attachment to innovation based on social, sectoral, geographic, and epistemic identities.

Global impact and innovation’s implications:

• Critiquing the effects of innovation on the natural environment and climate change.
• Examining the link between innovation and degrowth/postgrowth at the global level.

We also welcome papers that don’t engage explicitly with the theme but are otherwise of direct relevance to the CMS community. Please do not hesitate to email us if you wish to discuss a potential submission or obtain more details about the CMS Division scholarly program.  The AOM 2024 conference will be in-person in Chicago, USA, 9-13 August 2024.

In collaboration with select critical journals, we offer awards to recognize the contributions made to the scholarly program by our members. More details on this are available on the CMS website. There is a dedicated award for the Best Developmental Reviewer and we encourage members to sign up to review submissions. This year we will support reviewers by hosting a workshop on Reviewing Critical Work. Please look out for announcements and contact us if you would like to be involved.

The submission deadline is 09 January 2024 at 17:00 ET (GMT-5/UTC-5). Scholarly sessions (paper sessions and symposia) will take place Sunday, 11 August through Tuesday, 13 August 2024, after Professional Development Workshops (PDWs) that will take place Friday, 9 August through Sunday, 11 August 2024.