Professional Development Workshops (PDWs) are among the most rewarding, stimulating, and enjoyable sessions of the Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting. The Entrepreneurship Division invites creative and innovative proposals for PDW sessions for the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, which will be held in hybrid format in Seattle, Washington between August 5-9, 2022. The Annual Meeting theme this year is “Creating a Better World Together”, with paper sessions, symposia, PDWs, and social opportunities that help address this theme.
Considering the ENT Division mission (“We Grow Entrepreneurial Scholars”) and the Annual Meeting Theme, the ENT Division favors proposals that give participants at all career stages the opportunity to learn new skills, share ideas, help other scholars, have new experiences, and build connections. PDWs are meant as complements, not substitutes, for the regular AOM program. They should not cover conventional themes and topics or be structured as traditional paper or panel sessions. Rather, PDWs should be innovative in content and structure, exploring issues and encouraging interactions not usually featured in the main program.
PDW sessions are typically structured as workshops, breakout sessions, tutorials, discussion panels, research incubators, or other interactive formats. They provide a forum for exchanging ideas and building relationships in a manner that does not typically fit the constraints of paper and symposium sessions. Knowledge sharing and participation are key, and PDWs present the opportunity to experiment with new models of interaction and engagement.
Proposals should interest members of the Entrepreneurship Division, or fit its domain, which includes not only the phenomena of self-employment, small-business management, family business, women and social entrepreneurs, new-venture formation, innovation, and firm growth but also more general ideas about the recognition, analysis, and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Likewise, the nature of novelty, creativity, and innovativeness within entrepreneurial settings are valued, as well as new theoretical and empirical approaches towards entrepreneurial process research. Sessions with standard paper presentations are more appropriate for traditional sessions.
The most effective PDWs encourage interaction among individuals and groups which do not typically participate in the same sessions, workshops, and activities - not only within the Entrepreneurship Division, but also across the divisional lines within the Academy. Hence you are encouraged to work with colleagues within and outside the Division and submit appropriate PDW proposals which have broad appeal to the Academy membership at-large.
Proposals will be evaluated based on: (a) the expected substantive and networking benefit for participants, (b) the plans for creating an interactive and engaging session, (c) the breadth of interest of the session for individuals and groups within the Division and the broader Academy, (d) the novelty of the topic or the forum for the exchanges, (e) the effective use of program time, and (f) the fit with the conference theme. We encourage proposals that explicitly address these six criteria.
As PDWs are intended for professional development, proposals should explain how their session will foster interaction and personal development among participants as well as the audience they will aim to attract. In order to allow interaction, PDWs are typically at least two hours long, though sessions may be as short as 1 hour.
Format of the PDW proposal: All PDW proposals should be formatted following submission guidelines that are found on the AOM website. Please note that if the submission guidelines and formatting requirements are not met, the submission will not be reviewed. It is also critical that you draft your abstract in a clear and unambiguous fashion as it represents a primary tool for PDW selection among attendees, and in particular for PDW proposals that seek to engage other AOM Divisions.
Proposals should be submitted to the 2022 AOM Annual Meeting Submission Center, which is available at the
www.aom.org website. Early submissions are encouraged.
The following dates apply:
Submission Center Open Date: Thursday, December 2, 2021
Submission Center Deadline Date: January 11, 2022 by 5:00 pm EST
All named PDW participants must commit to participation in advance. All proposals require a statement indicating that all named participants have consented to participate in the Entrepreneurship Division PDW. Please be informed about “PDW Rule of Three”, i.e., “no one may submit or be associated with more than 3 PDW submissions or appear in more than 3 PDW sessions during the PDW program.”
If you have questions, please contact the Entrepreneurship Division’s PDW Chair for the 2022 Annual Meeting at Rachida.Justo@ie.edu.
To ensure sufficient time to develop your proposal, please forward your general inquiries before December 20th, 2021.
We hope to see you in person at the Annual Meeting this coming year!