With the Academy of Management conference slated for Anaheim, California next summer, there is little doubt that we’ll witness lots of excited families, Mickey Mouse paraphernalia, and renditions of “It’s a Small World” around the meetings. In spite of the now-tremendous size of the Academy as a whole and the BPS division within it, I hope that we can also capture a little of the “small world” ethos and create a program that allows us to enrich and deepen our intellectual community and build strong connections in our scholarship. 
 
In his introduction to the newsletter, BPS Division Chair Russ Coff paints a vivid picture of the richness and diversity of the recent meetings in Philadelphia and puts forth a compelling case for why you should also get involved (or more involved!) in the BPS division’s activities in the coming year. Looking back to Philadelphia, an important focus of my work there as PDW chair was to enhance support for researchers as they seek feedback for improving their work-in-progress. Looking forward, I hope to carry this focus through to the Anaheim program by building on the recent tradition of developing creative and cohesive session themes and putting together program “tracks” to reduce conflicts and facilitate interactions among communities of scholars. In a happy coincidence this focus also resonates strongly with the 2008 conference theme, “The Questions We Ask”: there is nothing more fundamental to increasing the quality and impact of our work than to think deeply about the questions we ask. After all, as Jim Walsh’s introduction to the conference theme suggests (http://meeting.aomonline.org/2008/), “our answers can only be as good as our questions.” I strongly encourage you to submit papers and symposium proposals that engage important questions and explore new territory.

Call for Reviewers

Of course the BPS program would be nothing without your involvement – and this is particularly true when it comes to reviewing submissions, as Russ so eloquently professes. The quality of your reviews has been increasing over time, making this feedback a truly valuable service for submitters as well as to the division as a whole. With upwards of 700 submissions to the BPS division last year, it took over 1000 of our members working as reviewers to pull it all together. There is every indication that submissions will be up again this year, and so I truly appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to volunteer. Please continue to provide the kind of high-quality, timely reviews for which our division has become known!
   
Reviewer recruitment is now underway. To sign up as a BPS reviewer, please visit the academy reviewer signup website at http://review.aomonline.org. Reviewers will be asked to review about three submissions between January 15th and February 13th. You will be assigned papers based on the 5 topic codes you provide that indicate your areas of expertise.

Call for Submissions

When you sign up as a BPS reviewer in October, this will also be a great time to start planning your own submission to the BPS division. I trust that those of you who have supported the division in the past with your submissions will keep sending us your best current papers and most interesting symposium proposals. I hope that we will also hear from many new voices this year: if you have not previously submitted to the Academy or to BPS in the past, please consider doing so for Anaheim.

Symposia are a particularly effective way to engage the conference theme and are still an under-used format in the BPS program, representing less than 10% of submissions in 2007. Yes, putting together a symposium proposal often seems like a lot of work at a busy time of the year – not only do you have to assemble a team of scholars and secure their commitment to participate; you then have to develop a coherent summary that effectively communicates the symposium focus and contributions. But what better way to deepen and extend your scholarly network, and to think collaboratively about “The Questions We Ask” through our research. I strongly encourage proposal submissions for novel, exciting, and challenging symposia.   

The submission system opens on November 1st and the deadline for all paper and symposium submissions is on Monday January 15th, 2008. While the BPS Division has no separate submission guidelines from those of the Academy of Management, we have posted some information to help with the submission process on the BPS website, at http://www.bpsdiv.org/html/meetings.html. Among other things, this includes the call for papers, a copy of the submission checklist, and hints on putting together symposium proposals.

I cannot close this note without gratefully acknowledging the incredible work and support of my predecessors. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with Anita McGahan, our Past Division Chair, who continues to guide our activities with reassuring calm and a strong vision. Russ Coff is a true innovator and one of the most energetic and generous people I know. He has created an active archive of program development materials and routines that will serve Program Chairs for many years to come; I look forward to seeing him realize his aspirations for the division during his tenure as Division Chair. I am eternally grateful to my immediate predecessor, Joe Mahoney, for putting on a great program in Philadelphia and for inspiring me to continue on the path of excellence in BPS activities; I also want to thank him in advance for all of the times I am sure to pick up the phone in the coming months and call him for advice…I look forward to the coming year with a healthy balance of excitement and trepidation, but know that together we can assemble a superb BPS program once again.

See you in Anaheim!

Joanne Oxley