Call for Professional Development Workshop Proposals: Entrepreneurship Division

PDW Chair: April Franco, University of Toronto, AOMENTaprilmfranco@gmail.com

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 interactive PDW sessions for the 2020 AOM Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Given its mission, “We Grow Entrepreneurial Scholars,” 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. We welcome submissions featuring innovative topics or themes, new forms of exchange, and experimental formats—for example, sessions that use technology in novel ways, create interactions among participants before or after the session, and engage participants in new ways.  

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, new-venture formation, innovation, and firm growth but also more general ideas about the recognition, analysis, and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities; the nature of novelty, creativity, and innovation; and how individuals and groups exercise judgment under uncertainty. Sessions with standard paper presentations are more appropriate for traditional symposia.

However, 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 (e.g., between junior and senior scholars, between academics and practitioners, among scholars from different countries, among academics following different career paths, and so on), but also across the divisional lines of 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. While not required, submitters are encouraged to consider the overall AOM 2020 conference theme, “20/20: Broadening Our Sight,” when developing their proposals.

Proposals will be evaluated based on (a) the expected substantive and networking benefit for participants, (b) 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 which 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 1.5 hours. Further, all submissions are limited to no more than 8 pages but must have at least 4 pages. The title page must include the Academy submission center-assigned 5-digit submission number, title of the workshop (in Title Case), name of primary sponsor, and a list of other sponsors who might be interested in the workshop as well as an abstract (250 word maximum), one page explanation of why the workshop should be of interest to the ENT division, one page description of the PDW format, 1-3 page overview of the workshop.  The page format requirements for all submissions is as follows: Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced, 1-inch (2.5cm) margin all around, and 8.5" x 11" page setting. The entire submission must be contained in ONE document and must be either .pdf, .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Please note that if any of the above guidelines and formatting requirements are not met, the submission will not be reviewed.

PDW proposals may be submitted online beginning in early December of 2019. Early submissions and expressions of interest are encouraged. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, 14 January 2020, at 5:00 PM ET (NY Time). The PDW program runs from 8:00 AM Friday through 8:00 PM Saturday (7 August and 8, 2020). 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 PDW. The AOM’s “Rule of Three” for the PDW program is that “no one may submit or be associated with more than 3 PDW submissions; or appear in more than 3 PDW sessions during the pre-conference from Friday to Saturday, regardless of whether the sessions are held on-site or off-site.”

If you have questions or would like to discuss a potential workshop idea, please contact the Entrepreneurship Division’s PDW Chair, April Franco at AOMENTaprilmfranco@gmail.com. To ensure sufficient time to develop your proposal, please forward your general inquiries before Friday,  20 December 2019.

See you in Vancouver!