Academy of Management
I was elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the Management Spirituality and Religion (MSR) interest group of the Academy of Management – the largest international gathering of management researchers, business leaders, academics and professionals in the world. The vision of the AOM is to “… inspire and enable a better world through our scholarship and teaching about management and organizations.” The mission of the Academy is “to build a vibrant and supportive community of scholars by markedly expanding opportunities to connect and explore ideas.”
The Academy of Management, as a professional organization, thrives on member-driven efforts to further the scholarship of management across many categories. I have been involved in the Academy since 2003 in the OCIS (Organizational Communication and Information Systems) division and the TIM (Technology & Innovation Management) division. My involvement with MSR began in 2011.
In 2011, I was elected to a 5-year term on the executive committee. Each year I rotated through five different leadership positions. In 2012, I served as the MSR Professional Development Workshop (PDW) Chair for the Academy. In this role, I planned and coordinated the 2012 AOM conference for the MSR group. After the 2012 conference, I chaired the 2013 Scholarly program as the Program Chair; in 2014, I served as the division Chair Elect, and in 2015 I served as Division Chair. The final position of Past Chair position was held in 2016.
Since that time, I have honored a commitment to serve as counsel to the Executive Committee to ensure continuance of the mission of the interest group. This year of 2018 was our year to again apply for division status. However, because of our research standing, the decision was made to delay application until 2019 or 2020, to improve the H-Index of JMSR (currently 14) and to increase the extent of contributions to the MSR research domain. As advisor to the group, I remain active in spite of the past-leadership status, along with two of the founding members (Lee Robbins, retired Harvard faculty, and Judi Neal, past director of the Tyson Center for Spirituality and program leader for the International MSR conference).
The program that was developed for this year’s conference theme of “Improving Lives” can be found at the following link – http://meeting.aomonline.org/2018/
Although this is a large organization and therefore requires a major time commitment, I believe it falls in line with our 21st Century vision, to “Expand (our) Christian influence and educational reach nationally and internationally.” In this group, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with people across the world and to influence others in Christian leadership and service.
In this capacity I have collaborated with the following faculty:
- ACU COBA faculty on research submitted in support of research development efforts
- ACU psychology faculty on participation in the AOM program
- Hardin Simmons faculty on participation in the AOM program
- Baylor business faculty on participation in the AOM PDW program
- Pepperdine faculty members on research submissions and MSR involvement
- Seattle Pacific faculty on organizing the AOM PDW program
- Michigan State University contributing faculty on research methods that support the MSR domain
- University of Copenhagen contributing faculty and MSR leadership to sustain research efforts for MSR
- Houston Baptist faculty on participation and review of MSR research
- Curtin University faculty in Australia to review MSR research
- Waikato University faculty in New Zealand to support the continuance of MSR strategies and initiatives established from 2011 to 2016.
I also collaborate with a number of students and participants from around the world on the Research and Doctoral Consortium Committee and as chair for the Dissertation Awards Committee. In this capacity, I interact with a number of participants across the world in reviewing program submissions and supporting the development of dissertations that align with the MSR domain.
With the AOM involvement, I have the following long term goals:
- Take advantage of opportunities to employ spirituality in research
- Support the use of research philosophies used in other disciplines in MSR research. For example, from the IS domain, Critical Realism is used extensively in practice to better understand environments influenced by the actions of people.
- Extend the concept of being missional to informal business settings
- Encourage rigor in MSR research
- Further promote ethical/spiritual approaches in business management
- Help transition MSR from an interest group to division status
I appreciate the opportunity to share my involvement with the MSR community.