Margaret (Peg) Williams SMA President

By now, most of you have embarked on another academic year. I hope that your summer was as productive and/or relaxing as you wished it to be!  The purpose of our Fall Newsletter is to update you on association activities (such as Editor searches, award winners, etc.) and to generate excitement about attending our annual conference to be held this year October 27-30 in beautiful St. Pete Beach, Florida. 

Annual Conference

Ben Tepper (Georgia State) and his team of track chairs have put together another excellent program. The number of paper submissions continues to rise, so you can expect high quality paper sessions and symposia in St. Pete Beach as well as our usual number of sponsored breaks, receptions, and social activities. Thanks to Ben, his track chairs, and all of the reviewers, authors, session chairs, and discussants for their help in putting together such a great program. Mark Gavin (Oklahoma State) has put together an equally exciting Professional Development Institute (PDI). A change to recent practice is that PDI activities will be integrated throughout the regular conference sessions (Thursday through Saturday) so that even those who are not able to come to the conference a day early (for Wednesday activities) will be able to participate in professional develop activities this year. Thanks always to Geralyn Franklin (University of Dallas) for continuing to negotiate great deals with conference hotels in such wonderful locations and to Joy Karriker (East Carolina) for taking care of all of the local arrangements.

Journal of Management and Sage Publications

A key activity this year was the decision to sign a renewal contract with Sage Publications to publish the Journal of Management for another five years.  Micki Kacmar (Alabama) again chaired the JOM Publishing Task Force. (She chaired the Task Force in 2005 that was responsible for the initial agreement between SMA and Sage to publish JOM.)  The Task Force of Talya Bauer (current JOM editor from Portland State), Lucy Gilson (Connecticut), Chuck Pierce (Memphis), and Anson Seers (Virginia Commonwealth) worked to negotiate a contract that continues our excellent working relationship with Sage Publications and provides an even better financial arrangement than SMA has enjoyed over the past four years. Our thanks go to Cynthia Nalevanko and her staff from Sage for their continuing support of the journal and, thus, SMA. I hope you are aware of the continued rise in prestige and impact of the Journal of Management. This could not happen without a strong partnership between the journal Editors (Talya Bauer and her staff of Associate Editors), reviewers, and authors and the support of the sales, marketing, and production teams at Sage. When you see any of these individuals in St. Pete Beach, please thank them for all they do to support JOM and SMA.

To continue this tradition, SMA is also currently searching for a new editor of the Journal of Management.  Look for information elsewhere in this newsletter for an update on this process. 

International conference opportunity

Each of our conferences is enriched with the presence of a number of international scholars, and for several years the Board of Governors’ of SMA has discussed the possibility of expanding our international relationships. The Board voted to begin an exploration of involvement in an international conference by collaborating with Eastern Academy of Management-International (EAMI) on their 14th international conference to be held in Bangalore India June 26-30, 2011. The co-sponsor is the well-regarded Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB). SMA member and newly-elected Vice President-Elect Chris Shook (Auburn) who is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Management will represent the journal at the conference. SMA members Janaki Gooty (University of North Carolina-Charlotte) and Lisa Lambert (Georgia State) will chair the Research Methods track.  I encourage you to volunteer to review for this conference and submit your papers to the conference. The IIMB faculty is working to encourage Indian academics to attend this conference, so there will be an opportunity for interaction with Indian colleagues and opportunities for developing collaborative research. There will also be an opportunity to attend cultural sites and visit local businesses. More information is available at eamiconference.org. If you have additional questions or comments, please contact me at Margaret.L.Williams@wayne.edu.

As you can see, SMA continues to be involved in a number of exciting activities. I thank you for your continued support of SMA and encourage you to join us in St. Pete Beach in October! Until then…

Margaret (Peg) Williams
President, SMA