The Strategic Management Society dedicates its 36th annual conference in Berlin 17-20 Sept 2016 to the theme "Strategies that Move the World". The conference theme is interesting for AoM Scholars who study the organizational and strategic implications of social and environmental issues that move the world. Please see the attached call for papers and the special conference theme tracks displayed below.
We would be very happy meeting you at the SMS 2016 in Berlin next year. Please apologize for multiple postings.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT SOCIETY
SMS 36th Annual Conference Berlin
September 17-20, 2016
www.strategicmanagement.net
STRATEGIES THAT MOVE THE WORLD
Conference Program Chairs: D. zu Knyphausen-Aufsess, M. Nippa, U. Pidun, A. Tuschke
CONFERENCE THEME TRACKS
Track A: Fundamental Issues in Strategy Reconsidered: Defining Our Problem Agenda in an Increasingly Complex World
Track Chair: Tomi Laamanen, University of St. Gallen
In 1994, Dan Schendel, David Teece, and Richard Rumelt published an influential volume on "Fundamental Issues in Strategy." They took four questions as the starting point for the discussion: How do firms behave? Why do firms differ? What are the functions of the headquarters unit in a multi-business firm? What determines the international success or failure of firms? However, given the real-world issues and challenges outlined in this call for proposals, the time has come to reconsider the most intriguing questions for our discipline and to develop approaches to answer these questions. In a similar vein, back in 1900, the mathematician David Hilbert presented a list of twenty-three core unresolved problems that shaped the agenda of mathematics for subsequent decades. What would an analogous list for our field look like? How can we tackle these problems, challenges, and opportunities? How is the "scientific value" of these answers related to the expectations of real-world stakeholders? We call for proposals that are reflective in nature and develop ideas that could guide our future research activities.
Track B: Cities, Nation States, NGOs, Social Movements: Opportunities for and Challenges of New Partnerships for Business Firms
Track Chair: Desiree Pacheco, Portland State University
Firms are not simply embedded in their environments. They interact with other firms, individuals, and institutions. Many firms have developed sophisticated strategies for dealing with their key stakeholders. But increasingly, new kinds of players emerge that most firms are not well prepared to deal with. For example, many firms struggle with how to interact with nation states, often seen as regulatory entities that can be influenced by lobbying activities. It is unclear in which sense the nation state can be regarded as a (collective) actor. Many firms may find it difficult to identify whom to negotiate with and to understand the role of their negotiation partners within their own complex network structure. A similar problem may arise when firms approach cities, nongovernmental organizations, and social movements, all of which can be very important partners as well as customers to solve real-world problems. We call for proposals that discuss the actor status of these different players and help us understand how firms can master the challenges of dealing and interacting with them.
Track C: Firm Profitability, Shareholder Value, Shared Value, Stakeholder Value, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability: Rethinking Our Dependent Variable(s)
Track Chair: Andreas Scherer, University of Zurich
As strategic management researchers, we have a specific interest in the performance implications of strategies. The vast majority of studies are dominated by financial performance metrics, such as accounting returns or stock returns. However, taking the specific role and responsibility of business firms for the solution of real-world problems into account, the question arises: What alternatives do we have for measuring the performance of firms. "Shared value", "Stakeholder value", "Social value"? Is it possible to measure the direct impact of firm strategies on social welfare? How can we operationalize constructs such as corporate social responsibility or sustainability? What approaches do we have to develop performance metrics that aggregate the perspectives of different stakeholders and the society as a whole? We call for proposals that discuss the methodological issues of such complementary performance metrics and present empirical research that is based on new concepts for measuring firm performance and using multiple dependent variables.
Track D: Sharing Economy and Digitalization: What Will Future Business Models Look Like?
Track Chair: Fernando Suarez, Boston University
Our economic strategy paradigm is based on the assumptions of scarcity and property rights. Only when resources are scarce do they become the object of economization and economic actors compete for ownership. However, new trends like the ongoing digitalization may change this paradigm-visionaries such as Jeremy Rifkin describe the possibility of a future "zero marginal cost society" that is based on the paradigm of sharing instead of ownership. In such a world, everything seems to be connected to everything; this might pose questions of privacy, but it also offers opportunities for new business models while making many traditional models obsolete. We call for proposals that explore these new business models. How is value created and captured? How can firms develop sustainable competitive advantage in such a world? What is the relationship between the concepts of "sharing" and "open source economics" on the one hand and property rights on the other? What role will commons play as an alternative to traditional forms of organization? What advice do we have for firm survival in the new digital economy?
Plus 14 Various Interest Group and Conference Special Tracks
See call for Papers
Timeline:
February 26, 2016 Submission Deadline for Proposals (5-7 pgs for paper and panel sessions)
March 5, 2016 Co-Author Confirmation Deadline
Mid-April, 2016 Notifications of Program Review Committee Decisions
May 15, 2016 Presenter Registration Deadline
Mid-July, 2016 Conference Program Available Online
September 17–20, 2016 SMS 36th Annual International Conference in Berlin