The BAM2024 Conference will take place in September 2024 at Nottingham Trent University.

Theme

Achieving transformation for greater good: Societal, organisational and personal barriers and enablers

The question of how to elicit transformation has assumed a new urgency against a backdrop of intense global competition, the digitisation of work, hybrid working and the promise of the metaverse as well as skill challenges and wider political developments, such as war in Europe. Underlying these political, technological, economic and moral imperatives is growing awareness of ecological precarity given limited and diminishing natural resources. How do organisations, the people they employ and the environments to which they belong, flex, adjust and transform themselves to overcome the manifest challenges they face in these turbulent times?

Motivated by this question, the proposed theme for the BAM 2024 conference is Achieving transformation for greater good: Societal, organisational and personal barriers and enablers. In the past few years, organisations have shifted from acting relatively passively, to being proactive and dynamic in the face of opportunity and uncertainty (Baptista et al.,2020; Lessem & Schieffer, 2016). Such transformations are complex, and involve radical changes at societal, organisational and individual levels. The roadmap to transformation must be sustainable, effective and efficient, while addressing change at multiple levels and for the long term. However, the nature of transformation will vary across different cultures, societies and organisations, fostering a variety of motivations and drivers as well as prompting diverse barriers to change implementation.

McKinsey (2022) identify six priorities for organisations to manage proactively: resilience, courage, new opportunity awareness and enterprise, technology, sustainability and employee experience. Another approach to transformation focuses on the development of ‘Dynamic Capabilities’ linking digital foresight and implementation to a host of organisational transformations from rapid prototyping to changing culture (Ghosh et al.,2022). Business leaders, policymakers, practitioners and academics need to explore a range of issues to maximise the good (sustainability and continuity) minimise the bad (overly complex and painful) and rule out the ugly (change that is unethical and/ or unsustainable). Many challenges need to be overcome for effective and accelerated transformation leading to greater good (e.g., Lessem & Schieffer, 2016; Yadav et al., 2017). Hence, within this grand challenge, we propose four subthemes:

  • Transformational leadership and strategic HR;
  • Digital transformation;
  • Transformational business policy, governance and practice; and
  • Transformational innovation, growth and entrepreneurship.

These subthemes will facilitate innovative and cross disciplinary discussions, challenge current thinking and practice, and engage academics, practitioners and thought leaders in all topics relevant to the cutting edge of achieving transformation in a volatile world.

KEY DATES (provisional)
  • 26th November 2023: Call for Papers & PDWs
  • 8th January 2024: Paper/PDW Submission Opens
  • 1st March 2024:  Paper Submission Closes
  • 11th March 2024: Conference Registration Opens
  • 26th April 2024: PDW Submission Closes
  • 26th April 2024: Authors Notified of Paper Acceptance Status
  • 31st May 2024: Deadline for at least ONE author of a paper to Register
  • 30th June 2024: Final Paper Upload 
  • 31st July 2024: Deadline for Early Bird Registration
  • 16th August 2024: Conference Registration Closes
Conference Committee
  • Professor Lynn Oxborrow, Professor of Sustainable Small Business Growth, Nottingham Trent University (Co-Chair)
  • Professor Helen Shipton, Professor of International Human Resource Management, Nottingham Trent University (Co-Chair) 
  • Justina Senkus, Head of Operations and Events, British Academy of Management
  • Lewis Johnson, Conference and Communications Officer, British Academy of Management