Message from the Chair, Professor Katy Mason
As we approach the Christmas and New Year break, I’d like to celebrate with you the successes that we have seen during another challenging year for our communities.
It was a great pleasure to witness the passion for learning displayed at our second Virtual Conference. It’s exciting to see the 2022 Call for Papers for an in-person and virtual, semi-hybrid BAM2022, to run from 31st August to 2nd September, on a theme close to our hearts: Reimagining business & management as a force for good. We know that not everyone will be able to join us physically in Manchester next August/September, so we are planning a structure that includes some virtual elements, including some virtual live paper sessions.
Our community events and capacity-building programmes have continued to flourish and attract large and global audiences. Our community came together over 100 times in 2021 – not including our rich and extensive Conference. We augmented our well-established development programmes for Directors of Research and Education-focused academics with a new, mid-career programme, ‘Becoming a Research-Oriented Professor’. Work on a new programme for Directors of Engagement is progressing – look out for more news in 2022! All our community activities can also now be cross-linked by our Continental Network and our new Management Consulting Network.
Our leading international journals British Journal of Management and International Journal of Management Reviews continue to flourish, with increases in submissions, citations, quality, reach and impact. We have been expanding and broadening our wonderful Editorial teams and will be sharing some exciting news about BJM in the new year. Our book series with Taylor & Francis on the impact of management research has taken off, with three volumes published in 2021. We also supported our community with additional and innovative research funding opportunities too, many in collaboration with sister organisations. We’re assembling a fascinating repository of work we have funded on our website.
Putting our values into practice lies at the heart of what we have done this year, as a community supporting our discipline. We develop and build through activities including our events, our journals’ outreach and constructive reviewing, the BAM Peer Review College, our BAM Fellows’ mentoring and working group activities, as well as our own strategic research projects and our collaborative work with other bodies, including our Shared Vision for a B&M Knowledge Ecosystem with ESRC and Chartered ABS and our contribution to the British Academy’s review of our discipline.
Equality, Diversity, Inclusivity and Respect have been a common thread through all our strategic work, and I was delighted to see the publication of the practical but evidence-based All Welcome: Guide to organising inclusive, accessible and sustainable events, and our interim report on EDIR in Business & Management HE institutions – look out for more outputs coming in 2022.
No wonder our membership continues to increase! Being part of a strong and active international scholarly community where opportunities for leadership, volunteering and creative thinking abound is a wonderful thing, and I am proud to serve as your Chair.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to our 7 co-Vice Chairs, who are stepping down as they reach the end of their terms of office: Lisa Anderson, Emma Bell, Nelarine Cornelius, Maureen Meadows, Nicholas O’Regan, Helen Shipton, and Mark Loon. They have worked incredibly hard over the last 4 years, turning ideas into realities that both support our community internally, and promote its work externally. They have been supportive and enthusiastic colleagues, with whom I have been proud to work. We now look forward to our new co-Vice Chairs who join those of us remaining on the Executive when they take up their roles at the turn of the year: Pawan Budhwar and Stephanie Decker (Research & Publications); Russ Glennon (SIGs); Emma Parry and David Sarpong (Academic Affairs of Conference & Capacity Building); and Kate Black and Ashley Roberts (MKE).
I hope you all have a restful and happy break, despite the continuing challenges.
Professor Katy Mason FBAM FAcSS
Chair, BAM