OMT 2015 Five Year Reivew

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OMT DIVISIONAL REVIEW
FREE-FORM REPORT
Written by
Michael Lounsbury
Candace Jones
Nelson Phillips
Submitted to the OMT Division Executive Committee for discussion at its January 2015 meeting
Accepted with modifications by the OMT Division Executive Committee at its January 2015 meeting
Submitted to the DIGR Committee February 2015

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INTRODUCTION
This free-form report is prepared as part of the Organization and Management Theory (OMT)
Division’s 5 year review in 2015. It is submitted to the Academy of Management
Headquarters for evaluation along with the Member Survey, Health and Governance
Checklist, and Division Review Metrics. The latter three documents are materials that inform
the conclusions in this report, along with the direct feedback from OMT members to the
Divisional officers and volunteers. Our report also reflects on our previous 5 year survey to
membership and report whose results and observations for improvement dovetail with 2015
survey results and report conclusions. This consistency in survey feedback from our
membership is encouraging given the generally positive and enthusiastic opinions about the
state of the OMT division. And the consistency between the previous report conclusions and
those in this report suggest that our focused efforts to improve the OMT division continue to
be in the right direction.
DIVISION REVIEW METRICS
The Division review metrics concern the development of membership, meeting activities,
governance, and finance. They provide a high-level overview of the Divisional strength
as measured by number of members, activity levels, and finances. We take stock of these
metrics in relation to the previous OMT 5 year report as well as our ongoing Executive Team
discussions.
OMT is one of the older Divisions and has experienced fairly flat growth (.09% average
annual growth) that generally accords with overall Academy of Management trends
(.62% average annual growth). The OMT continues to be more international than the
AOM as a whole. In 2013, 52% of OMT members were international compared to 47%

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for the AOM as a whole. The last 5 year report (2010) suggested that “the OMT Division
should be able to achieve a higher international growth than it currently enjoys given its
experience with an international membership and offerings for international
members.” And in fact, international membership has grown as a percentage of overall
members—OMT international membership was 43.8% in 2005 and 48% in 2010.
It is somewhat disconcerting that domestic membership is declining. OMT domestic
membership has declined by 7.04% over the past 5 years; however, AOM domestic
membership has declined slightly more at 7.24%. Thus, it is growth in international
membership that continues to sustain OMT and AOM, but OMT’s international members
have only grown by 8.4% over the past 5 years compared to 16.43% for the AOM as a whole.
We continue to believe, as stated in the previous 5 year report that “recruitment of
international members is a realistic goal that can be accomplished through better web-
based communications and outreach efforts to international academic associations with
missions that overlap with OMT.” We have recently created a membership director position
to better organize and champion our member recruitment efforts.
In recent years, we have ensured that our leadership team reflects the international nature of
our membership, and we continue to reach out to international members via the variety of
paper development workshops we have been organizing around the world (see
http://omtweb.org/early-career-workshops/international-workshops). In addition, over the
past couple of years, we have been sponsoring Meet OMT social events that have been very
well attended at the EGOS (European Group on Organization Studies) annual meeting. While
only 35% of respondents to our survey indicated they were EGOS members, we continue to
believe that the natural affinity between EGOS members and OMT provides an opportunity
to develop mutually reinforcing efforts that have the potential to continue to grow our

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international membership. It is important to note that over the past couple of years, an OMT
executive team member has attended the annual board meetings of EGOS and vice versa,
highlighting the importance of this relationship to both groups.
The distribution of academic, emeritus, executive, and student members is roughly the same
in OMT as in the AOM overall, and there is no sign that OMT is either increasing or
decreasing disproportionately in any of the groups. The OMT Division remains vibrant in the
AOM Annual Meetings. Paper submissions have continued to grow—over the past 5 years
by 4.7%. The high submission rate of papers is testimony to the high reputation of the OMT
review process and its session composition, which lead many members of other AOM
divisions to view OMT as a good destination for their papers. We have been successful in
growing our pool of reviewers to keep up with the submission growth. We are especially
proud of our international reviewer base which has allowed us to adjudicate papers more
fairly for our members as a whole, and ensure that our program reflects the demography of
our membership.
The OMT Division follows the AOM overall closely in its electoral participation rates. In
finances, the OMT Division has a history of cautious use of limited resources. The
prominence of the AOM Annual Meetings in our expenses injects substantial uncertainty
into the budgeting process because hotel expenses (especially catering) are generally
increasing and fluctuate by the city and hotel chain. This has required OMT to generate
sponsors to ensure continuity in our programming. Thus, it has become clear that cautious
management is not enough to maintain an activity level that corresponds to our members’
wishes, or even to keep up with the growing expenses of the Annual Meetings. The
Division continues to seek increased sponsorship from external sources. If we remain
successful, our balance forward can be kept at the same size even as the overall budget

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grows, which would give more efficient use of the funds (lower proportion of idle funds).
OMT MEMBER SURVEY
The OMT member survey details the demographics of our members and how they evaluate
the Division’s activities. The number of responses to the survey was 864, 85 more respondents
than the previous one five years ago. Note that not all respondents answered every question, so
number of responses vary slightly across questions. Below, we report on and provide our
interpretation of the member survey results.
Member Profile
The OMT Division seeks to engage its members deeply and to have a high proportion of
members that regard the OMT Division as their primary affiliation. On the question of
whether OMT is the primary division (Q6), the numbers are good, comparable to the results
of our last survey:
Primary No. %
Yes, definitely 337 39.28
Yes, but I identify with another division 291 33.92
No, I identify mostly with another division 158 18.41
No, but I identify with this division almost as
much as my primary division
72 8.39
Total 858 100
Given that Academy of Management membership offers two division memberships at no
charge, there would be the same number of “No, mostly another” and “Yes, definitely” if
we were only as appealing as any other Division. In fact, we are an anchor Division for
many of the respondents. As in our last survey, there is no systematic difference

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demographically between primary and other members, except that OMT has slightly more
primary members in the younger age groups (see table below). This could be a sign that we
are doing well serving doctoral and junior scholars.
Age Not primary Primary Total
30-39 174 (33%) 119 (35%) 293
40-49 135 (26%) 90 (27%) 225
50-59 92 (18%) 61 (18%) 153
60-69 75 (14%) 30 (9%) 105
70+ 16 (3%) 8 (2%) 24
< 29 26 (5%) 27 (8%) 53
decline answer 3 2 5
Total 521 337 858
Respondents belong to the OMT Division (Q8) because of its emphasis upon ‘research’
(75% rank it as #1 and 18% rank it as #2 on their reasons for membership) and for the ‘social
connections’ that it provides (12% ranked it as #1 and 37% as #2). Again, this is very
consistent with our previous survey. OMT has long been a highly research-oriented Division
and the survey confirms that we retain that valued profile. Some members want to share
information about teaching (23% placed this reason as their #1 or #2 choice) and/or to learn
about a new domain (25% #1 or #2). Primary and non-primary members look similar in
their responses. The qualitative responses to what respondents like best about OMT (Q 19)
are in line with the categorical responses. The social/networking aspects of the Division
are even more strongly emphasized in the textual comments of respondents.
The written responses to what members like least about the OMT Division (Q 20) are rather
diverse (around 230 responses), but two inter-related themes are worth noting. As in the last
survey, some respondents see the Division as too large and others note that it appears
stratified. Size can indeed be a liability and may work against a feeling of community and

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of easy access to the leadership. The Division needs to consider how these potential adverse
effects might be mitigated. Complaints about the stratified nature of the division are also
important. Over the past several years, the OMT division has worked hard to become more
open to diverse perspectives, and welcomes involvement from all members (as volunteers
and leaders). We have worked especially hard at ensuring we have strong international
representation in our leadership team. And we also have worked hard to engage young
scholars through the AOM program as well as our international paper development
workshops. We will continue to work hard to break down barriers to engage all of our
members, as well as recruit new members.
Member Activities
OMT members regularly attend the Annual Academy meeting: 50% attend regardless of
whether they are presenting papers and 27% only when ‘on’ the program. Our
respondents indicate that they are relatively engaged in the OMT program as a reviewer (67%
a few times or every year), by attending a regular conference session (75% a few times or
every year), and by participating in OMT social events or the business meeting (72% a few
times or every year). Respondents were less likely to serve as a volunteer (65% never) or
session chair (52% never), or present at a pdw (50% never). We are delighted with the
willingness of our membership to review and engage at the AOM meetings, and continue to
seek ways to create more opportunities for willing volunteers.
In answer to Q13, OMT members do not seem to be unsatisfied with AOM programming
elements in any significant way, but seem to be more satisfied with pdws (13% are extremely
satisfied), symposia (12% are extremely satisfied), social and networking opportunities (14%
are extremely satisfied), and overall access to participation in the program (13% are extremely
satisfied). Not surprisingly, Q16 shows that 62% of respondents indicated that the pdws and

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paper sessions at the annual conference ranked #1 and #2 by another 21%. We are very
pleased to see the high level of satisfaction associated with core OMT programming at AOM.
Q16 reveals that our on-line resources for OMT members are viewed as less valuable. This is
something we have been working on, but expect that this is a general issue across the AOM.
In recent years, we have established a communications director position to focus on enhancing
our web, email and social media communications to members. This has been an area where
we have begun to expand member volunteers and we will continue to do so.
Member evaluation
Survey respondents indicate that OMT is perceived very favorably relative to other
divisions. For instance, 64% of respondents indicated that OMT scholarship was above, far
above or superior to that in other divisions. Member responses to the question of their
overall satisfaction with the Division (Q15) also provide many encouraging results. We are
very pleased by the many areas where OMT is evaluated highly. Thus, 65% of respondents
rated the sense of community within the division as satisfactory or higher. 60% of
respondents were satisfied or better with how welcoming OMT is to members of various
demographic groups. 69% are satisfied or better with the fairness and openness of OMT
elections. 55% of respondents are satisfied or better with our selection process for awards and
recognitions. In addition 83% of respondents indicated in Q18 that they were satisfied, very
satisfied or extremely satisfied with their membership in the OMT division. In our view, the
overall picture provided by the member survey is clearly positive, in line with the
previous five year survey.
However, the results from question 15 also highlight opportunities for improvement. 35% of
respondents said they are somewhat or not satisfied with opportunities to receive mentoring,
and 37% indicated they were only somewhat or not satisfied with opportunities to

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collaborate/network with colleagues outside of the annual meeting. This was echoed by our
last survey five years ago and we suspect that these issues are also AOM-wide concerns. We
have begun to address these issues through our recent involvement at EGOS and through the
sponsoring of paper development workshops which provide smaller group environments and
mentoring experiences. However, more support from AOM on this score via funding for
smaller conferences and workshops outside of AOM would be valuable.
Similar to our last survey, the responses on Divisional activities (Q21, and confirmed by the
qualitative responses) are very clear. Our members continue to want more activities for
doctoral and junior faculty! Each of these was ranked by more than 50% of respondents as
their first or second priority. Again, we believe that we can best address this need by scaling
our efforts to sponsor other paper development workshops and small conferences targeted
towards doctoral students and junior faculty. We do not think it is practical to scale our
current efforts at the AOM as larger events for doctoral students and junior faculty will
sacrifice the intimacy and quality of our current events and mentoring efforts.
These results and our interpretations are echoed by responses to questions about what new
initiatives OMT should pursue. Answers to Q22 reveal that in addition to providing more
networking opportunities at the AOM, we should also help catalyze more formal mentoring
relationships between senior and junior scholars, and host a larger number of paper
development workshops outside the annual conference. And this is further emphasized by the
responses to Q24 about what should occupy OMT over the next 5 years and Q25 about how
OMT can enhance its effectiveness.

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
Given the above results, what should the OMT Executive do to move the Division forward?
Consistent with our previous five year report, we interpret all the above to mean that the
Division needs to:
1. Improve its communication with members. This could involve:
• institutionalization of our communications director position
• building a stronger website that provides information (such as upcoming
events, calls for papers etc.) and allows sub-communities to develop.
• engaging social media more
• generating more content of interest to members by engaging member
volunteers
2. Enhance value to extant and potential members. This could involve:
• engaging potential members more actively by increasing opportunities to
interact with existing members socially and intellectually
• giving more attention within the Academy conference to more ‘relevant’
topics.
• organizing more paper development workshops and mini-
conferences/workshops
• continuing emphasis upon the development of teaching resources
• embracing further diversity in theoretical orientations and facilitating
development of sub-communities

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3. Become more international by building upon and servicing our evolving
international relationships. This could be done by:
• continuing to enhance our relationship with EGOS and develop similar
relationships with other associations with mandates similar to OMT
• continuing to ensure that our Executive Committee reflects the diversity
(especially international) of our membership
4. Address the problems associated with the size of the Division, and build and
extend our services at the Conference and elsewhere for junior faculty and
doctoral members. This could involve:
• organizing more paper development workshops that offer more intimate
gatherings for junior and senior scholars to mix
• facilitating special Academy sessions organized by doctoral students
• increasing sponsorship so that more doctoral and junior scholar events could be
offered
At its January 2015 meeting, the OMT Executive carefully considered the above
opportunities for improvement. We will be reporting on our efforts to seize these
opportunities at our business meeting at the AoM Meeting in Vancouver, which is open to
all members, and they will be placed on the revised website.