PDW Session:  Successful Publishing for Early Career Scholars of

Management in Africa 

2019 Academy of Management Meeting, Boston

Manuscript submission deadline: June 1st, 2019  

PDW Organizers: 
dt ogilvie, Rochester Institute of Technology dt@saunders.rit.edu  Stella M Nkomo, University of Pretoria Stella.Nkomo@up.ac.za   

PDW Chairs: 
dt ogilvie, Rochester Institute of Technology (dt@saunders.rit.edu) Stella M Nkomo, University of Pretoria (Stella.Nkomo@up.ac.za)  

Deadline: Deadline for registration and submission of manuscripts is June 1st, 2019. Please contact dt ogilvie (dt@saunders.rit.edu) or Stella Nkomo (Stella.Nkomo@up.ac.za) for questions about registration and manuscript submission. 

Objective of Workshop

The purpose of this PDW session is to assist early career scholars focusing on management in Africa who have limited experience in publishing high impact research to complete a high quality research paper for later submission. The PDW will help early career scholars to understand the key elements of writing an empirical paper for publication through one-to-one developmental feedback in a supportive environment. Second, these developmental relationships will continue after the 2019 Academy of Management meeting as both members work toward the goal of getting the manuscript submitted and published in a top-tier journal. Thus, a unique aspect of this initiative is that the developmental relationship is goal-directed; it is focused on a specific task (improving a drafted manuscript) that leads to critical shortterm results (publication), more publications on management in Africa, and ultimately participants’ long-term productivity as a management scholar. In addition to improving the careers of early career scholars, this PDW will support the Academy’s vision to strengthen the breadth of management scholarship to be more inclusive. 

This workshop will offer participants a chance to have their work reviewed by leading scholars in the field. These scholars have served as editors, associate editors and editorial board members of leading journals, such as ASQ, AMJ, AMR, Academy of Management Annals, JAP, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, OBHDP, AMLE, Group and Organization Management, Human Relations, British Journal of Management, Journal of Business and Psychology, and Organization.

Who Can Participate

This workshop is for early career management scholars (i.e. junior faculty).  Specifically, only applications from those holding the rank of lecturer, senior lecturer, or assistant professor will be considered.  This session is for junior faculty, but doctoral students are encouraged to attend the first session of this PDW in order to learn about the review process. We have limited seats for doctoral students who therefore will be selected on the basis of ‘first-in first-served’. Doctoral students do not have to submit a paper. Early registration is encouraged!

Manuscript Submission Process

Due to the intense nature of the review process, we will only select 15 manuscripts for the workshop. We will select manuscripts based on the following criteria: (1) they are within the content domain of management in Africa; (2) they are not currently under journal review, (3) ,they are in near-final form for submission to a refereed journal, and (4) the author or one of the authors is an early career scholar. Although authors may submit more than one manuscript, only one per author will be selected for the workshop. We will give priority to junior faculty who are first authors of the manuscript. Authors should provide a focus for the review process by describing a particular dilemma, question, or concern s/he would like the reviewers to discuss, as well as the name of the targeted journal.

Junior faculty who wish to participate in this workshop must submit their manuscripts and their CV by 1 June 2019 in order to provide adequate time for selecting manuscripts and the review process. Please submit manuscripts to dt@saunders.rit.edu.

Session Description

The structure and the process of the workshop is as follows:

Manuscripts received on 1 June will be reviewed by the organizers. We will assign selected papers to senior/leading scholars for review. We will also assign a manuscript to those whose papers were selected a manuscript to review. Participants will be sent a set of readings related to the elements of writing an empirical paper. The topics covered in the first part of the session are: 

• Setting the Paper Hook: Positioning the Significance of the Contribution 
• Theoretical Framing and hypotheses 
• Methods Section Imperatives 
• Writing a Concise Discussion
• Journal review process
• Tips for Being a Prolific Scholar

The session will begin with 1.5 hours of real-time mini-lectures on the key elements of a high quality empirical journal article and understanding journal review processes. The remaining 2.5 hours will be devoted to simultaneous facilitated roundtable discussions of the 15 papers. We expect all participants to read the manuscript(s) that will be discussed at their table before coming to the session in order to provide helpful feedback to the authors. Each participant will have the opportunity to participate in two reviews over the course of the session. This session will also offer an important opportunity to discuss core principles and practices of publishing research about management in Africa. Authors and other participants will gain important insights into the publication process and will be able to network with scholars interested in management in Africa, review board members, and journal editors.

We hope you can join us for this day of development. It is all about you!

Contact Person: dt ogilvie (dt@saunders.rit.edu)