Do you remember your first (academic) conference visit? In our fast-paced world, we are ushered to quickly establish routines and security. However, there is beauty in observing something for the first time. Before we, as well rush on to becoming seasoned attendees, we would like to celebrate this first-time moment with you in this reflection piece.
This article is born out of an experiment: both of us first wrote about our experience at the Academy of Management (AOM) conference. We exchanged our writing, and based on this “data”, we crafted the subsequent answers for the other. We followed this experimental approach to discover the perceived meaning of the reader and thus maybe learn something about our own experience, appreciating that this learning opportunity can only exist with the help of another.
Context
Elham and I were grateful to have received a Fetzer Scholarship given to selected young scholars in the AOM interest group Management, Spirituality and Religion (MSR). 10
Being Fetzer Scholars, we had a special focus on MSR professional development workshops and presentations. However, we also elaborated upon some events from other domains such as Critical Management Studies and Organization Behavior.
What was your AOM experience as a first-time attendee like?
Elham’s text uses the concept of “witness” as an expression of having an experience. She uses the term with reverence, as if she was the receiver of something very precious, so I imagine her somewhat apart from the happenings but very attentive to each of the sessions she attended.The MSR and also the Fetzer Scholar community gave her a sense of belonging, despite – or maybe in addition, thanks to – the virtuality of the conference.
Reading Vanessa’s Fetzer Essay on AOM Conference 2021, helped me realize and appreciate Vanessa’s sense of gratefulness. She enjoyed the AOM conference week by listening, reflecting, interacting, and getting insights while being connected to the higher Self. She counted every blessing in her life through the experience at AOM Conference 2021, which is empowering for her to be successful.
What were your session highlights, and why?
Elham highlighted sessions that shared perspectives on indigenous wisdom, sustainability, consciousness in management, social justice and managing as feminine. In between the lines of her summary, I see her passion for creating communities that form sustainable ecosystems. She looks at this challenge from a management studies standpoint with special recognition of the interconnectedness of humankind and the potential of humanizing management.
Many notes evolved around the form and importance of our interconnectedness in this (business) world: the interbeing. She writes: “Knowing thinking being – thinking paradigms that make us who we are, how we see each other and the world”. And adds that this perspective of “our” is needed in management and academia. I am curious, what would she say, how inter-knowing and inter-thinking look like and what role they play for our inter-being?
Vanessa highlighted sessions on Transformative MSR research, Social justice, and the Indigenous knowledge systems. She apprehends European society to be predominantly individualistic, which directed her towards community-based research. The sessions on indigenous research prompted her to reflect if she could find a role in indigenous research, despite being recognized as a white European woman. She believes that decolonizing research is a collective responsibility and she co-owns the responsibility to decolonize thoughts and research.
What similarities and differences did you see in conventional and unconventional ways of management (research)?
“Why books, why not sculptures?” – What a claim to make! To invite more art and fewer words into the scholarly realm is truly courageous and daring. A claim that clearly resonated with Elham. The hands-on practice of the method of collaborative auto-ethnography writing widened her perspective and left her feeling liberated – maybe from the limiting research process and result expectations of conventional, positivist management studies?
While she recognizes the need to participate in existing structures, she has a strong voice for bringing the feminine to economy and business as a balance for the ambitious, tough, linear masculinity that is dominating management today.
According to Vanessa, unconventional ways of management appreciate individual perspectives, their validity, and reality, which gives us a bigger picture of a situation or problem. They recognize the Interconnectedness of all the entities and appreciate self-reflection of the individual role in society or an organization and the all-connected world. Rather than deconstructing the existing system, she would prefer to work with it and transform it. Therefore she blurs the line between conventional management practices and unconventional management practices.
What inspirations for your PhD did you take away from the AOM?
Elham uses the expression “come across insights”. Which is a beautiful picture of wisdom, ideas, knowledge being everywhere to take up for inspiration. She realized that establishing harmony with the world means being in harmony with herself and vice versa. And she foresees this bidirectional harmony to have a positive effect on her scholarly contribution. The seeds are planted and first steps towards a different way of doing research are taken as she was invited to “walk the talk” of thinking and doing things differently in the MSR sessions.
Overall, she went away from her first AOM-MSR experience inspired and with a new – or should I say renewed? – appreciation of humanizing management and integrating simplification.
The connection established among young MSR scholars opened the roads of joint growth opportunities for Vanessa. The “ MSR bubble” inspired her to research with the realization of all-connectedness. She feels that the MSR community members live and try to live the “from – with – by the community” research paradigm through how they do things.
She is looking forward to being an active MSR member for impactful research and was able to see the potential of “doing things differently for the larger good” through unconventional ways of management.
We take this opportunity to thank the Fetzer Institute and MSR for the Fetzer Scholarship.
We attended and appreciated the AOM Conference 2021 and received access to extraordinary learning and brainstorming opportunities, in which great ideas that we wish to implement for the greater good of society were planted. We are both thankful to Fetzer Institute and MSR for preparing us for a more significant role in society and the greater good of the world. We aspire to walk the talk in research and life.
10. “Fetzer Institute is a private foundation created by John E. Fetzer in 1962 with a vision of a transformed world, powered by love, in which all people can flourish. Their mission is “To help build the spiritual foundation for a loving world.” The Management, Spirituality and Religion (MSR) Interest Group at the Academy of Management is a higher education professional association that is (…) devoted to defining the relevance and impact of spirituality and religion in management, organizations and society.” (taken from the MSR and Fetzer Institute Invite Applications for 2021 Fetzer MSR Scholarship for Doctoral Students and New Faculty. Link added)
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