When a Flagship Conference Stops Caring: The Case of the AOM Annual Meeting

Abstract

This provocation argues that the Academy of Management's Annual Meeting has become increasingly misaligned with the organization's stated commitments to inclusion, sustainability, and scholarly development. While AoM remains a vital institution, its flagship conference—now routinely exceeding 10,000 participants—undermines meaningful intellectual exchange and community formation through fragmenting scale, superficial paper sessions, and status-driven sociality. Two recent disruptions—the Covid-19 pandemic and the growing Trump-driven political precarity of the United States as a host location—have exposed the costs of organizational inertia and the normalization of risk and exclusion. Drawing on existing alternatives, including developmental formats within AoM and elsewhere, as well as confederated and hybrid approaches, the essay contends that the limitations of the current meeting can and should be addressed. Reimagining the conference as smaller, more developmental, and genuinely hybrid would reflect institutional care and align AoM's most visible event with its professed values.