Critical Management Studies (CMS)

 

Overview of PDW

Are you considering applying to PhD programs after some time outside academia? Are you a scholar with considerable (more than 2 years') professional work experience that has shaped your academic journey? Have you hired or developed PhD students or faculty who have professional experience prior to entering academia? Are you a scholar with an interest in non-traditional career paths in the academy (e.g., multi-sector careers; protean/boundaryless careers; career reinvention and career discontinuity)? If so, please come to our PDW!! 

Echoing the theme of AoM 2021 of "Bringing the Manager back in Management', we will focus on less well-trodden, less openly discussed academic research career paths that include significant managerial/ industry experience. Scholars who have experience of a non-traditional academic research career (or are planning one), and scholars who study career transitions and non-traditional careers are all welcome! 

[We conceive of a non-traditional research career as a tenure/ladder track research career where the scholar has significant managerial or professional experience outside the academy.]

We will get together as prospective, junior and senior scholars, first in a plenary discussion where senior scholars will discuss why they value scholars with experience outside the academy and will talk about hiring and supporting them. Then, breakout rooms will provide a space for us to discuss the benefits of having professional experience prior to an academic career, as well as the challenges that non-traditional scholars face in entering and thriving in the academy, We hope to learn from each other and build community. There will be one breakout room for scholars who study non-traditional career paths to discuss how current research engages with such paths in the academy, and to highlight opportunities for future research. We will provide an opportunity for participants to share contact details to enable possible future research collaboration.

PDW Background

Having managerial experience can greatly enrich the research and teaching of management. However, given that experience is collinear with age, significant experience before entering an academic path can put scholars out-of-sync with peers on the modal academic career path (that includes little/no industry experience outside of academia). Attention is increasingly being paid to initiatives that increase equity in the academy (e.g., The PhD Project), but there has yet to be an initiative that considers how age (collinear with experience) intersects with other identities (e.g., gender). Perhaps because non-traditional academic career paths most often remain hidden-in-plain-sight, and little discussed, we lack good descriptive statistics about non-traditional scholars in our midst. Maybe because of a lack of information, or due to concerns about bias, there is little open discussion about non-traditional academic career paths in the academy. This intersection of age and other identities (e.g., gender) make non-traditional academic careers especially relevant to scholars of inequality. Well documented structural differences between women's and men's career paths (which often relate to caregiving) lend an important gender equality dimension to career pivots into academia. The impact of Covid on careers, especially on women's careers, has made structural differences in careers over the life course even more salient and important to discuss and study. It is likely that academia offers more institutional flexibility and Work Life/Family balance than many other professions/occupations and so academia is an interesting extreme setting in which to study career pivots. Therefore, non-traditional academic careers can offer us important insights into the phenomenon of non-traditional careers more broadly. 

PDW Goal

This PDW seeks to bridge the empirical and theoretical realms that are associated with non-traditional career paths in the academy and has four main goals: 

(1) To discuss the benefits and challenges of pursuing a successful non-traditional academic research career path in a plenary discussion with senior scholars who have extensive experience of recruiting, hiring and developing non-traditional scholars and junior scholars who have recently navigated the job market as non-traditional scholars and are building their academic careers as Assistant Professors.

(2) To provide discussion and support for scholars with experience outside the academy and whose careers have spanned different sectors and life phases

(3) To provide a discussion space for those who recruit and mentor/supervise non-traditional scholars to share experience and ideas to support them.

(4) To discuss research on non-traditional career paths (e.g.: protean/boundaryless; multi-sector careers; career reinvention; career discontinuity) and provide connection to academic colleagues who have first-hand experience of such career paths.  

 PDW plan

• Hour 1: Senior scholars who have experience of recruiting, hiring and developing non-traditional scholars discuss their perspectives in a panel discussion/plenary setting. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session.
• Hour 2: Breakout rooms assigned according to connection to this issue (from application). Senior and junior panelists will join participants for a small format Q&A. Each breakout room will be facilitated by a PhD student with a non-traditional academic career path. 

PDW Application process
Very short applications/ abstracts are required (so we can make the best use of the plenary discussion and breakout rooms). 

To apply to attend this PDW, please send an email with subject "AOM PDW Non Traditional Career Application" 
to: alyson.goundenrock@mail.mcgill.ca with cc to: hanieh.mohammadi@mail.mcgill.ca

Please include the following:

1. Your name and the name of your school OR industry/employer (if pre-academic track)
2. 150-300 words on ONE of the following: 

•  Your own experience of this topic (e.g., a brief outline of your career path of managerial/professional experience pre academic career) 
•  Your mentor experience with PhD students or junior faculty who have pre-academic career managerial/professional experience (e.g., a brief outline of your experience of hiring/supervising/mentoring such scholars) 
•  Your research related to this topic (e.g., a brief summary of your general interest, or of a current or envisioned research project broadly related to non traditional careers)

1. (optional) 1-3 questions for our panel of senior and junior scholars who have personal experience of a non-traditional career path or of mentoring such scholars. Your questions can relate to your own experience as a non-traditional scholar, as a mentor of such scholars, or more broadly to academic research on this topic. (We will use these questions to plan the session and guide discussions. They will not be attributed to the individuals posing them).

Please save your application as a single PDF or Word (.doc or docx) file as one of the following using the format: "Last Name, First Name_type_2021"
e.g.:

•     Smith, John_experience_2021  
•     Smith, John_mentor_2021
•     Smith, John_research_2021

Submission deadline: 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (New York time), Friday, 9^thof July, 2021. We will let you know if you've been accepted (and into which breakout room) by July 19th.

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Alyson Gounden Rock
Cambridge MA
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