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Call for Submissions

Critical Management Studies Division (CMS)

2026 Call for Professional Development Workshop (PDW) Proposals

Division PDW Co-Chairs: Marco Distinto, The Open University and Victor Perez Moraga, Durham University

The Critical Management Studies Division (CMS) welcomes proposals for the 86th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM 2026) held in person from 31 July to 4 August 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.  

Professional Development Workshops (PDW) provide valuable space for participants to share their knowledge, thoughts and experiences on different topics which are relevant to members of CMS and other divisions. While there is no specific conference theme this year, we expect proposals to be consistent with the political and ethical commitments of the CMS division. In line with the ethos of CMS, we will prioritize PDWs that: 

  • Represent the diversity of the international CMS community, 
  • Include early-career researchers in the teams, 
  • Motivate active participation of attendees so that thoughts, ideas, and experiences can be shared between all participants, and 
  • Seek to connect CMS scholars with other divisions in order to encourage collaborations which can allow broader scholarly impact. 

We invite CMS members and members of other divisions to propose workshops framed around topics that are resonant with the CMS audience. For example, in the previous years, the CMS PDW program included sessions focused on climate justice, reflexive learning, academic activism, indigenous knowledge, CMS pedagogy, mental health, navigating the pressures of academia, critical and inclusive methodologies and other thought-provoking themes. We welcome wide-ranging workshops which can broadly address the following, but are not limited to: 

  • Critical explorations of exploitative, patriarchal, colonial, and anthropocentric relations operating in current organizations, economies, and societies.
  • Relational ontologies and critical epistemologies, as well as new and alternative theoretical and methodological approaches that can help us better understand our current historical conditions.
  • Implications of critique for imagining non-exploitative organizing, alternatives to dominant capitalist forms, and driving societal transformation.
  • Reflecting on Academic Activism and what it means to be a critical management scholar in this historical moment.
  • Exploring inclusivity from diverse perspectives and illustrating how power, precarisation and inequality manifest in various organizational and societal settings.
  • Interrogating how division and fragmentation across class, ethnicity, gender, ideology, or geography influence organizations and managerial practices.
  • Understanding how a politics of care can shape more compassionate and just ways of organizing, managing, leading, and sustaining communities within and beyond the workplace.
  • Critically exploring the implications of digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) in reshaping work practices, identities, and managerial control within organizations and societies.
  • Critically engaging with post-humanist and post-anthropocentric perspectives to explore how shifting boundaries between humans, technologies, and more-than-human entities can generate new understandings of management and organizational life.
  • Examining how creative, speculative, and aesthetic approaches can disrupt conventional modes of teaching and researching and open up new possibilities for organizing and managing.
  • Reflecting on the implications of adopting a CMS perspective in daily life and work, and exploring ways of maintaining a critical approach in the face of adversity and crises.
  • Nurturing a critical ethos among scholars and practitioners less familiarized with Critical Management Studies.
  • Moving beyond critique, advancing the affirmative power of CMS.

This is just a guide since we welcome (and encourage) creative formats and creative proposals which are consistent with CMS ideas. 

The CMS PDW program also incorporates the Doctoral and Early Career Consortium. Doctoral candidates and early-career faculty are welcome to be involved in this session, which will allow them to engage in meaningful conversations with more experienced colleagues. We also offer the option of organizing one-on-one conversations between participants and more experienced scholars to address specific concerns.  If you are a doctoral student or an early-career faculty member, we strongly encourage you to be part of the consortia. 

Transformative Academic Praxis  

We invite CMS scholars, members of CMS at AOM and other AOM divisions to propose PDWs that inform our educational, research, service, activism, and methodologies and practices. We encourage proposals that extend the reach of our research and teaching praxis and enhance our potential for transformative action that brings positive changes to our societies and economies. We invite PDW proposals that promote critical thinking and action in tackling socio-ecological crises.  

Particularly on the teaching front, we welcome proposals that could address:

  • Alternative and innovative pedagogies,
  • Changes in teaching and learning experiences in marginalized contexts in our current historical condition, and
  • Reflections on our responsibilities and challenges for maintaining an academic activist agenda in diverse political and geographic settings.

PDW Formats  

AOM 2026 will take place on-site in person. The CMS Division welcomes PDW proposals with any of the following formats: workshops, case studies, roundtable discussions, and panel discussions.  

Developing Proposals  

Please consider the PDW guidelines for submission. We encourage proposals that develop conversations with other divisions to build connections and a critical community across the AOM. As such, please indicate any other divisions to which your PDW would be of interest.   

If you would like to discuss a potential proposal, you are welcome to email the PDW co-chairs by 13 December so that they have time to be in touch before the proposal is submitted. The submission deadline is Tuesday, 13 January 2026 at 17:00 ET (UTC-5/GMT-5) through the AOM Submission System website (open in early December). Please note that PDW sessions will be taking place from Friday, 31 July, through Sunday, 2 August. Scholarly Program sessions (paper sessions and symposia) will take place Sunday, 2 August, through Tuesday, 4 August. 

CMS InTouch is the sponsor of the CMS Best PDW Award. As part of this, the winning organizers will be offered an opportunity to collaborate with the CMS InTouch Team to develop a featured event.  

For further queries, contact the PDW co-chairs: Marco Distinto and Victor Perez Moraga.