Call for Submissions
Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division (MOC)
2026 Call for Scholarly Program Submissions
Division Program Chair: Chia-Jung Tsay, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division (MOC) invites symposium and paper submissions for the 86th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM 2026). The conference will be in-person in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 31 July to 4 August 2026. Scholarly submissions will be held in-person from Sunday, 2 August 2026 through Tuesday, 4 August 2026.
The MOC Division is devoted to understanding individual, relational, and collective cognition in organizational contexts. MOC is open to, and provides developmental support for, a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to studying managerial and organizational cognition.
Specific Domain
MOC encourages ideas at (and across) all levels of analysis that might speak to, but are not restricted to: social construction, culture and cognition, the nature and role of mental models and representations, judgment and decision making, attribution processes, individual differences, non-conscious forms of cognition (e.g., intuition), cognitive institutionalism, emotion, ideology, identity/identification, image, reputation, sensemaking/meaning making, symbols and artifacts, categorization, knowledge creation and management, individual learning, organizational learning and memory, and communities of practice.
Special Instructions
We are especially interested in encouraging innovative symposium submissions as they provide attendees the opportunity to explore the connections between papers around a common theme, theory, issue, or question. The MOC Division encourages submissions from scholars in all career phases, including doctoral students, and celebrates cross-level theorizing, methodological diversity, and linkages between theory and practice. If you have questions about the appropriateness of your submission for MOC, please feel free to contact the Program Chair, Chia-Jung Tsay. The Submission Center opens in early December. The Submission Center closes on Tuesday, 13 January 2026 at 17:00 ET (UTC-5/GMT-5).
Reviewing for MOC
The MOC community consistently provides high quality, developmental feedback to submitters. In order to continue this, we need your support. Please sign up to review for the MOC Division in early December 2025. Your reviewer assignment will be based on the keywords that you indicate to be your areas of expertise. We are grateful for your willingness to volunteer and contribute to the program in this important way. To help you, we will provide reviewers with helpful guidance to complete a review of a conference paper or symposium.
MOC Division Awards
The MOC Division honors the following: (a) Best Paper submitted to MOC, (b) Best MOC Student-Led Paper (the paper may be co-authored, but the student must be the first author), (c) Best MOC Symposium, (d) Best MOC Paper with Practical Implications, (e) Denny Gioia Award for Best Qualitative Paper, (f) Best MOC Paper on Diversity and Cognition, (g) Best Paper in Entrepreneurial Cognition (h) Best Student-Led Paper in Entrepreneurial Cognition (the paper may be co-authored, but the student must be the first author), (i) Best MOC Reviewers, and (j) Most Innovative papers of the year, which will be presented in our ‘Tuesday Coolness’ session (a session that assembles a group of especially innovative papers in one session). The Best Paper and Symposium Awards, as well as Innovative Paper Awards presented at Tuesday Coolness, are selected by panels of MOC scholars. Additionally, best reviewers will be selected for recognition based on author feedback and reviews.