Call for Submissions

2026 Call for Scholarly Program Submissions

Division Program Chair: Silviya Svejenova, Copenhagen Business School

The Organization and Management Theory Division (OMT) is “The Place to Be” for many reasons! It prides itself on integrating depth of insight with breadth of theories, rigor with relevance, and inspiring scholarly ideas with strong community connections across diversities. We invite you to join or continue supporting OMT by submitting your symposia, papers, and posters, and by signing up to review for the 2026 OMT scholarly program. 

• The 86th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM 2026) will take place from 31 July to 4 August 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Please submit through the AOM Submission Center (opens in early December 2025). Deadline for ALL submissions is Tuesday, 13 January 2026 at 17:00 ET (UTC-5/GMT-5). 

Our Domain 

Organization and Management Theory is an inclusive community of scholars who draw on a rich intellectual heritage to build and test theory about organizations, their members, their management, organization-environment relations, organizing processes and broader markets and fields. We pursue theoretically significant and methodologically rigorous research across analytical levels and phenomena to generate impactful insights in management and organizing. We value work that advances theory and has practical implications on a broad range of organizational, managerial and societal issues. More information about the division is available on the OMT website. 

What papers, symposia, and posters fit with OMT? 

OMT welcomes submissions that highlight insights relevant to organizational and management theory. As our domain statement above notes, OMT celebrates theoretical novelty, methodological pluralism, international research collaborations, and the use of theory to address organizational and societal challenges. 

In addition to the regular scholarly submissions (papers and symposia), the 2026 program will continue featuring poster sessions (extended abstract). Scholarly sessions (paper sessions and symposia) will take place Sunday, 2 August through Tuesday, 4 August 2026. 

Posters will be presented in one-hour in-person poster sessions taking place in a highly visible location at the Annual Meeting Friday, 31 July 2026 through Tuesday, 4 August 2026.  

New in 2026: An on-Demand session option for prerecorded presentations 

AOM is introducing a new On-Demand session option in 2026. It allows accepted presenters who are unable to attend in person to prerecord their presentation and share it with others through AOM’s secure online platform.  

Whether you are new to OMT or an OMT regular, we look forward to your submissions! 

We invite people who have submitted to OMT in the past to submit again and help us sustain our robust community. We also invite PhD students, postdocs, and faculty who have not previously submitted research to AOM or to OMT to help us expand and explore new ideas. If you have questions about the appropriateness of your submission for OMT, please feel free to contact Silviya Svejenova, 2026 OMT Program Chair.  

Please do follow strictly the submission guidelines, including the formatting instructions, as any submission that does not follow these is automatically NOT reviewed.  

And very importantly – PLEASE sign up to review for OMT! 

Our division has a long tradition of providing constructive, high-quality reviews.  Please sign up to review and help us continue delivering excellent feedback to submitters. 

We need almost 1000 reviewers at OMT! To get the high-quality reviews that OMT is known for, we need you! We welcome members at all career stages – from PhD students and postdocs, to junior and senior faculty. If you are submitting or have ever submitted a paper, symposium, poster, or PDW to OMT, our collegial norms encourage you to pay it forward by serving as a reviewer for the division. We use the keywords you supply to make reviewer assignments. The sign-up system opens in early December and review assignments need to be completed between 22 January 2026 and 12 February 2026. 

OMT Division Awards  

The OMT Division presents numerous awards at the Annual Meeting: 

• The Distinguished Scholar Award recognizes scholars who have been central to the intellectual development of the field of organization and management theory.
• The Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award recognizes scholars who have blazed trails and paved the way for new ideas during the course of their careers (given every other year; to be given in 2026).
• The Distinguished Educator Award recognizes scholars who have had a significant impact through their teaching and interactions with students (given every other year; to be given in 2027).
• The Best Published Paper Award recognizes a journal article published in the previous year that advances our theoretical understanding of organizations, organizing, and management.
• The Best Paper Award recognizes an empirical or conceptual paper submitted to the annual meeting that offers significant contributions to the field of organization and management theory.
• The Louis Pondy Best Dissertation Paper Award recognizes the best paper based on a dissertation in the refereed scholarly program.
• The Best International Paper Award recognizes research regarding themes and content of interest internationally.
• The Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices recognizes research that advances our understanding of environmental and social dimensions of organizing.
• The Best OMT Entrepreneurship Paper recognizes a paper in the scholarly program that advances understanding of entrepreneurship drawing on organization and management theory.
• The Best Student Paper recognizes a paper authored solely by students and included in the refereed program.
• The OMT Responsible Research Award recognizes a paper that offers both credible and useful knowledge that can potentially advance business practices toward a better society.
• The Best Symposium Award recognizes an event submitted to the annual meeting that stimulates, integrates, or extends discussions about organization and management theory.
• The Ned Smith Rising Star Award recognizes an OMT scholar who has established a research record of exceptional quality and creativity early in their career. The award was first awarded in 2023 in honor of Edward “Ned” Bishop Smith (1981-2021) (given every other year; to be given in 2027).
• The Research Committee Service Award recognizes the valuable service provided by the most dedicated members of the research committee.
• The Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) Award recognizes reviewers who were deemed worthy of special acknowledgment for the helpfulness, extensiveness, and insight of their reviews.