Tracks

ASB Conference 2017

ASB encourages submission in a diversity of functional areas related to business administration. The venue is sympathetic to research from a variety of philosophical traditions, including but not limited to positivist (mainstream), critical, postmodern, poststructural, postcolonial, or feminist. Above all, the ASB conference heartily welcomes scholarly submissions that are in various stages of development, whether in early or later stages of formulation.

Track Descriptions

Accounting

The Accounting track of ASB invites papers that focus on public or private business, for-profit or not-for profit entities and the audit of entities in these environments. Of interest are related issues of ethical financial reporting, globalization and its impact on reporting practices, as well as the rise of e-commerce. The continuous increase and change in reporting standards over the past decade has led to a need to examine each revision and its impacts as an area of research, thus the Accounting track welcomes paper that take on this task. Also welcome are papers that ask questions such as why certain practices in accounting persist and whether they should change. Research in the field of accounting is as diverse as the items on financial statements and issues that evolve and need consideration in ensuring users are provided with needed information for decision making. The accounting track is home to researchers and research that explores these issues in their diversity.

Business & Organizational History

The B&OH track welcomes papers whose focus is the historical treatment of business and organizations, their practices, consequences, and potentials. Submissions to the track may be empirically, methodologically, or theoretically oriented work situated at any level of analysis (e.g., the individual, firm or industry, social) and from any paradigmatic positioning (e.g., positivist, postpositivist) or perspective (e.g., feminist, postcolonial). The track also similarly welcomes contributions or critiques of the historiography of business, management, organizations and management thought.

Communication

The Communication track welcomes papers from a variety of communication perspectives. Authors may address issues such as business and professional communication, business writing, communication theory, organizational communication, new media and mediated communication studies. This year’s conference theme encourages authors in the communication studies division to explore notions of communication and communicating in relation to notions of community and context. This division welcomes both empirical and theoretical papers, research may be qualitative and/or quantitative in nature and reflect all philosophical traditions.

Cooperatives/Solidarity Economy Track

This track is open to all areas of cooperative research such as co-ops in critical management; co-op management and ethics; co-op entrepreneurship; governance for co-ops, key performance indicators, financial reporting and accounting, performance measurement and analysis; financial management; tax accounting; public responsibility and ethics; technology innovation management; and knowledge management. The track is also open to papers that are in the development stage. Masters and PhD students are encouraged to submit papers.

Embryo & Case Track

The Embryo and Case Track division encourages decision-focused cases based on organizational field research. Cases may be developed from any area of administration, and should explore important issues in the life of the contemporary organization for the purposes of advancing pedagogy within the business school classroom. While completed case studies are sought, the division will also consider Research In Progress (RIP) cases for presentation and discussion purposes.

All cases must be accompanied by an Instructor’s Manual / Teaching Note that generally follows the prescriptions of the Case Research Journal by including at least the following: case synopsis, identification of intended courses and levels, learning objectives, research methodology, teaching plan, assignment questions and corresponding analysis, and epilogue.

Entrepreneurship

The entrepreneurship track invites papers from a plurality of paradigms (positivist or postpositivist), that explore ideas in various stages of development, thus ideas in early stages or fully developed ideas, and whose anticipated audience has either a practitioner or academic orientation. Papers that pursue an empirical or / and theoretical contribution are invited for submission. Papers that focus on knowledge development on the following topics are encouraged in this track: enterprise development, social entrepreneurship, business startups, new venture development, aboriginal entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, family business growth, family business succession planning, and gender and entrepreneurship.

Ethics and Social Issues

The ethics and social issues division welcomes papers from a variety of perspectives. Authors may address issues such cultivating an environment for sustainability, ethical problems in organizations, social and economic consequences of misconduct in organizations, antecedents and consequents of ethical decision making and social responsibility, theoretical models, empirical results and organizational strategies on ethics and social issues, prevention of misconduct, challenges of staying competitive and being socially responsible, outcomes of investing in corporate social responsibility and the influence of globalization on the engagement in sustainable, ethical and / or socially responsible practices. This division welcomes both empirical and theoretical papers, research may be qualitative and/or quantitative in nature and reflect all philosophical traditions.

Finance

The ASB conference Finance track welcomes a wide range of Finance research submissions from theoretical modeling to practitioner-oriented empirical studies, and from incomplete papers to papers under Journal review. Rather than looking for the shortcomings of submissions, the Finance track reviewers look for what is new and interesting in a submission, so that its presentation will produce lively and helpful discussion. In past ASB conferences, research presented has included: exploring the impact of higher order moments on asset pricing anomalies; empirical modeling of the term structure of interest rates; deriving a transactions cost based model for hedging option contracts; relating Newton’s laws of Physics to investor behaviour, as well as traditional empirical tests of the impact of explanatory variables on observed investor and corporate performance.

Gender & Diversity in Organizations

The gender & diversity in organizations track invites and promotes research, academic and practitioner knowledge related to sex, women, men, gender, femininities, masculinities, diversity in organizations and the broader societal context. Encouraged are papers that focus on the intersection of women, men, gender, sex and diversity in contexts in which power is exercised are encouraged. Papers that either adopt a feminist lens or seek in its theoretical development are welcome. This track is open to research in various stages of development as well as from a variety of paradigms of thought.

HR / IR

The HR/IR track encourages contributions for the wide range of disciplines and perspectives that can be broadly defined as the “world of work”. Both macro and micro perspectives on workers and their experiences in organizations are welcome. Research that examines a variety of relationships among peers, subordinate/supervisor, intra and inter managerial teams as well as structural and policy level studies are just some of the areas presented in this track. Both collective and individualist points of view are welcome as are quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Topics in the past have included: management strategies, conflict resolution, forms of representation, and the broad range of HR traditional subthemes such as staffing, compensation, performance management, career planning, union-management relations, etc. Labour studies also finds it’s home in this track. The track encourages comparative studies and participants benefit from presentations on a wide range of industries and professions across the public, private and civil society sectors.

Student Case Competition

The event is open to teams from any business school or department in the Maritimes. Students, in any year of study, in teams of 2-4, are provided a general business case and have 3 hours to prepare a presentation to a panel of judges.

The competition is run one of two ways: (1) as a learning environment where all students are present in the room for all presentations. Student feedback suggests this is a great way for the students to see how other teams have approached the same case and which teams ultimately satisfied the judges criteria best; (2) as a staggered start approach where students are provided the case in half-hour intervals, have 3 hours to prepare a presentation and present to the panel of judges. This approach is used when the logistics of the host university do not lend allow the first approach.

Feedback from the judges is provided during a reception and awards are presented to the top three teams. The case chosen each year tends to be a non-subject specific business case that any student would be able to provide a suitable recommendation.

Management Education

Students are flocking to college because the world is more complex, turbulent, and more reliant on knowledge than ever before. But educational practices invented when higher education served only the few are increasingly disconnected from the needs of contemporary students (Greater Expectations, 2002: viii).

Today’s university classroom is a very different one than it was twenty years ago with a number of challenges. The typical business school classroom is now composed of a diverse group of students from all over the world with varying backgrounds, values, and beliefs. Secondly, many students (and their parents) are questioning the relevance and benefits of a university degree. Lastly, student engagement both in and out of the classroom is an ongoing challenge.

The Management Education track encourages papers from all aspects of higher education, adult education, and management training programs. Topics may include the use of technology in the classroom, teaching international students, new innovative teaching methods, teaching critical thinking, balancing theory versus applied knowledge, the challenge of student engagement, and new course development. Papers are especially encouraged that question the traditional classroom model and challenge the current business school curriculum.

Management & Information Systems

The management & information systems track is open to papers that consider theories and practices related to individual, social and technological phenomena, which underlie the development, use and effects of information in an organizational context.

Marketing

The goal of the marketing track is to attract a broad range of papers built upon the theory and practice of marketing. To this end, ASB invites papers that deal with any aspect of marketing for services, non-profits, and for-profit enterprises. Researchers are also encouraged to consider topics related to marketing for co-operatives, fair trade, and sustainable enterprises. Topics may involve marketing theory, consumer behavior, marketing research, advertising, distribution/logistics, pricing strategy, tourism marketing, hospitality marketing, marketing information technology, social enterprise marketing, or marketing education. Researchers are also encouraged to consider issues of relevance to Atlantic Canada and its place in a global marketing context. Both empirical and qualitative research papers are welcome.

Organization Behaviour & Theory

The organizational behaviour & theory track of ASB is sympathetic to papers that explore the relationship between the behaviour of people in organizations and individual, group and organizational outcomes. It welcomes papers that have a predictive capacity or seek to develop theory to understand behaviour, and organizations. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: exploring personality, identity, values and attitudes at work, learning in organizations, motivation, organizational stress, organizational power, organizational culture, structure and design as well as leadership. Papers in various stages of development, as well as from a variety of paradigmatic approaches are welcome.

Student Case Competition

The event is open to teams from any business school or department in the Maritimes. Students, in any year of study, in teams of 2-4, are provided a general business case and have 3 hours to prepare a presentation to a panel of judges.

The competition is run one of two ways: (1) as a learning environment where all students are present in the room for all presentations. Student feedback suggests this is a great way for the students to see how other teams have approached the same case and which teams ultimately satisfied the judges criteria best; (2) as a staggered start approach where students are provided the case in half-hour intervals, have 3 hours to prepare a presentation and present to the panel of judges. This approach is used when the logistics of the host university do not lend allow the first approach.

Feedback from the judges is provided during a reception and awards are presented to the top three teams. The case chosen each year tends to be a non-subject specific business case that any student would be able to provide a suitable recommendation.

Strategy

The strategy track focuses on the role and problems of organizational members that are either manifest within or outside organizational boundaries. Of interest are problems manifest in multi-business firms or multi-functional business units. Relevant topics include but are not limited to: strategy formulation and implementation, strategic planning and decision processes, strategic control and reward systems, resource allocation, diversification and portfolio strategies, competitive strategy, cooperative strategies, selection and behaviour of general managers, and the composition and processes of top management teams.

Open

This track is home to papers that have a specific, general or hybrid (combination of two or three) topic whose focus falls outside the boundary of other ASB tracks. Invited are papers in various stages of development; both early and mature manuscripts are welcome. Papers written from various paradigms or a multitude of paradigms of thought (paradigm interplay) are encouraged. If you have read through the ASB track descriptions and are not certain where your paper fits or are certain that your paper does not fit any noted track, then this track is for you.