President’s Message

Dear leaders of IFSAM member associations, General Assembly, Board of Directors and Advisory Council members, deputies, ambassadors and staff, colleagues and all,

Please let me start by thanking you for your involvement and contribution to IFSAM during the last year. We devoted 2023 to consolidating the Federation in the following seven main domains.

1. As decided at the last GA in December 2022, in the year 2023, the Presidential Team Office and the Secretariat started working on our first strategic plan. One of the initial tangible results of this activity is the IFSAM organizational chart which was presented during our 2023 Annual GA in June, now available on our website.

Along the year, the strategic planning team has also mapped IFSAM stakeholders and peer organizations to gather information about and/or from them. The team also shared a google form for the internal stakeholders (member associations’ reps in the GA, Advisory Council members, directors, and staff officers) to complete with their availability for an interview. The interviews took place during the last semester of the year and we will share with you the first results soon in order to engage in an open process of review and discussion with internal stakeholders (i.e., members of the BoD, of the GA and of the AC). I would like to thank Rosamartina Schena, Deputy of the presidential team office (PTO), for the enormous efforts made in operationally developing our strategic planning process; I also thank  our PTO team for having supported this action.

2. Along 2023, our soft policy VPs – Silviya Svejenova, our VP Research, Sergio Wanderly, our VP Education, and our VP Practice, LeeLu – strongly worked in order to finalise the Federation’s soft-policy (SP) statements.

Specifically, Silviya, aided by Christine Moser, her deputy and the GA Research committee, updated our soft-policy on research, incorporating the feedback collected during the 2022 and 2023 dissemination of the first SP on research through co-organized joint sessions with some of our member associations. The updated SP on Research identified seven commitments to action: 1) Thriving community; 2) Valued research;  3) Distinct contributions;  4) Research variety;  5) Contextualized evaluation; 6) Management research recognition;  7) Collective navigation of new frontiers presented and approved by our Annual 2023 GA. A big thank to Silviya and Christine for their impeccable competence and professionalism in performing their roles.

Thanks also to our VP Education, Sergio Wanderley and his deputies, Vanessa Bermeo Pazmiño and Matteo Cristofaro, together with the entire GA Committee on Education,who finalised in 2023 the first IFSAM soft policy statements on education and practice, respectively, with their GA committees based on the vision that management education should be promoted in a pluralist and contextualized perspective, with an ultimate goal of having a positive impact on society. The main pillars identified are synthesized as follows: 1) Introduction of new technologies; 2) Innovative pedagogy and practice; 3) Demand for sustainability, equality, and global challenges in business; 4) Holistic education; 5) Diversity and inclusion; 6) Caring for students’ psychology; 7) Fostering lifelong learning.

Last but not least, I would like to thank our VP Practice, LeeLu and his deputies, Vijayakumar Parameswaran Unnithan and Albert Valentine, and the other members of the GA Committee on Practice for their efforts. IFSAM soft policy statement on Practice is aimed at creating a framework to advise, support and facilitate how Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and other business and management communities make decisions, take actions and manage the co-production of education and how to influence the management practice with and for the communities they impact, including business, civil society organizations, policymakers and learners. This will be performed fostering the following principles: 1) Engagement with stakeholders; 2) Advocacy; 3) Diversity, equality, inclusion, and respect (DEIR); 4) Risk management; 5) Capacity building; 6) Scholars as change agents; 7) Learning from other disciplines; 8) Knowledge repository; 9) Supportive engagement platforms (SEPs).

Now it is time to discuss, disseminate and futher develop our statements in order to keep them updated and aligned to the intrinsic dynamic needs of the academic, educational, practice and institutional community. To this aim, the feedback of our member associations is crucial.

3. In February 2023, the recipients of the IFSAM 2022 Awards were announced. The recipients are the following:

1) Professor Lorraine Eden, Professor Emerita of Management at the Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, USA. IFSAM 2022 Award for Excellence in Societally Relevant Management Scholarship Winner.

2) Professor Leanne Cutcher, Professor of Management and Organization Studies at the Business School, University of Sydney, Australia. IFSAM 2022 Award for Excellence in Indigenous Management Scholarship Winner.

We congratulate the winners and wish them continued success. We thank the GA Awards Committee and its Chair, Michael Morley, as well as the members of the selection panels, for their work during the evaluation process and for their outstanding and continued service to the Federation. We are also grateful to Yingying Zhang Zhang, deputy SG, for her logistical assistance in the awards’ logistics. These Awards, currently funded by our membership fees, are our way of “giving back” to the worldwide community.

In June 2023, the annual GA elected a new Chair of the Awards committee, Baniyelme Zoogah, and gave mandate to the Board to call for the 2023 Awards. The latter was launched in September for four awards which will be announced in the new year. We would encourage our member associations to diffuse the 2023 awards’ call within their community and to nominate valuable candidates.

4. The quarterly presidents’ platform meetings (PPMs) were consolidated in 2023. We believe the PPMs illustrate how the Federation is uniquely positioned to create value with and for our member associations, and for the field as a whole. As explained in the Vision 2024 statement, these gatherings of presidents of member and observer associations (and/or their delegates) constitute one of the key synergistic activities of the federation, in which presidents share their concerns and insights, which in turn generates further synergistic ideas and collaborative initiatives between various member associations. I would like to extend my special appreciation to Prof. Patrick Reinmoeller, director of the presidential team office (PTO), and Prof. Nuno Oliveira, deputy director of the PTO, who organized three outstanding PPMs in 2023 dealing with critical issues for our member associations, recruiting experts from professional organizations and other non-member associations: Impact of management research, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in management education and research, and the discussion concerned how a politicized world is affecting member associations were the topics discussed here in the PPMs. Patrick and Nuno will continue to dedicate time and efforts to this activity in the following year. We would be happy if all the leaders of our member associations can take advantage of these exclusive meetings: remember that you can always delegate members of your associations!
5. The Federation welcomed two new full member associations during 2023: the European Group of Organizational Studies (EGOS) and the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM). These memberships will further contribute to IFSAM’s increased representation within various management subfields (in particular, organization studies and theory through EGOS) and geographically (Oceania through ANZAM). We are very grateful to the leaders of the new/rejoining member associations who have made this possible and to our VP New Membership and Governance, Prof. Ouidade Sabri, and her team of deputies – Amina Djedidi and Yongho (Martin) Hyun – and ambassadors – Boualem Aliouat, Benoit Cordelier, Zied Ftiti, and Monica Sanchez – for their effective work.

Unfortunately, we have to report that on May 9, 2023, the President of IFSAM received a letter from the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Management (AOM) – one of the founding members of IFSAM in 1990 – stating its desire to ‘resign’ from the Federation. This was registered at the end of the year in accordance with the Federation rules for withdrawal (Art. 16.3 of IFSAM statutes). The aspects of concern for leaving  the Federation mentioned as ‘novel’ in AOM letter – particularly, the establishment of ‘standards of  competence’ – were already present in the founding statutes that AOM helped to write over thirty  years ago. More importantly, the soft policy role IFSAM started in 2021 does not intend to establish  (and even less to impose) standards of competence for individual colleagues but rather generate a  perspective and issue recommendations about the evolution of the field and for the advancement of management research, education and practice worldwide, which is, as we understand it, clearly  in alignment with AOM’s stated aim.

We hope that our renewed invitation to the AOM leadership for dialogue will be positively received.  IFSAM is a federal platform of peer associations, engaging in multi-lateral dialogue, in order to  advance management research, education and practice worldwide, beyond each member association’s own legitimate bilateral relations with another member association.

In sum, the Federation thereby comprised 28 member associations at the end of 2023.

6. 6. During 2023, the Federation continued to strenghten its governance capacity. The GA now comprises around 50 representatives of our member associations, the BoD comprises 11 members, the Advisory Council includes 14 members, and the staff consists of 16 deputies and four ambassadors, plus the PTO director. Additionally, our only paid staff member, Eleonora di Piacenza, has made an inestimable contribution as media manager since 2020 and has now been joined by Jake Nana for editing support. New volunteers nominated by their member associations joined our 6 GA committees or the Board. This growth has been the result of many people’s efforts and there is still much more to do, but I truly believe we can feel proud of so many accomplishments in such little time, particularly as a federation of scholarly associations across the world, with the accompanying crosscultural and time-zone differences!
7. 7. Another important achievement reached in 2023 concerns the joining of CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) by the federation towards the end of the year, in agreement with the mandate received by our GA in June 2023. In this way, IFSAM can bring its voice and vision in this coalition and contribute to the future of research assessment. A big thank you again to Silviya for strongly supporting and advising on this initiative, which we believe will further nurture the international vocation and role of the Federation!

In closing this annual newsletter, I would like to thank all the colleagues involved in IFSAM governance: all of them are volunteers with many institutional tasks in their home intitutions and academies. Without their support and contribution, the Federation would not be able to pursue its vision and mission. Nonetheless, we intend to expand our capacity in order to consolidate and reach new goals. So, I encourage members of all our member associations – especially young-career scholars – to contribute to IFSAM in its six GA committees, but also in the various deputy VP positions open or in the secretariat. To this aim, the support of the leaders and representatives of our member associations is crucial in nominating and/or stimulating their members to apply to the open positions. Thank you so much in advance for your support in this concern.

I hope that 2024 will bring greater stability and a healthy development to IFSAM. Thanks to all your advice and support, as well as your dedication and commitment to the Federation.

Warm regards,

Sandro Castaldo

IFSAM President