Kalle Lyytinen: Notable Academy of Management Acceptances

Doctor of Management students submit proposals to the Academy of Management (AoM) conference every year by mid-January. This is expected from the 2^nd and 3^rd year DM students and increasingly from PhD students who work on their thesis in the 4^th year. In March 2014 the results started to come in for the AoM 2014 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia and they are again pretty impressive. This year, our students submitted overall 28 manuscripts of which 16 were accepted resulting in the acceptance rate of 58%. This is well over the average acceptance rate which is in the range of 40-50% depending on the specific division. Notable this year was the excellent performance of the PhD cohort 3 which was close to 72 % acceptance rate despite the very short notice of submitting. Another point of pride is that three students Lori Kendall, Ted Ladd and  David Grogan were nominated for the best paper award and David Grogan was already awarded the best student paper award in his division.  An important observation is that our students get accepted across a wide range of divisions from the classic ones like Organization and Management Theory (OMT), Organization Development and Change (ODC) , or Organizational Communications and Information Systems (OCIS) to the more recent ones like Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE).  Our students have also achieved several other awards this year. Sherry Sanger won the best theory paper award in the Academy of Marketing meeting in Summer 2013 and the best paper award in the Third International Conference on Engaged Management Scholarship in Atlanta in the Fall. I am proud of our contribution and thank all of the students and advisors for their hard work and effort to achieve these excellent results.

Kalle Lyytinen
DM Programs,
Director of Academic Affairs

Kalle Lyytinen enthusiastic about DM presentations at AoM 2010

 I just returned from the 2010 Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada. The Weatherhead School of Management's Doctor of Management (DM) alumni and students overall had 17 paper presentations and won 3 best paper awards in three different divisions. Their presentations were well received and deemed both rigorous and relevant--demonstrating that students of the DM Program span the boundaries of practice and academia and engage in management-related practitioner scholarship that is theory driven, uses  rigorous and credible research methods, and is at the same time well anchored to the problems and realities of management.  One of the best and most rewarding experiences for DM faculty who attended the meeting was the pride, confidence and enthusiasm that our students showed when they interacted with other management scholars and participated eagerly in the debates in symposia, paper sessions and design workshops at AoM.

 The AoM Meeting included a couple of sessions that dealt with the status and challenges in doctoral education--some of them directly addressing the issues of educating "practitioner scholars" in "executive doctoral" programs, or other various programs that are specifically targeted to executives who wish to go  beyond their Master's education to receive a terminal degree.  Representatives from top tier schools, including some deans and faculty, criticized these programs, claiming a lack of rigor and academic quality.  When enlightened about the research intensity, relevance, and quality of the DM Program, and when informed about the high number of papers presented at this year's Meeting by DM students and alumni (17 papers accepted leading to an acceptance rate of c.a. 90% within the DM Program), they expressed incredible surprise at this remarkable achievement. Their reaction is important because it shows that, although recognition of the DM Program is gaining ground, the Program continues to be an "unknown gem" in many areas of the academic world.  We have to effectively promote the Program more broadly so that the "big school" deans and faculty will appreciate the DM Program and the impressive contribution of wisdom and expertise our alumni and students make to the academy.

 As Director, I am taking steps to actively engage in getting the word out about our "unknown gem." I do hope that our alumni and current students will do the same. Comments, such as those I pointed out from deans and faculty at the Meeting, illustrate that often simple stereotypical assessments of executive doctoral programs are made.  A common thought is that all of these programs are the same, as if all MBA programs or MD programs are alike. With this in mind, we need to spread the word to both the worlds of academia and practice that the DM Program is not only rigorous and challenging, but that it also meets all the criteria of a high-quality doctoral program focusing on research and the generation of new knowledge that matters in management.

 I look forward to hearing comments from DM Program alumni and students about their experiences at AoM this year, your experience in the Program, and your ideas about the status and marketing of our program.

Kalle Lyytinen

Director, DM Program

17 DM Papers Accepted to Academy of Management Meeting

A key element of the DM program involves learning to conduct research and write research articles that meet academic demands of rigor and theory while at the same time addressing the relevant problems of practice.  Over the course of the program, each student writes three articles: one to report the results of the initial theoretical inquiry; one to communicate the outcomes of a qualitative study; and one to report the findings of a quantitative study. Students are expected to send those  articles to relevant academic conferences for review and presentation.

This work is aimed at major academic events with stringent acceptance and quality criteria, which include the Academy of Management's Annual Meeting, the premier conference for management scholars from around the world. In January, 2010 twenty DM students submitted to the Academy of Management's Annual Meeting and the  results are just in.  These submissions were peer-reviewed and held to a strict academic standard for rigor, relevancy and interest-value.  Results of the review process have been delivered, and 17 of these articles have been accepted - 8  quantitative papers and 9 qualitative papers. Overall our acceptance rate is over 85%, which is well beyond the average acceptance rate of roughly 40%.  

The DM program presents the largest single group presenting research at the meeting. We are very proud of this achievement as it shows that DM students regularly meet the standards of high quality research. Another aspect is the amazing variety of the papers presented. The papers are presented in  multiple major divisions of the Academy of Management including:  Entrepreneurship, Managerial and Organizational Cognition, Organization and Management Theory, Organization Development and Change, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Communication & Information Systems, Public and Nonprofit Organizations, Technology & Innovation Management, and Business Policy and Strategy. Overall it shows that this program - with excellent students,  careful and continued guidance by the faculty, and inspiring intellectual environment - can produce outstanding results.

Author: Kalle Lyytinen

Director of the DM Program

Transformation through Scholarship

Through my work with a number of DM students and alumni, I have come to realize that the DM experience is essentially about transformative change.  There are several ways to characterize this change. First, most students enter the program with the idea that their engagement with the program will help them change their career path and transform it to something different and hopefully better in achieving their personal goals. These "instrumental" goals of learning are not substantially different of those why people enroll in MBA, or some other professional programs, and these goals are often met - many graduates do different things after the program. Many start a new business, change their business focus, or engage more intensely with academia as educators or administrators. But the transformative force of the DM program goes much deeper than career changes.  DM students and alumni widely report a fundamental change in their thinking and world-view.

In most cases DM graduates say that the program transformed how they see themselves as managers, colleagues, or citizens of the world. The deep and intense three year engagement in assimilating, building, critiquing, and communicating knowledge about management challenges and problems has changed what they read, how they read, who they think they are, how they think, with whom they communicate (more with their DM colleagues across the globe!), and how they consequently approach management problems and practice. They are more thorough in their analysis, exercise critical thinking, deploy multiple perspectives, and are open to multifaceted reasoning about a variety of management topics. Of course, this transformative experience is difficult and challenging, but in the end it is the most enduring effect of the program: the DM program literally transforms the self through creating new and different ways of looking at the management world.

This idea of "transformation" informs the overall design of the program. We are engaged in transforming the idea of management scholarship. Instead of remaining mired in abstract theory removed from practice (as is common in doctoral programs), we are trailblazing a new path - one where research practice is intertwined with practical, actionable theory.  We achieve this by cutting across the standard contradictions prevalent in doctoral education and look to synthesize theory and practice, rigor and relevance, and knowledge and action.  We start with practicing managers who seek to learn and engage in the theoretical management discourse and end up with practicing scholars who seek to engage in management action in new ways. In this way the line between practice and theory is blurred: the two are juxtaposed with a transformative impact.

Author: Kalle Lyytinen

Director of the DM Program