Strategy 2024

The Academy’s Executive Committee has been developing the strategic direction and vision of the British Academy of Management over the next four years, building on the excellence of our existing portfolio of activities. The Academy is known for its international annual Conference, its Doctoral Symposia, its field-leading journals, capacity-building activities and collaborations, and these will continue to be developed within our tradition of excellence.

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By 2024, BAM will be bigger and more visible, both to the business and management scholarly community and to wider audiences. Our contribution to wider society through support for research and scholarship via excellent publication outlets, funding support, capacity and leadership development, and policy engagement, will be clearer. Our income will be diversified in a changing landscape to increase sustainability of all our activities, focusing on membership and capacity building offerings. Our community will have a strong identity and everything we do will reflect our core values of equality, diversity, inclusion and respect.

We have distilled the Strategy into two documents: a short summary and a longer, more detailed version.

BAM2024 Strategic Aims and Objectives:

The British Academy of Management Executive is made up of the President (leading on external relations and collaboration), the Chair (leading on strategy and oversight), the Treasurer, the CEO (leading on operations) and 4 Vice Chair roles, each with its own portfolio of activity: Academic Affairs of Conference & Capacity Building, Research and Publications; Knowledge Management and Education; Special Interest Groups.

The strategic aims for BAM2024 are organised around these Executive roles and are:

  1. To put Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) ‘best practice’ in place across BAMs portfolio of activities. To do this we will:

    • Create and appoint a new Vice Chair for EDI
    • Evaluate and implement best EDI practice across all BAM activities
    • Help best practice spread across the sector to influence more widely
  2. To commission and deliver research that matters to our key stakeholder communities. To achieve this, we will:
    • Commission, run and deliver a project on ‘EDI and Respect in Business and Management Higher Education Institutions’
    • Commission, run and deliver a project on ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing in HE’
  3. To ‘partner with purpose’ with key external stakeholders. To achieve this, we will:
    • Establish and maintain good working relationships and joint projects with sister bodies
    • Establish and maintain good working relationships with strategically significant professional bodies
    • Develop effective communication channels with key policy makers and funders
  4. To engage Fellows as ambassadors and leaders to drive research excellence, capacity development and policy engagement. To achieve this our Fellows will:
    • Strongly promote the highest calibre of UK research in management and business globally
    • Actively support and engage in capacity building including the Doctoral Symposium, SIG Chairs and future leaders, Peer Review College
    • Influence policy making in key business, governmental and Whitehall constituencies.
    • Leverage the national and international profile of BAM
  5. To establish a sustainable ‘excellent’ business and management Peer Review College to enhance research in the field of management. To achieve this, we will:
    • Establish a good IT system to support effective management of the Peer Review College
    • Create the capacity development to generate good reviewers
    • Recognise the reviewing skills and capabilities of the community
  6. To develop a sustainable capacity building offering for management scholars at all career stages. To achieve this, we will:
    • Develop and use the BAM Framework to guide our own and our members’ career-development activities
    • Create a programme of activities for mid-career members
    • Create a new development programme for Directors of Engagement
  7. To develop a sustainable platform for management research funding. To achieve this, we will:
    • Leverage the research networks and contacts of the Fellows College
    • Secure and extend administrative support
    • Create a strong reviewer community to leverage our community’s research capability and significance
    • Develop and co-deliver joint grant propositions
  8. To develop and launch a new journal in the area of Knowledge Management and Education
  9. To invest in SIG Chairs as future leaders in our field. To achieve this, we will:
    • Embed a regular SIG Chairs’ forum to engender and grow leadership skills in our community
    • Develop new IT platforms to enable sharing of best practice and community support.         
  10. To double our membership in the next four years. To achieve this, we will:
    • Develop and promote the membership offering
    • Develop joint membership schemes with sister bodies
    • Develop sound IT infrastructure to support membership engagement

It should be noted that, with the exception of the CEO, the Executive is entirely voluntary, and its members take on this work for BAM in their own time. These ambitions may rest on the resources and capabilities of our energetic and committed volunteer community.