In a paper published in Business & Society called ‘Taking Stock of SIM,’ I argue that the Social Issues in Management (SIM) division of the Academy of Management (AOM) is facing contradictory trends that demand renewed attention to its distinctive place within the AOM—and the academy write large. On the one hand, issues like ethics, corporate (social) responsibility, sustainability, and other aspects of business in society, which were once central to SIM, are now spread throughout the AOM. On the other hand, SIM scholars (like many others) have tended to move away from asking the types of ‘big’ societal questions that founders once focused on towards more empirically tractable questions that can be dealt with in article-length manuscripts, as opposed to the books that once dominated the field.

Dealing with these tensions effectively could arguably bring SIM back to its distinctively normative core (i.e., asking the ethical questions). Simultaneously, they could allow the division to differentiate itself within the AOM and elsewhere.

In what I hope is a provocative essay, I argued that SIM’s mission and domain statements have evolved—and narrowed—significantly over the years. This movement is counter to that of the broader AOM, which has explicitly evolved its vision to ‘inspire and enable a better world’ through a mission of ‘build[ing] a vibrant and supportive community of scholars…to connect and explore ideas’ about management and organizations.

In the process, SIM may well have given up its ‘critical edge’ and asking of ‘big picture questions’ to other divisions or interest areas. Many of its core topics have also become popularized throughout the AOM. The latter development can readily be perceived as a good thing for the division—and the AOM itself. It signifies much broader acceptance of SIM-related topics than in prior years. It potentially demonstrates deeper engagement with issues of ethics, governance, stakeholders, systems, and relationships, all of which find their way into the current SIM domain statement.

At the same time, it poses the question of what is to distinguish SIM in the future, particularly since there is considerable evidence, e.g., in the AOM annual meeting program, of SIM topics dispersed throughout the AOM. There are no easy answers to that question.

SIM’s heritage is normative at its core. One possible way that the division can move forward is to explicitly acknowledge that normative core. That probably means doing quality research, qualitative, quantitative, conceptual, and theoretical work explicitly aimed at making the world a better place and the enterprises within it accountable, transparent, and responsible. It probably means not falling within the trap of solely researching ‘what is,’ but rather identifying and articulating—through the most rigorous means possible—what ‘ought to be,’ i.e., making the normative explicit. That means linking the normative with the empirical and conceptual in rigorous and thoughtful ways.

Moving in this direction is difficult in the broader academic context in which SIM finds itself. That context demands increasingly ‘rigorous’ (and correspondingly narrow) research. That work tends to focus around accepted topics where a literature ‘gap’ or two can be addressed in an empirical or conceptual article. Fundamentally, though, this approach accepts the existing system as is.

Some criticize the overall management academy, and SIM is part of this trend, for doing research that seeks rigor at the expense of relevance. Underlying the formation of SIM, however (and in my view), was a thought that businesses and other enterprises needed to operate responsibility in the context of a system that itself demands responsibility and accountability. Arguably, what is needed are changes and questions about the current system to bring that sense of responsibility and accountability about, particularly in light of the many significant, even existential, problems facing the planet. If so, then SIM may well be the place to ask those questions and foster those changes.

As the broader management academy grapples with the implications of this chase towards rigor and theory at the expense of relevance, which many articles critical of management scholarship contend, SIM might be the place where more fundamental questions can be asked. And answers attempted:

What are the real purposes of businesses? How do societies hold enterprises of all sorts accountable? Who decides and how? What kind of global governance is needed to foster enterprises that work in harmony with the natural environment? What is the role of ethics in fostering good business, not as a sideshow, but a core element of how business is (or should be) done? How do (and should) societies and their enterprises shift away from a growth-at-all-costs mentality that is leaving a potential wake of environmental and, ultimately, human devastation?

Rigorous empirical and conceptual work is needed to link these difficult types of questions—and get them published. Thus, such questions pose risks. Not all journals will be willing to deal with even well-developed papers on them. Not all publishers will take on books that question the status quo. Yet these types of questions are, in my view, at the heart of what the SIM division originally stood for. They could conceivably guide it into an even more flourishing future than it already has, given how popular its current emphases seem to be.

In the words of one of the field’s early leaders, Edwin Epstein, SIM blends ‘the normative with the scientific, the speculative with the empirical, and the philosophical with the pragmatic’ in its effort to serve as the ‘conscience of management education and the Academy.’ Those aspirations are, in my view, worth pursuing.

-Sandra Waddock

Sandra Waddock is the Galligan Chair of Strategy, Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, and Professor of Management at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, Chestnut Hill, MA USA. waddock@bc.edu