Some weeks . . . . .
Folks, some weeks I just get so mad at what passes for rational discourses among our editors at major journals I have to say nothing rather than chancing the libel laws. So, quiet this week about the wrongs I have seen and tried to right and the forthcoming problems that I am predicting. The worst thing is that my track record at predictions is much better than random. As I say to Queen’s social and behavioural accounting lab all too frequently – I wish I was much less accurate!
Organizing mid-year meetings
One of the easiest jobs in the academic world to screw up is running a conference for your peers.
While there are frequently support staff and conference organization experts at the end of the day the conference is judged on two foods and a bed!
First, were the sessions well organized with related papers and competent discussants? Were the plenary speakers at least tolerable? In other words food for the mind.
Second, are the conference meals and snacks edible and is the bar free long enough to satisfy the average attendees craving for food for the body???
Third, can conference attendees who want to party have a place to go to avoid going to bed and can those who want to go to bed get a good nights sleep!
Sounds simple until you try to do it well.
Kudos to the organizers of both the Audit MYM and the Management Section MAC!!! Good luck to the sections to come including Systems, financial accounting, tax and international!
Changing a field, eh???
After the Audit Section MYM I was am amazed at the number and quality of experiential surveys and interview based studies at the meeting. Top people from both an archival and experimental background are doing these studies and have been following the various suggestions that gibbins, myself and our co-authors put forth over the years to improve quality!!!
It seems like a majority of both experimental and archival sessions have either one or the other of these study types as one of the three or four studies being presented. Yet 20 years ago gibbins and i were considered “odd” with our interest in data from the field. Only goes to show what two determined Canadians can do to the world! Eh??.?