By Michael Sauder

Dear OOW Members,

Greetings!  As I begin my term as section chair, I would like to give one last thank you to Emily Barman, the OOW Council—Nina Bandelj, Tim Bartley, Beth Popp Berman, Michael McQuarrie, Giacomo Negro (Secretary-Treasurer), David Pedulla, Melissa Wooten—and all of the people who worked on our section’s program for a very successful meeting in New York City. I want to give a special thank you to the Program Committee (Laura Doering, Ryan Finnigan, Adilia James, Tania Jenkins, Ken-Hou Lin, and Steven Vallas) and Roundtable organizers (Carla Ilten, Sarah Mosseri, and Jennifer Nelson) for their hard work. Finally, please join me in welcoming our two new council members, Sarah Thebaud and LaTonya Trotter, as well as Alexandra Kalev, OOW’s chair-elect.

OOW remains a vibrant and stimulating community of scholars, and I am excited to work to continue this tradition as we prepare for next year’s conference in San Francisco. Here are a few things to keep in mind as we move into the new academic year.

1) Be on the lookout for potential members of OOW. The larger our section, the more panels we have at ASA. While OOW remains one of the larger ASA sections, we have lost a few members in recent years because the annual Academy of Management meetings have been held at the same time as ASA’s meetings. One effective strategy (aside from proselytizing in the hallways) is to sponsor students who might be interested in the section. This is inexpensive — only $5 if they are already members of ASA — and a good way to promote future membership.

2) News and announcements for the section are published in two places: the OOW blog (https://oowsection.org) and our monthly newsletter. Let me take this opportunity to thank Annika Wilcox and Laura Adler for their excellent work on these outlets. If you have news or an announcement to share with the section, please send the item to me (michael-sauder@uiowa.edu) and/or Annika (amwilcox@ncsu.edu). I will also send out occasional updates and announcements on our section’s listserv, but—to limit the strain on everyone’s inboxes—most news will be posted on the blog and newsletter.

I look forward to working with everyone this year. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions or concerns about the section.