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Interested in studying those ventures/entrepreneurs/opportunities/people delivering truly exceptional results in a robust and publishable way?

Join us on Saturday, August 5^th, at 8:00am-12:00pm in Room 201 at the Hynes Convention Centre. Registration is not necessary. This PDW is co-sponsored by numerous divisions, and welcome those interested in applying this perspective to ANY Management phenomenon.

Why this PDW:

Exceptionalism & Outlier Research is growing by leaps and bounds, and represents an untapped wellspring of potential for new theory, practices and policy. It is fundamentally a phenomenological approach, where the dependent variable is used to identify those cases worthy of study: exceptional/outlier outcomes in some domain, be it venture growth, success, employees, personal performance, etc etc etc.

Given that exceptional/outlier outcomes are often the goal of management, what can we learn, what theory can be derived, from those that have already achieved these outcomes. The challenge in this approach is that when it is done poorly, there is enormous potential for biases and spurious conclusions. Fortunately, best practices in this research domain are rapidly being established. The purpose of this PDW is to introduce the domain, discuss best practices, introduce an outlet for potential research, and provide feedback on your ideas.

The PDW will consist of three parts:

1) Exceptionalism & Outlier research – led by a leading scholar in the field G. Christopher Crawford;

2) Introduction to a forthcoming Special Issue in Exceptionalism & Outliers in AOM Perspectives – lead by AMP editor Veronique Ambrosini (participation in this PDW will not be considered in the SI editorial process)

3) A round table session to discuss potential Exceptionalism & Outlier research topics lead by the session organizers. You are not required to have any written ideas/progress on a paper, but we will be happy to provide feedback to those who do.

PDW Organizers

• Veronique Ambrosini, Monash University
• Nicola Breugst, Technical University of Munich
• Daniel Clark, Ivey Business School, Western University
• G. Christopher Crawford, College of Business, University of Tampa
• Per Davidsson, Queensland University of Technology
• Christian Lechner, Luiss Business School & University
• Robert Pidduck, Strome Business School, Old Dominion University

Bradley, K. J., & Aguinis, H. (2023). Team performance: Nature and antecedents of nonnormal distributions. Organization Science, 34(3), 1266-1286.

Clark, D.R., Pidduck, R.J., Crawford, G.C., Davidsson, P., Lechner, C., Breugst, N. & Ambrosini, V. (2022). AMP Call for Special Issue Papers: Exceptionalism and Outliers. Retrieved on June 9^th, 2023, from https://aom.org/events/event-detail/2023/12/01/higher-logic-calendar/amp-call-for-special-issue-papers-exceptionalism-and-outliers

Crawford, G. C., McKelvey, B., & Lichtenstein, B. B. (2014). The empirical reality of entrepreneurship: How power law distributed outcomes call for new theory and method. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 1, 3-7.

Crawford, G. C., Aguinis, H., Lichtenstein, B., Davidsson, P., & McKelvey, B. (2015). Power law distributions in entrepreneurship: Implications for theory and research. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(5), 696-713.

O'Boyle Jr, E., & Aguinis, H. (2012). The best and the rest: Revisiting the norm of normality of individual performance. Personnel Psychology, 65(1), 79-119.

*** Apologies for Cross-Posting ***