Silky Paths in Strategy
Crafting Research Programs and Scholarly Identity
Strategy scholars across career stages-PhD students, early-career faculty, senior scholars, and
even editors-often experience a shared set of intellectual challenges: difficulty articulating a
coherent scholarly identity, knowing how to conduct research but not how to frame it, struggling
to turn individual papers into a coherent research program, and sensing that their ideas matter
while audiences nonetheless fail to follow the path that leads to them.
To create space for serious reflection on these institutionalized challenges, we invite submissions
to Silky Paths in Strategy, a retreat-style workshop to be held May 20–22, 2026, on Bintan
Island, Indonesia (via Singapore).
The workshop centers on the idea of the Silky Path: the intellectual craft of guiding an audience
step by step from accepted premises to novel, sometimes controversial, conclusions. Rather than
focusing on individual papers, the workshop emphasizes framing, sequencing, and
accumulation-how research programs take shape over time, how foundational ideas are
mobilized as enabling tools, and how scholars help others follow their thinking.
This is not a conventional paper-based conference. It is a deliberately generative forum designed
for deep reflection, dialogue, and collective sensemaking about the future architecture of strategy
research.
Why Submit?
This workshop offers a rare opportunity to step back from individual projects and consider your
work holistically: how your ideas are framed, how they accumulate into a research program, and
how they travel across audiences and career stages. Participants will engage in sustained
discussion with scholars facing similar challenges, across different institutional and career
contexts.
The workshop is developed in close conversation with Strategic Management Review (SMR).
Its explicit goal is to cultivate a coherent body of ideas that can anchor a future SMR Special
Issue or related collective outputs. Both SMR Co-Editors, Michael Leiblein and Jeffrey
Reuer, will attend the workshop and participate in the discussions. Participation does not
guarantee publication.
Workshop Format
Authors of selected proposals will be invited to participate in a small, retreat-style workshop
involving approximately 40–60 scholars across all career stages. The format emphasizes
dialogue rather than formal presentations, allowing sessions to be shaped by the specific
challenges and insights participants bring.
Submission Guidelines
• Proposal Length: 3–7 double-spaced pages of text (excluding tables or figures)
• Submission Deadline: February 12, 2026
• Submission Email: StrategySilkyPath@gmail.com
Proposals should articulate the intellectual challenges motivating participation, such as issues of
framing, positioning, research program coherence, foundations, and audience understanding. If
authors already have a complete paper draft, it may be submitted to accompany the proposal or
in lieu of one.
Submissions will be evaluated based on:
1. Engagement with the intellectual challenges of framing and scholarly identity in strategy
research
2. Potential for conceptual integration and coherence across a research program
3. Potential to guide future research
4. Creative and reflexive insight
5. Viability of the proposed contribution for collective discussion
Logistics
• Location: Nirwana Gardens Resort, Bintan Island (via Singapore)
• Conference Fee: SGD 600 (includes ferry transfers from Singapore, local transportation,
and all meals)
• Accommodation: Approximately SGD 150 per night
• Visa: Most nationalities are eligible for Visa on Arrival or e-VOA
• Financial Support: Limited support may be available, with priority given to PhD
students and early-career scholars
Co-organizers: Gabriel Szulanski (INSEAD), Guoli Chen (INSEAD), Weiru Chen (CEIBS), and Wesley W. Koo (Johns Hopkins)
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Wesley W. Koo
Assistant Professor
Johns Hopkins University
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