Games - chess, Go, modern board games, esports, streaming, and multiplayer video games - are a powerful and still underused laboratory for research on strategy, innovation, and organizing. They offer well-defined settings, replicable structures, and increasingly granular data that suit a wide range of empirical and theoretical questions.
At the 2026 Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Philadelphia (31 July – 4 August), Anthony Gibbs and I are organizing a Professional Development Workshop on games as a research context. The session brings together short presentations on a range of game settings, a moderated panel on the opportunities and challenges of game-based research, and small-group paper development roundtables. The PDW will take place on Friday (31 July) at 1 pm (to 4pm).
We are inviting submissions of short research ideas or early-stage proposals (up to one page) - from scholars at any career stage, and especially from doctoral students and early-career researchers. Submitters will be grouped into roundtables by topic and method, and paired with presenters and panelists for targeted feedback on research question, framing, context, data, and design.
What to include in your one-pager:
- Working title
- Research question or problem
- Game context (or candidate contexts) and why it fits
- Brief note on theoretical framing and, if applicable, data and method
- Project stage
- Your name, affiliation, and career stage
Deadline: Tuesday, 30 June 2026 Email: hklapper@purdue.edu and ragibbs@purdue.edu Subject: "AOM 2026 PDW - Games as Context: Submission"
A submission is required only for the paper development roundtables. Anyone interested in games as a research context is welcome to attend the presentations and panel discussion.
Sponsored by the Strategic Management Division. Co-sponsored by TIM, ENT, OB, and OMT.
Please share with colleagues, collaborators, and students who might be interested.
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Helge Klapper
Assistant Professor
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN
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