Search results

In this paper the authors seek to understand how academic conferences [re]produce deeply embedded gendered patterns of interaction and informal norms within the business disciplines.

Drawing on Acker's (2012) established and updated theory of gendered organisations, the authors focus on the role of academic conferences in the reproduction of gendered practices in the business disciplines. The authors surveyed academics at top universities in Australia and New Zealand who had attended international conferences in their discipline area.

Academic conferences in the business disciplines communicate organisational logic and act as gendered substructures that [re]produce gendered practices, through the hierarchy of conference participation. Even in disciplinary conferences with a significant proportion of women delegates, the entrenched organisational logic is manifest in the bodies that perform keynote and visible expert roles, perpetuating the notion of the “ideal academic” as male.

The authors call for disciplinary associations to formulate an equality policy, which covers all facets of conference delivery, to which institutions must then respond in their bid to host the conference and which then forms part of the selection criteria; explicitly communicate why equality is important and what decisions the association and hosts took to address it; and develop databases of women experts to remove the most common excuse for the lack of women keynote speakers. Men, question conference hosts when asked to be a keynote speaker or panelist: Are half of the speakers women and is there diversity in the line-up? If not, provide the names of women to take your place.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First is the focus on revealing the underlying processes that contribute to the [re]production of gender inequality at academic conferences: the “how” rather than the “what”. Second, the authors believe it to be the first study to investigate academic conferences across the spectrum of business disciplines.

Academic conferences play a crucial role in fostering scholarly exchanges and discussions among core members, thereby shaping the core performance of these events. Understanding the contributions of scholars in academic conferences is essential for advancing the goals and development of such events. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned idea.

This paper proposes a comprehensive measurement method for measuring scholars' academic activeness in academic conferences. Based on the essence of academic activeness, a measurement model is constructed, comprising the breadth of academic activeness using the RFM model and the depth of academic activeness using the ATM model. Additionally, effective categories of scholars are derived from the model, facilitating the identification of valuable scholars in academic conferences.

Empirical evidence from ASIS&T conference records over the past 20 years demonstrates that the proposed measurement indicators have better coverage compared to traditional evaluation indicators, thus complementing existing scholar evaluation indictators. Furthermore, the academic activeness measurement model presented in this paper exhibits good efficacy in identifying important value and active scholars.

This paper pays attention to the activeness of scholars in academic conferences. It broadens the evaluation of academic conferences and scholars and supplements the evaluation indicators of academic influence.

Gender inequality is evident in many academic practices, but research has often focused on the male-dominated science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. This study responds to calls for more work in the business disciplines which have been overlooked by comparison and focuses on academic conferences as a higher education practice. Conferences are manifestations of the research being conducted within the discipline, representing the type of knowledge that is considered valuable, and who the thought leaders are considered to be. This study investigates whether equal representation of women at such conferences really matters, to whom and why.

The research was designed using a critical feminist theory approach. An online survey was disseminated to academic staff and postgraduate students in the 25 top ranked business schools in Australia and New Zealand. A total of 452 responses were received, and thematic analysis was applied to open-ended responses.

Equal representation does matter, for two sets of reasons. The first align with feminist theory perspectives of “equal opportunity” (gender is neutral), “difference” (gender is celebrated) or “post-equity” (the social construction of gender itself is problematic). The second are pragmatic consequences, namely the importance of role modelling, career building and the respect and recognition that come with conference attendance and visible leadership roles.

The findings have implications in regards to job satisfaction, productivity and the future recruitment and retention of women in academia. Furthermore, in areas where women are not researching, the questions and issues that are important to them are not receiving the attention they deserve, and this gender data gap has consequences for society at large.

This study moves beyond simply identifying the under-representation of women at academic conferences in yet another field, to investigate why equal representation is important and to whom. It provides valuable evidence of the consequences of under-representation, as perceived by academics themselves.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relative importance of various attributes (i.e. the total cost of attending, conference organizer, publishing opportunities for an academic career and personal development, reputation as measured by the number of conferences held, location and size) in terms of their ability to impact the decision of attendees in their selection of which academic conference to attend.

Conjoint analysis was used to examine the relative importance of various attributes to impact an attendee’s decision to select an academic conference (i.e. the total cost of attending, conference organizer, publishing opportunities for an academic career and personal development, reputation as measured by the number of conferences held, location and size).

The choice-based conjoint analysis revealed that the most crucial attributes for attending an academic conference were the total cost of attending the conference (28% of relative importance) and the conference organizer (28%).

Since the total cost of attending a conference is one of the top two attributes, conference organizers should reduce the costs as much as possible. Recommendations include choosing a university venue instead of a hotel or conference center and offering multiple options for registration passes (i.e. one-day pass). However, organizers should be careful about meals provided during the conference program, as meals have a positive effect on attendees’ decisions.

This study introduces to the literature a new indicator for selecting an academic conference – the reputation of the conference as measured by the number of times it had been held. In previous studies, this variable was not considered in the context of selecting an academic conference.

The purpose of this study is to explore what new knowledge is gained at academic and professional conferences by describing how this knowledge complements or contradicts campus-based learning and previous experiences of graduate students. Through gaining insights into conference-based learning, researchers and policymakers can create more complex and dynamic graduate student learning experiences and design conferences that welcome and encourage graduate student perspectives and voices.

Rooted in transformative learning theory, this qualitative study explores what and how master’s level graduate students learn at professional and academic conferences.

Findings point to four categories of learning through conferences: students acquired empirical knowledge, gained insights into professional and scholarly trends and values, explored diversity of the conference body and their own belonging and benchmarked their knowledge in relationship to scholars and professionals. Interviewees gained this knowledge by linking conference-based learning to their graduate school curriculum and previous knowledge and experiences.

Findings suggest considerations for educators, policymakers and administrators to enhance learning in graduate programs through in-person and virtual conference attendance.

This study adds to minimal existing research on graduate student learning beyond the campus that contributes to holistic learning at the master’s level. The findings on conference-based learning for graduate students go beyond the common notion of conferences as places of socialization for graduate students. These findings are increasingly relevant as academic and professional conferences are being reconsidered in the shift to the virtual space.

There are a number of indicators of academic engagement with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) that have been used in previous studies, such as analysing journal publications. However, this snapshot survey uses attendance at higher education conferences as a measure. Attendances were analysed at three conferences in the UK between July‐December 2008. The country in which each conference delegate was based and (for Wales only) their institution, was recorded. The results indicate that there were 991 attendances including delegates from 33 countries. The Annual Conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education had the most international delegates (from 32 countries), compared to two conferences run by (or in association with) the Higher Education Academy, both with delegates from seven countries. Delegates from English institutions dominated all conferences, followed by Wales, Australia, Scotland and Ireland. It is estimated that to raise conference attendance by Welsh academics to the same proportion as English academics, an increase of 25 per cent would be required. Of the 11 Welsh institutions analysed, the four ranked top are all regarded as teaching‐focused universities, whilst the tail comprises three universities regarded as research‐intensive. The four remaining Welsh institutions did not have any representation at any of the conferences studied. Although limitations of this study are discussed, the data may be used to inform strategy for further engagement with SoTL in Wales and elsewhere.

This chapter was inspired by and tells of a conference experience. Most “ordinary” academics like me go to a varying number of conferences annually and regularly share stories of these experiences with our colleagues. The conference stories are about a central set of practices in academic work, at least for active researchers. However, it is difficult to find studies of conference practices (for exceptions, see Radford, 2000), and, in particular, their broader meanings to both organizers and participants.

The College of St. Germain is a private, liberal arts college in the U.S. Midwest. Several faculty members developed and launched an academic business and economics conference. Despite of a lack of funding from the college, and a general apathy among other colleagues, the conference became financially self-sufficient and grew each year, with increasing attendance and submissions from many international scholars. Part A of the case focuses on the beginning, planning, and growth stages of the conference, and culminates with the successful conclusion of the third annual conference and planning for the fourth conference. Part B focuses on the fourth and fifth conferences, and concludes with the surprising cancellation of the sixth annual conference. The case highlights the challenges and accomplishments of the conference chairpersons and the organizing committee, as well as management, marketing, and leadership factors that contributed to the ultimate demise of the conference.

To date, few studies have been undertaken to make explicit how microblogging technologies are used by and can benefit scholars. This paper aims to investigate the use of Twitter by an academic community in various conference settings, and to pose the following questions: Does the use of a Twitter‐enabled backchannel enhance the conference experience, collaboration and the co‐construction of knowledge? and How is microblogging used within academic conferences, and can one articulate the benefits it may bring to a discipline?

This paper considers the use of Twitter as a digital backchannel by the Digital Humanities (DH) community, taking as its focus postings to Twitter during three different international 2009 conferences. The resulting archive of 4,574 “Tweets” was analysed using various quantitative and qualitative methods, including a qualitative categorisation of Twitter posts by open coded analysis, a quantitative examination of user conventions, and text analysis tools. Prominent Tweeters were identified and a small qualitative survey was undertaken to ascertain individuals' attitudes towards a Twitter‐enabled backchannel.

Conference hashtagged Twitter activity does not constitute a single distributed conversation, but rather multiple monologues with a few intermittent, discontinuous, loosely joined dialogues between users. The digital backchannel constitutes a multidirectional complex space in which the users make notes, share resources, hold discussions and ask questions as well as establishing a clear individual online presence. The use of Twitter as a conference platform enables the community to expand communication and participation in events amongst its members. The analysis revealed the close‐knit nature of the DH researcher community, which may be somewhat intimidating for those new to the field or conference.

This study has indicated that, given that Twitter is becoming increasingly important for academic communities, new, dedicated methodologies for the analysis and understanding of Tweet‐based corpora are necessary. Routinely used textual analysis tools cannot be applied to corpora of Tweets in a straightforward manner, due to the creative and fragmentary nature of language used within microblogging. In this paper, a method has been suggested to categorise Tweets using open coded analysis to facilitate understanding of Tweet‐based corpora, which could be adopted elsewhere.

This paper is the first known exhaustive study that concentrates on how microblogging technologies such as Twitter are used by and can benefit scholars. This data set both provides a valuable insight into the prevalence of a variety of Twitter practices within the constraints of a conference setting, and highlights the need for methodologies to be developed to analyse social media streams such as Twitter feeds. It also provides a bibliography of other research into microblogging.