Bringing the Presidents Back: Content and Discourse of Academy of Management Presidential Addresses

This paper examines the annual addresses of Academy of Management Presidents since 1957 in regard to their approaches to caring and the culture of care in the professional association. In particular, I investigated three areas: 1) How is culture of care addressed in the AOM annual presidential addresses? 2) How does culture of care resonate between the AOM President addresses and the Management, Spirituality and Religion Interest Group? and 3) What underlines the presidential discourse? The research combines content analysis and historical discourse analysis. All available annual addresses were examined; there are 41 in numbers. My inquiry intends to recover past president discourse through study of stated commitments and discourses for academy members and the surrounding society. The Academy Presidential addresses reflect a discourse of aspirational engagement, with this study documenting that fact and looking into the texts to illuminate Academy concerns over time.