As a current fourth-year PhD student in Management and Organisation, I am on the job market this year, and being able to attend the 2026 Academy of Management (AOM) Conference was a great opportunity to give me more exposure in the scholarly community, and allowed me to attend the receptions held by various universities that I applied to for an assistant professor position next year.

In addition, this conference also fulfilled other key developmental goals of mine. First, attending professional development workshops was extremely useful for a PhD candidate like myself to gain tips and advice from other senior scholars on how to succeed and do better in academia. Second, networking with other junior scholars, especially those who recently obtained their PhDs was a good opportunity for me to learn about their job market process and get valuable tips for what I should do during my interviews and job talks as well. Third, listening to other scholars’ presentation sessions on my research interest topics exposed me to the latest cutting-edge research, helping me to identify potential gaps or tensions in the literature that would be interesting to explore in my future research projects. Last, structured networking receptions and information session on applying for jobs in the Asia-Pacific market provided mentorship and collaboration opportunities and insight into career planning, including the publication process and academic job market..

I also attended the paper and symposium presentations by other scholars in the area of research that I’m interested in, such as the pecha kuchas session I attended on ethics and morality. I believe this further strengthened my ability to situate my research within broader scholarly debates. Being exposed to other scholars’ latest high-quality empirical and theoretical work was a great learning opportunity for me. Furthermore, the AOM conference gave me a platform to engage with the latest ethical concerns surrounding AI usage, aligning with my research interest in both technology and morality.

In sum, attending AOM 2026 deepened my scholarly training, refined my research identity, and guided me in my transition from a PhD candidate to a full-fledged academic who can conduct independent research, as well as helped me in my job search for an assistant professor position during my job market year.