I am very pleased to tell you that the HR Division is in excellent standing, including financial condition, thanks to the hard work of the officers, executive committee members, chairs of various committees, committee members, and sponsors. And, of course, let’s not forget about the more than 3,300 Division members, many of whom organize fascinating sessions and serve as reviewers for the conference program. Wow, about 1 out of every 5 members of the Academy of Management holds membership in the HR Division! That’s certainly impressive given that the HR Division is just one of 24 divisions or interest groups that make up Academy membership. And, our membership is up substantially—from about 2,700—when I became a Division officer in 2003. We should interpret this rise in membership as a strong endorsement of the importance of our work in the scholarly management community.

We look forward to another great year as we plan for the conference program that will take place in Philadelphia next August. We have two exceptional individuals leading the charge in conference planning. Sandy Wayne (University of Illinois at Chicago) is the Chair of the Scholarly Program Committee and Howard Klein (Ohio State University) is the Chair of the Professional Development Workshop Programs. Please contact either of them with ideas for the programs, particularly ones that fit next year’s Academy of Management conference theme “Doing well by doing good.”

The Division completed its mandatory five-year review a couple of years ago. We are working diligently to implement many of the excellent suggestions you made to improve the overall membership experience. Just last summer the HR Division launched a professionally designed web site to better serve the information needs of our members. Also, just last summer, we revised the HR Division’s Constitution to fully capture the expanded scope and depth of officers’ roles and to reinvigorate our commitment to the preparation of a top-flight conference program.

I look forward to representing you over the next year. Because the quality of the Division depends upon its members, I wish to invite you to become involved in one of the committees or even make the case for adding a new committee to address important topics. And, I welcome your input at any time.

Each year the HR Division holds elections to fill the Program Chair Elect position as well as 4 positions on the Executive Committee. Program Chair Elect is the first of five rotated officer positions: Professional Development Workshops Chair, Program Chair, Chair Elect, Chair, Past Chair. Executive Committee members serve a 3 year term and are responsible for chairing or serving on committees such as the Awards Committee or Doctoral Consortium.

As Past Chair it is my responsibility to conduct the election. The first step in that process is to solicit nominations for Program Chair Elect (PDW Chair) and the Executive Committee. If you would like to nominate someone please email me (mkacmar@cba.ua .edu) his or her name and a sentence or two about why you think s/he would be a good candidate. Nominations close on January 19, 2007. Feel free to nominate more than one person and even yourself.

Thanks for getting involved in your division!!

We have seen a lot of changes in HR Division communications activities over the last three years. Most recently Ken Brown (U. Iowa) spearheaded efforts to bring a brand new division website (http://www.hrdiv.org) online. Among the many teaching, research, careers and division related resources you will find on the website are archives of all of the past newsletters at: http://www.hrdiv.org/hrdivision/communication. htm

In the last year we have also started delivering news in a more frequent, timely, and focused fashion and this has been accompanied by a gradual increase in the volume of information that we are disseminating. As a result we have expanded the division ‘news team’ with four new volunteer newsletter editors: Melissa Cardon (Pace University) is covering news about the division itself; Tim Golden (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) will deliver news related to the AOM annual meeting; Ubaldo Macchitella (Bocconi University) will cover calls for papers for journal special issues, conferences and workshops; and Marcia Simmering (Louisiana Tech) will cover news from our affiliates such as the CAHRS top ten. A huge thanks to them for volunteering and helping support the division activities.

In addition to rationalizing the delivery of information, the communications committee is focusing on a couple of new initiatives. With the help of David Allen (University of Memphis) and Michael Dutch (Greensboro College) we are developing plans for periodic ‘pulse’ surveys of division members. These surveys will involve smaller random samples of members and will serve as a supplement to the survey conducted for the five year review. The goal is improved two-way communications between members and the division leadership and to provide a useful support to division governance.

A further initiative is to formalize our mechanisms for handling information sharing requests from other organizations that may provide valuable information of interest to members (e.g. the Society for Human Resource Management and SHRM Foundation). We hope to share relevant information from these sources as a service to members. The CAHRS monthly top ten email is one example of this type of information sharing arrangement that has already been implemented in the last year. Our data suggest that the CAHRS email is the most widely read communication item, next to the newsletter itself. Ken Brown is leading this initiative – thanks Ken!

If you have comments or contributions for the newsletter, please direct them to me at: James Hayton (james.hayt on@unibocconi.it) (Committee Chair)

Communications Committee Members:

David Allen (dallen@memphis.e du) (Pulse survey task force)
Ken Brown (kenneth-g- brown@uiowa.edu) (past chair)
Melissa Cardon (mcardon@pace.edu ) (Associate Ed.)
Tim Degroot (degrotg@okstate. edu) (Webmaster)
Michael Dutch (madutch@g borocollege.edu)(Pulse survey task force)
Timothy Golden (goldenT@rpi.edu) (Associate Ed.)
Mark Huselid (huselid@rci.rutg ers.edu) (HR DivNet)
Ubaldo Macchitella (ubaldo .macchitella@unibocconi.it) (Associate Ed.)
Marcia Simmering (mjs@cab.latech.ed u)(Associate Ed.)

Goals
The goals of the Member Relations Committee are (a) to increase the inclusion and involvement of HR Division members, (b) to provide opportunities for members to network, socialize, and interact with colleagues, (c) to provide opportunities for the Division to meet members’ needs, (d) to increase the degree to which members identify with the HR Division and (e) to increase the extent to which members are attracted to and join the HR Division.

Activities
In order to accomplish these goals the committee organizes several events. Atlanta 2006 was a big success and we continue stimulating events that embrace the spirit of the HR Division (for example the Ice Cream Social and the Saturday Night Dutch Treat Dinner).

Saturday Night Dutch Treat Dinner (Atlanta 2006)
Two PhD students – Malayka Klimchak and Corine Boon – organized this wonderful event for international members of the HR Division and for those who were eager to meet other members.

“On Saturday evening, over thirty people from 9 different countries attended the Dutch treat dinner at the Pacific Rim Bistro in downtown Atlanta. It was a great opportunity for new members of the HR division to get to know other members while enjoying a sea food dinner. Thank you all for showing so much interest in this event!” (Corine Boon, Erasmus University Rotterdam) The food was excellent and the people who attended were even better!

We would like to thank Malayka and Corine for organizing this great event. And we are planning to organize it again at the next AOM meeting in 2007 (Philadelphia, 3-8 August). We are still looking for ‘experts’ in the Philadelphia area who would like to volunteer in helping us continuing this important event.

AOM Membership & Membership HR Division Richard Posthuma, who is co-chairing the Member Relations Committee, is having a closer look at the members of the HR Division. Getting a better understanding of members’ motives to join (and quit) helps us to develop new strategies for attracting and retaining HR academics. We will keep you informed.

Internationalization
With over 1/3 of our members from outside the USA it is a challenging task to create an international platform for the HR community. Further internationalization is crucial for the HR field, but it is also a lot of fun meeting colleagues from all over the world.

We would like to thank everybody involved in organizing the AOM 2006 meeting, in particular those who helped organizing the HR receptions, the Dutch Treat Dinner and the Ice Cream Social.

Please feel free to contact us if you have suggestions for increasing member involvement and satisfaction with the division. And of course please feel free to contact us if you want to get involved in the HR Division.

Best wishes, Paul Boselie (j.p.p.e.f.boselie @uvt.nl), Also on behalf of Richard Posthuma (rposthuma@utep. edu)