"As we gather in Seattle, the site of recent conflict and demonstrations concerning the global impact of institutions, the Academy of Management has the opportunity to both learn from and inform an on-going worldwide debate." 53 So wrote Denise Rousseau and Andrea Rivero-Dabós in the programme for the 2003 Academy of Management conference, which took place in August. With over 4700 people participating on the conference program, this is the largest management studies event in the world. The programme chairs invited members of the Academy to address the topic of 'democracy in a knowledge economy,' explaining that "the concept of democracy overlaps with a variety of contemporary organizational issues that warrant consideration by scholars, practitioners, and the general public." They asserted that "these issues reflect the particular expertise and interests of Academy members, including transparency, legitimacy, stakeholder interests, justice, power, competency, autonomy, control, and responsibility. We hope that this year's theme stimulates productive theory development, research and debate on these and related topics."

Did the Academy respond? Were these really issues really within the "expertise and interests" of conference presenters? A database search of the thousands of papers and panel summaries provides an indication. There were three results for the search-term "capitalism" and only one result for the terms "anti-capitalism" and "anti-globalisation" (in all spelling permutations). There were three results for the term "lobbying," although one of these results included a paper that looked at the effectiveness of different corporate lobbying strategies, without even questioning the public policy implications or ethics. Even more surprising given that the lobbying being analysed concerned accountancy regulation in the United States. 54 There was one result when searching for the term "corporate power". That session, which spoke to the heart of the conference theme, with presenters like Marjory Kelly and David Korten, bagged the 8.30 am slot and was attended by a mere 40 people.

Hundreds of delegates did cram into a room to see Henry Mintzberg speak on the topic of "Getting Past Smith and Marx: Toward a Balanced Society," perhaps suggesting more about the pulling power of gurus in management studies, than the topic of the session. Mintzberg presented his assertion that capitalism did not win the Cold War, but "balance did." In other words, a regulated and taxed capitalist market system was what served the West well, and the current neo-liberal approach to capitalism and the management of market actors is becoming as unbalanced as Communism. This seemed to be a dramatic revelation to many attending, although not necessarily to those in the "Critical Management Studies" division of the Academy, who have for some time been integrating political science into management research.

Mintzberg then criticised management schools for being part of the problem. This led some members of the audience to ask what should be done to change the incentive structures within management academia, such as the publishing protocols for mainstream journals, in order to make it a friend not foe of social change. For example, the flagship Academy of Management Journal mainly publishes articles that use the mathematical to describe the obvious about the largely inconsequential. Even the Academy of Management Review has limited its contributors' interdisciplinarity and use of normative methodological approaches. Therefore since the division 'Social Issues in Management' (SIM) was established in the 1970s with a progressive agenda, its members have had to conform somewhat to established protocols in order to be published and thus employed, leading to a body of research and teaching of only moderate impact, both intellectually and socially.

Mintzberg frustrated some with his suggestion of ignoring "the academic publishing game". "That's alright for a Mintzberg to say, but for us?" retorted one young academic. He had, after all, chosen to speak at a management conference to people who bought his books, rather than a political science or sociology conference where his limited political theoretical analysis would not be treated with such respect. The burning issue that needed discussion at the time, and still does, is how to create progressive change in management academia, given the power of business in society and the role of education.

There were some signs of progress. Many of the sessions within the special interest group 'Organisations and the Natural Environment' (ONE) 55 were well attended, and 2003 was the first year that 'Critical Management Studies' (CMS) 56 made it onto the conference programme as a special interest group. A number of CMS panels did engage directly with issues such as workplace democracy and stakeholder relations with some interdisciplinary influence, and one discussing how advocacy should or should not play a role in management teaching and research.

Publishing will be part of the answer to increasing the contribution of management studies to progressive social change. Until the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, and others like it, create a truly interdisciplinary body of knowledge, and become better known in mainstream business schools and more highly regarded by government funders, then Universities will not be able to employ and promote those who seek to make a positive contribution to contemporary management, through their academic research and teaching.