AOM 2025 PDW
110 (OMT)
USING SPORTS DATA
TO ADVANCE MANAGEMENT THEORY
JOIN THE SPORT COMMUNITY!
(In person only)
Saturday, July 26th 2025
Bella Center in Hall D-D3-m11
12:00PM - 3:00PM CEST (GMT+2/UTC+2)
PARTICIPATION
PART I (panel): open to all
PART II: by submission, deadline June 30th.
Co-Organizers:
Paolo Aversa (King's Business School)
Dmitry Sharapov (Imperial College Business School)
Francesca Hueller (ULMS Management School)
If you are considering working with sport data, you cannot miss this AOM's PDW (In-person only)
that will bring together a selection of authors and editors who recently published in top journals
using sports data to advance management theory.
Our PDW will combine hands-on insights, state-of-the-art research presentations, senior and
junior scholars' discussion, and feedback on participants' paper drafts and research proposals
from the panelists and co-organizers.
Our PDW will tackle the following questions:
• What kinds of theories can be tested with sport data? Which sport settings are better suited
for specific research questions and designs?
• What existing theoretical problems could be tackled with sports data? What could such a
research agenda look like?
• What are the typical challenges that scholars using sport data face during the publication
process at top-tier management journals? How can scholars overcome them?
• Where can scholars find and how can they obtain sports data for research purposes? What
are appropriate methods for testing theories using sports data?
Building on successful editions of this workshop at AOM in the previous eight years, this two-part
PDW will (1) bring together a panel of scholars to share experience in publishing management
research with sport data and (2) provide feedback and developmental support in the second part
of the workshop for scholars that are in the process of using sport data in their projects or who
plan to use sport as a setting to study their research questions.
While the first part of this PDW will be open to everyone with no registration required, those who
wish to join the Part II of the workshop need to submit a full paper (40 pages max as
per AOM Conference paper submission format guidelines) or a proposal (max 5 pages, singlespaced, excluding references and tables). Participation to the first part is not a mandatory
requirement to submit to the second part, and vice versa. Please send submissions at this link.
Deadline to submit your work for the Part II of the workshop: June 30th 2025.
Panelists and Topics
The panelists have been selected due to their specific and complementary expertise with using
sport data in recent management publications. While the workshop is sponsored by the OMT
division, the workshop will also engage with topics of interest for members of the HR, MOC, OB,
RMD, STR, TIM, and other divisions. The workshop will host one or more authors from each of
the following papers (each paper is related to a different sport and theoretical perspective):
SPECIAL PRESENTATION: "THE EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE"
Panelist: Chengwei Liu (Imperial College London). Associate Editor at Organization Science
Context: Competence Evaluation in Hockey Performance
Topic: Success, Failure, Underdogs, Quality
Paper: Denrell, J., Liu, C., & Maslach, D. (2023). Underdogs and One-Hit Wonders: When Is
Overcoming Adversity Impressive?. Management Science, 69(9), 5461-5481.
PAPER PRESENTATIONS
Panelist: Maren Mickeler (ESSEC Business School)
Context: Collaboration and Rivalry in Professional Soccer
Topic: Collaboration, Competition, Employee mobility, Multiplexity
Paper: Grohsjean, T., Piezunka, H., & Mickeler, M. (2024). When colleagues compete outside the
firm. Strategic Management Journal.
Panelist: Deepak Somaya (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
Context: Organizational Misconduct in Major League Baseball
Topic: Misconduct, Competitive Intelligence, Performance, Cheating
Paper: Downs, J., Mahoney, J. T., & Somaya, D. (2024). Did Cheating Help the Houston Astros
Win? Organizational Misconduct, Illicit Competitive Intelligence, and Organizational
Performance. Academy of Management Discoveries.
Panelist: Anastasiya Zavyalova (Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University)
Context: Online Engagement in College Football Rivalries
Topic: Polarization, Identity, Engagement, Competition
Paper: Zavyalova, A., Callahan, C., Hubbard, T. D., & Zyung, J. D. (2023). Competition and
Constituents' Polarization Online. Journal of Management.
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Dmitry Sharapov
Imperial College London
London
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