OMT Web
Organization and Management Theory
Division of the Academy of Management
OMT Web
Organization and Management Theory
Division of the Academy of Management
oikos UNDP Young Scholars Development Academy 2012, Nairobi, Kenya
Matching Culture and Markets for Inclusive Development
12-17 August 2012
Strathmore Business School (SBS), Nairobi, Kenya
The oikos UNDP Young Scholars Development Academy 2012 provides PhD students and young scholars working on poverty, sustainable development, and the informal economy from an Organisation and Management Theory perspective a platform to present and discuss their on-going research projects with fellow students and senior faculty.
Research on inclusive business models, market development and sustainability between the informal and formal economy is a promising and challenging field for young researchers and PhD students. It calls for a multitude of methods, combination of disciplines in strategy, organisation studies, sociology, anthropology and economics, and new research designs, e.g. market ethnography in organisation studies.
The 2012 academy focus, “Matching Culture and Markets for Inclusive Development”, aims to attract papers analysing the strategies of businesses, governments, multilateral agencies, NGOs and other interest groups shaping moral markets that build on local capabilities, include the poor and create opportunities for sustainable development. The event aims to advance academic research at the nexus of informal and formal economies on the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), build networks across disciplinary boundaries, and to prepare the ground for research that is relevant for both academic and business audiences.
Programme and Faculty
The programme will encompass graduate student presentations, guest lectures, professional development roundtables and social events. Fellow students and internationally well-reputed researchers will give feedback:
Application and Deadlines
To allow in-depth discussions the oikos UNDP Young Scholars Development Academy is always limited to 15 PhD students and young scholars working on poverty and development from an Organization Studies and Management perspective. The fee is CHF 400. The oikos Foundation for Economy and Ecology will cover the total cost of accommodation, food and excursions.
Please note that only applications from PhD students currently enrolled in a PhD programme and young scholars who have already received their PhD and work in post-doc or similar research positions are eligible. Please do not apply when you are not enrolled as a PhD student, or only plan to do so in the future.
oikos Travel Grant
Up to three grants (travel, fee and accommodation) are available for outstanding young scholars coming from developing countries. To apply for one of these grants, please provide a Letter of Interest and a Reference Letter from a senior faculty member together with your application to the academy. Please note that the grants only apply for participating in the oikos UNDP Young Scholars Programme - we do not have general funding for attending other seminars or programmes.
Further information
For further information please download the full Call for Papers (pdf) or contact Tim Lehmann at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Getting Published in Top Tier Journals: Guidance and Insights
from the Editors of AMJ and the Officers of OMT
A Research Development Workshop
to be held at
Bocconi University, Department of Management and Technology
SDA Bocconi School of Management, Claudio Dematté Research Division
Milan, Italy
May 7-8, 2012
A core objective of the Academy of Management is to enhance the scholarship of its members and increase their ability to publish research in top-tier journals. To facilitate this mission, the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy has been partnering with different journals to sponsor a series of research development workshops outside of North America designed to develop emerging scholars in the parts of the world were the AOM has seen its largest membership growth.
The editors of the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management’s premier journal for empirical research, is partnering with the OMT Division and Bocconi University to provide hands-on training and feedback to doctoral students and junior faculty. This workshop will focus on aspects that, in the AMJ editors’ experience, are often significant barriers to publishing in top-tier journals: (i) Asking the right questions; (ii) Identifying a significant theoretical contribution; and (iii) Framing and presenting the study.
Participation in this workshop will be limited to twenty authors. Participants should reside at institutions outside the United States and Canada. Each participant will receive feedback on their draft papers from a mentor and four other participants. The mentors for this workshop will be AMJ Associate Editors Kevin Corley (Arizona State University), Gerry George (Imperial College, London) and Tim Pollock (Penn State University), the OMT Executive Committee Officer Royston Greenwood (University of Alberta), Davide Ravasi and Giuseppe Soda from Bocconi University and SDA Bocconi School of Management.
Interested applicants should email a current CV and abstract of their study, not to exceed seven double-spaced pages, excluding references. The abstract should include: (i) a statement of the study’s research question; (ii) a statement of the study’s theoretical contribution; and (iii) the complete introduction (i.e., the first few pages preceding the theory development/lit review section).
Applications should be submitted to Royston Greenwood at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by no later than March 7, 2012.
Attendees will be expected to pay for their own travel and accommodations. There are 6 travel scholarships (each of $400) provided by the OMT Division for which participants can apply.
This interview was conducted by Chris Steele, a PhD student at Northwestern University.
In 2011 Renate Meyer was named Chair of the European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS). She kindly agreed to talk with us over email about the connections and differences she sees between EGOS and AoM, the reasons to get involved in both, and her plans for the future of EGOS:
Could you tell us a little about the general similarities and differences that you see between EGOS and AoM? 
Perhaps I start with some similarities: Both associations are a community of very committed and inspiring researchers, devoted to high quality research, have an international orientation, are the key professional associations on their continent, strongly engage in developing scholarship further, push new and challenging questions, encourage the involvement of PhD students and early career researchers, provide platforms for collaborations, and many things more.
A first difference that comes to my mind is size and all its consequences for the administration of the associations and their annual conferences. EGOS is still a much closer knit network with a more personal touch than AoM. In addition, as EGOS was founded to provide a platform for expression and advancement of a great variety of different European traditions, perspectives and viewpoints of organizational research, it is strongly devoted to mirror this plurality in its colloquia programs and governance structures.
At the annual conferences there are major differences in terms of format: EGOS colloquia are essentially based on the idea of subthemes where participants stay together over three days and seven sessions. This allows for a dialogue (apart from feedback to the papers) to unfold over the colloquium. Especially for young scholars this format makes it a lot easier to connect and become part of a debate. Another difference is that EGOS is hosted by a university (or several universities in close distance) with local EGOSians as organizers who have considerable influence on the overall theme, selection of subthemes etc. This means that each conference has a distinct local flavor. I personally find that at AoM I need to be much more organized: which sessions to go, who to meet etc. – everything has to be arranged in advance. At EGOS, I run into people (although this has been changing with the increasing size every year).
If you were to point to one key difference between the two, what would it be? And do you see this difference as cultural, substantive, theoretical, or philosophical (or otherwise)?
I suppose one could start looking for (and find) differences along the lines of European versus North American research traditions, but I don’t think that this would do justice to either of the associations. For me, the key difference is the more open and pluralistic dialogue that the EGOS format allows and that is what makes the “EGOS spirit”.
Could you tell us what advantages you see, for individual scholars, in being involved in both EGOS and AoM?
In my opinion it is like reading two high quality newspapers that provide different perspectives on issues: To read one is good; to read both gives you a far more comprehensive picture.
Scholars on both sides of the Atlantic need to move out of our comfort zones, see different systems at work, present their ideas and work in different discussion arenas, benefit from the different formats, learn the implicit “rules of the game” on both sides of the Atlantic, and, ideally, engage in collaborations. I don’t mean to say that we all should do the same type of research, follow the same paper templates etc. Nonetheless, for us Europeans it is important to get exposed to the North American style of doing research and publishing. For North Americans it is equally important to learn from European scholarship, contextualizing their work and getting exposure to other ways of pursuing relevant questions and doing excellent research.
Being involved in both associations allows for a much richer view of the field of organizational and management studies, and permits to identify and realize opportunities for collaboration at the intersections. Our Colloquium in Montréal in 2013 can be a formidable opportunity for North American researchers to experience EGOS!
More generally, how closely connected have EGOS and AoM been historically?
EGOS and AoM have had overlapping memberships for quite some time. This means that with regard to intellectual inspirations, the travel of thoughts and ideas, the connection has been there for a long time, in both directions, and steadily growing. However, this was predominantly on an individual level, through personal initiatives and collaborations; there were very few institutional links. It is in this sense that I see a lot of potential for the future.
How do you see this changing? And what role do you see EGOS playing in the growing internationalization of the AoM?
On a more institutional level, there are currently several initiatives to cooperate and strengthen the connection. With OMT we have established mutual invitations of a representative to attend each other’s Executive Board Meetings. A first joint initiative is the Organization Studies (the EGOS journal) paper development workshop on power and institutions that is sponsored by EGOS, OMT, and Sage Publications and will take place at Judge Business School in April 2012. We are currently also exploring possibilities for connecting with other AoM divisions, something which until now has happened on a more informal basis, through members of these divisions who have been/are involved in shaping the agendas of several permanent or temporary EGOS communities. A good example for this is the Career Division at AoM and the Standing Working Group on Career at EGOS.
Another excellent example in this context is the Strategizing Activities and Practices community that was formed and consolidated at EGOS and has now become recognized as an interest group at AoM.
The fact that Eero Vaara, the former chair of EGOS, is currently a member of the Board of Governors of AoM is of course an excellent opportunity to further intensify our ties. I would equally like to encourage North American scholars to stand as candidates in the EGOS Board elections.
What is the role of EGOS in the internationalization of AoM? I guess the same as the other way around: Both associations are the key players on their continents; both are becoming more and more international in terms of membership. Europeans are a considerable and growing part of the AoM members; and North Americans of EGOS. This mirrors the global relevance of the research questions we have to address today and also the professional world in which academics live: job markets, publications, grants, collaborations are increasingly international and demand that we understand and listen to each other’s perspectives and viewpoints. To cooperate in any way that serves and benefits our members is the natural thing to do. And especially with OMT we share our ambition and aims: To push research on organizations and the societies they exist in further into unknown territories.
Could you tell us a little about your other plans for the future of EGOS?
One first point here is internationalization: In addition to AoM, we are also seeking to intensify our collaborations with other associations. We have a very lively collaboration with LAEMOS (the Latin American and European Meeting on Organization Studies). Their bi-annual conference (http://laemos2012.org) is co-sponsored by EGOS which means that we assist in the organization and contribute to program content encouraging EGOSians to offer tracks together with Latin American scholars, and are very active in bringing researchers from the different regions together. We are planning similar joint events in the future with APROS, our Asian-Pacific “sister” association. A particular interest we have is broadening the involvement of Eastern European scholars. EGOS colloquia have been hosted by institutions in Eastern Europe before (e.g. Ljubljana 2004), but we are now strengthening and expanding these connections.
Another focus that is related to internationalization is our aim to include scholars from areas where the financial opportunities to attend international conferences are very limited. For each colloquium, we offer several scholarships that cover the travel expenses and fees. Although this is small in terms of numbers, the feedback we receive from our “guest researchers” is just overwhelming. We will certainly continue this in the future.
For the annual colloquium, we are constantly probing new formats and flexible ways to provide a platform for the various initiatives and needs of the EGOSians. Exploring the opportunities of new technologies to offer more flexible formats for scholars to collaborate is – especially in times when travel budgets are being reduced – equally on our agenda as are new pre-conference formats.
And finally: EGOS is today one the few leading communities of organizational researchers worldwide. EGOS has been constantly growing over the last decade. This is a very good sign as it shows how very vivid EGOS is. At the same time, this implies for example that we are reaching a point where it gets increasingly difficult to find universities that are large enough to be able to host our conference. A very important challenge therefore is to encourage the growth and internationalization but retain the personal touch, the interdisciplinary scope and the distinct EGOS spirit. This also implies that we have the responsibility to make sure we are not only doing research on organizations and power but are aware of our own activities and their implications in the respect. EGOS has to remain the place where the unpopular questions are posed, deviant ideas debated, and minority perspectives equally represented.
Thank you so much for the interview!
Hello OMTers,
As we all know, co-author relationships are an important part of academic life. While they can be both enriching and fun, they can also be incredibly frustrating and challenging. We decided to probe this topic a bit further by asking a longtime academic duo - Bob Hinings and Royston Greenwood - about their experiences working together.
Bob Hinings is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta and received an honorary degree from the Université de Montréal. Royston Greenwood is the Telus Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Alberta & Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford.
1. What do you consider to be the advantages of co-authoring (versus working on a solo-authored paper)?
BOB: There are a number of things. First, one’s ideas are tested against someone else so the outcome is usually a much better product. My experience, in particular, has been that the give and take of discussion and argument can be heated and strong but if there is an acknowledgement that the purpose is to get to a better outcome then the heat is well worth it in bringing more light. Second, I find a personal joy or satisfaction in working with Royston. I think it is part of my personality that other people are interesting and usually have better ideas than I do so I can build on their contributions and get great satisfaction from the process, even though at times it can be challenging. Royston is always full of ideas and it is a challenge to keep up with him.
ROYSTON: The biggest advantage is that it’s more fun. Bob supports a rubbishy soccer team in England (Notts Forrest), and I enjoyed telling him so. It’s been a bit harder in recent years because my team has not exactly covered itself in glory – but still…Similarly, he has this interest in toy trains (I think he calls them ‘model’ trains) – I ask you?!
In my case, Bob Hinings was an established scholar when we first met (that’s my way of saying that he is an old man) and thus had considerable experience of how to conduct interesting work, craft papers, and so on. In other words, he guided my development. That is really important when you are first starting out.
Another advantage is that we tended to infect each other with enthusiasm. We did tons of field work together and would get excited about stuff that would come out of interviews etc. We spent much time on British Rail and I can remember how ideas for papers would flow – most of which never saw the light of day, but there was an excitement…(Maybe it was a reaction to the lousy BR coffee)
I like to think that we brought – and still bring - slightly different and yet complementary skills to the table. Bob was a sociologist, whereas I was trained as a political scientist. And Bob is actually quite skilled at quant stuff whereas for me the only interesting numbers are usually at the bottom of the page. Having said that, I’m not sure how important it is to have complementary skills – working together is simply more fun.
CALL FOR PAPERS
ARCS Fourth Annual Research Conference
Wednesday May 16 - Friday May 18, 2012
Yale University Center for Business and the Environment
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
This Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) and Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) conference will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives interested in advancing research on corporate sustainability. This is the fourth annual conference of ARCS, a consortium of universities that seeks to provide data, tools and networking opportunities to researchers who are developing a greater understanding of the opportunities and limits of policies and strategies to foster sustainable business. The conference builds on the successful Third Annual ARCS Conference hosted by the Wharton School last spring.
The conference welcomes unpublished working papers focused on business and sustainability (both social and environmental) from all disciplines and research areas. We are receptive to a wide range of perspectives and methods including empirical research, theory development, formal theoretical modeling, and experimental methods. We are particularly interested in papers that have implications for management and organizations. Papers drawn from organizational theory, strategy, operations, sociology, psychology and decision making, law, economics, political science, and other fields are within the realm of the conference.
Examples of suitable topics include non-market strategy, climate change management, sustainability reporting and disclosure, green supply chains, green marketing, sustainable finance, renewable energy investments, business/NGO partnerships, sustainable mobility, social dimensions of sustainability, cleantech innovation, green entrepreneurship, sustainable natural resource management, and "base of the pyramid" development strategies.
The ARCS Conference will be preceded on May 16 by the first ARCS Sustainability Teaching Summit - From Classrooms to Boardrooms: Embedding Sustainability Research in Curriculum and Corporate Strategy, to showcase and discuss the latest available pedagogical approaches, tools and materials. The conference will begin with dinner on May 16th, and conclude the afternoon of May 18th.
Submission Information: DEADLINE Tuesday January 31st, 2012
The firm deadline for submitting papers is Tuesday January 31, 2012. Instructions for submitting papers will be made available on the ARCS web site by Monday January 2nd.Those who submit papers will be notified regarding paper selection by February 23rd. The program will be announced by March 1, 2012.
Submission Guidelines
Submissions must be working papers not yet accepted for publication, 30 pages or less in length (double-spaced, 11 pt font). Papers must include an abstract, as well as the cover page information below.
More Info.
Conference location: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Yale School of Management,New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Conference Expenses
There is no conference fee, and all meals will be provided at no charge. Participants, including speakers, are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses. We will use our travel-related conference budget this year to support those whose organizations are unable to pay for travel. We encourage domestic and international attendees to contact Stuart DeCew, CBEY Program Director, for more information.
Call for Sub-theme Proposals
for the 29th EGOS Colloquium
HEC Montréal
Montréal, Canada
July 4-6, 2013
Further information:
http://www.egosnet.org/jart/prj3/egosnet/main.jart?rel=en&content-id=1277261386324&reserve-mode=active
Submit your sub-theme proposal:
http://www.egosnet.org/jart/prj3/egosnet/main.jart?rel=en&content-id=1277261386348&reserve-mode=active
Please help the OMT division create a GREAT program in Boston!
Please volunteer to review for the OMT division and provide up to three high-quality reviews for fellow members. PLEASE NOTE THAT EVEN IF YOU HAVE REVIEWED IN THE PAST,YOU STILL NEED TO SIGN UP AGAIN FOR THE 2012 MEETING.
To sign up, please visit http://review.aomonline.org/ and click the 'Sign Up Now' button. You will have to create a user account and choose your areas of expertise (i.e. keywords) for the divisions or interest groups for which you want to review. The sign up process should not take more than 10 minutes.
And, don't forget...submit YOUR best work to the OMT division! You can even self-nominate for our prestigious awards:
1) Best Paper Award for the paper which offers the most significant contributions to OMT in the refereed scholarly program paper (may be co-authored; may be empirical or conceptual). OMT gratefully acknowledges the sponsorship of SAGE Publications;
2) Lou Pondy Best Dissertation Paper for the best paper based on a dissertation in the refereed scholarly program (the paper cannot be co-authored and must be clearly identified as dissertation-based at the time of submission). If you wish to be considered for the Pondy, please be sure to mark the box identifying your submission as a student submission when uploading your paper to the AOM website;
3) Best International Paper in the refereed scholarly program regarding themes and content of interest internationally;
4) Best Symposium Award for a symposium submitted to the annual meeting that stimulates, integrates or extends discussions about OMT;
The winning papers for all awards will be selected by a panel of distinguished OMT scholars.
Thanks in advance for volunteering, and thanks for making the OMT program great!
Remembering Paul Lawrence
Probably most members of the OMT community have heard by now that Paul R. Lawrence died on Tuesday, November 1, 2011. The Harvard Business School has published a full and impressive obituary for him. However, I thought it important that the OMT community should mark his passing as one of the scholars who has been important in shaping our field. His early work with Jay Lorsch, published as Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration. Boston: Harvard University, 1967 was critical in laying the foundations for contingency theory. It was named the best management book of 1967 by the Academy of Management and it has been cited more than 2,000 times.
Call for Martin Trailblazer Award Nominations
The Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award is presented once every two years. The award recognizes scholars who have taken a leadership role in the field of OMT by opening up new lines of thinking or inquiry. A Trailblazer is a boundary-spanner and a conversation starter, someone who extends and builds the OMT community by shepherding new ideas and new scholarship, often in unconventional ways. Actions that may indicate “trailblazing” behavior include starting up or moving forward a journal or scholarly series, organizing a conference or workshop, and beginning or continuing a conversation about a set of OMT ideas.
As a member of the OMT division, we encourage you to nominate someone for the prestigious Martin Trailblazer award. Nominations are accepted from all OMT Division members and should include details of the nominee’s trailblazing activities and letters of support.
Please send nomination materials to Christine Beckman ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) by December 31, 2011.
NSF has issued a revised solicitation on Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems. Proposals are due 9 January.
A virtual organization is a group of individuals whose members and resources may be dispersed geographically, but who function as a coherent unit through the use of cyberinfrastructure. Virtual organizations are increasingly central to the science and engineering projects funded by the National Science Foundation. Focused investments in sociotechnical analyses of virtual organizations are necessary to harness their full potential and the promise they offer for discovery and learning.
Hello OMTers,
Here's the final installment of the 'Tips for the Job Market' series. We hope that this series has been informative and valuable in helping you navigate the many hurdles of the job market. We would like to thank our four interviewees for taking the time to share their experiences and insights with us.
Best of luck to those of you on the job market and those who will be entering the market in the near future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Simona Giorgi - Carroll School of Management |
Adam Cobb - Wharton Business School |
Shon Hiatt - Harvard Business School |
Aleksios Gotsopoulos - IE Business School |
1. Once you receive an offer, what do you do (after celebrating)? What are the key elements of the offer? Is there any room for negotiation?
SIMONA: Ask people you trust if the offer is fair. If it is, do not negotiate too much – these people will be your colleagues and you do not want to come across as demanding
ADAM: Obviously, the key elements of the offer are pay (including summer support), departmental resources (e.g. your research budget, teaching support, etc.), and teaching load. There are other things to be sure, but my guess is for most people, those are three biggest. There is room for negotiation. Some places are more flexible than others. But overall, if you have an interest in something, just ask. I found no one begrudged me for making some demands beyond the initial offer.
SHON: Key elements for negotiation: teaching load, courses to teach, salary, research budget, and office supplies (computer, software).
While some of these elements may not be open for negotiation, many others are. Be sure to hit on every item and have a justifiable reason why that is important for you. I asked for tips from micro-OB colleagues who taught negotiation at Cornell—they were very helpful. Remember, if you never ask, they’ll never offer it to you. You have very little leverage after signing the contract.
ALEXSIOS: Usually, there is some room for negotiation. How much room that is depends on the school and the constraints it might have, on how badly they want you, and on what other offers you have. Even if you aren’t able to increase your salary, you can negotiate your teaching load, research money, summer support, or getting a nicer office. Don’t push it too hard though. Those guys will be your colleagues and you want to be in good terms with them.
2. How do you manage multiple job offers? What are some important considerations for deciding between multiple job offers?
SIMONA: Again, go where the best research is.
ADAM: For better or worse, I cannot answer that question!
SHON: I relied on advice from my advisors who had experience with multiple job offers. Important considerations include tenure clock (short or long), colleagues of the institution, research resources, geography, teaching load and whether you can stack your courses in one semester, etc.
ALEXSIOS: Different people have different priorities. You might decide based on salary, location, prestige of the school, family constraints. One important thing to consider is to compare how good the vibe is in the schools you got offers from, and how many and how good people there are to collaborate with or learn from. You might choose the school where the big-name, star professor you’ve always admired and cited is based, but remember that he/she might be too big or too busy to mentor you.
Managing multiple offers, remember that this is a small world. Be careful not to offend the school whose offer you reject. A rejection is never pleasant, but managed correctly will allow you not to burn any bridges. If they really liked you, they may invite you for presentations or short stays. And they probably liked you because there is overlap in research interests, which might materialize in collaborations and co-authorships even if you don’t accept their offer.
Hello OMTers!
This is the third instalment of the “Tips for Navigating the Job Market” series. Here is what our four successful candidates from last year had to say about Tackling the Interview:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Simona Giorgi - Carroll School of Management |
Adam Cobb - Wharton Business School |
Shon Hiatt - Harvard Business School |
Aleksios Gotsopoulos - IE Business School |
1. How did you prepare for the interviews?
SIMONA: I read the main papers/books written by the interviewer.
ADAM: I practiced my job talk several times in front of members of my Department. It is also a good idea to invite other faculty and students from other departments (strategy, sociology, psychology …). Those individuals will likely ask you different kinds of questions, which is great practice.
A wonderful suggestion from my advisor was to create a “stumpers file”, which is basically a list of questions that others ask of you that you struggle answering and things you think are problematic with your own work. Over time the idea is that you work on coming up with really solid answers to those questions. I literally wrote out detailed answers to some of my “stumpers”, which not only helped me feel more prepared to field questions but also aided me in the writing of my dissertation.
Try to find someone at the school with whom you can get some “insider information” prior to interview. At the job I wound up getting, I was very fortunate to have three different individuals give me some great tips on who I was meeting with and what their interests and concerns are. That really helped me think about the types of questions I’d be asked in the one-on-one’s as well as during the job talk.
SHON: I do not consider myself particularly talented at public speaking, so I rehearsed my job talk 30 times before my first interview in front of a mirror in the basement of our house, and then 2-3 times in the hotel bathroom the morning before every presentation. This gave me confidence to focus on the questions the audience asked during the presentation.
ALEXSIOS: Mock presentations can be useful for practice. Try getting a good night’s sleep (not always easy, especially if you are interviewing in a different continent and are jet-lagged). Dress up. California style might be OK in CA, but it’s not OK in most other places. It’s safer to overdress than to under-dress, despite the fact that most people in the audience are likely to be in jeans.
