Call for Proposals

Global Leadership: Portraits of the Past, Visions for the Future

10th ILA Annual Global Conference
November 12-15, 2008
Preconference, November 12, 2008
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Hyatt Regency Century Plaza

CFP Deadline: February 29th, 2008

Complete papers submitted along the Leadership Scholarship refereed track are due on March 17th, 2008.  Please note: If you are submitting a refereed paper, the online portion of your submission is still due on Feb. 29th, only the complete paper is due on the later date of March 17th.

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Conference Theme
General Information
Guidelines
Hints for Successfully Submitting Your Proposal
Online Submission Form

Conference Theme

Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner Pearl S. Buck once declared, “One faces the future with one's past.” This is precisely the task laid before us as we move towards a more connected and interdependent global community. What do we have to learn from the history of leaders and leadership? What from the past should we bring to the future? What must be left behind in order to work towards a greater global good? What new demands does the future place on emerging leaders and concepts of leadership?

From November 12-15, 2008, the International Leadership Association (ILA) will hold its 10th annual global conference at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, California. During this time, we will not only examine the history of the field of Leadership but also explore the new methods, research, resources, technologies, and leaders that are bringing us into the future. In addition, we will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the ILA and acknowledge individuals whose lives and works have impacted leadership studies.

The ILA seeks proposal submissions that represent the best contemporary thinking about leadership from a diverse range of leadership scholars, practitioners, educators, program directors, consultants, students, and other leaders and leadership professionals. Proposal formats include: panel discussions, paper presentations, workshops, conversations with leadership authors, case studies, interactive roundtable discussions, and poster displays. While we encourage the submission of all current work on leadership, extra attention will be given to those submissions that relate to the conference theme, Global Leadership: Portraits of the Past, Visions for the Future.

Of particular interest are proposals that offer innovative information, provocative research or useful skills to one or more ILA Member Interest Groups, while involving presenters from multiple fields, organizations, disciplines, locations or sectors. The Member Interest Groups coordinate a peer-review process in March to identify those of the highest quality. Acceptance notices will be sent in May.

The ILA is the global network for people who study, teach and practice leadership. The association seeks to promote a deeper understanding of leadership knowledge and practice for the greater good of individuals and communities worldwide. In order to focus on specific needs of various constituents, the ILA is organized into five Member Interest Groups: Applied Leadership (Leadership Development), Business Leadership, Leadership Education, Public Leadership, and Leadership Scholarship. In addition, the ILA focuses on the intersections between the Member Interest Groups and other diverse interests, fields, sectors, methods, and roles. Over 800 participants are expected to attend the conference; and over 90 concurrent sessions will be held.

General Information

ILA's peer review process is organized through the Member Interest Groups (MIG). You will be asked to assign your proposal to at least one, but no more than two, MIGs. Each MIG uses the following criteria to rank proposals:   

• Synergy: Does does the proposal strengthen ties between those who practice, study, and teach leadership? 
• Usefulness: Does the proposal provide its target audience with useful new ideas, data, models, tools, theories, or resources? 
• Format/Interactive: Does the proposal appear to be dynamic, interactive, and creative in the content or format?
• Enlightening: Does the proposal add to our understanding of leadership? If the presentation involves original research or scholarship, will it build upon or challenge existing research and theory while also being accessible to those beyond a specialized area?
• Multiple Viewpoints: Do the presenters represent multiple disciplines, sectors, countries, or institutions?
• Theme: Does the proposal relate to the conference theme?
• Quality: What is the overall quality of the proposal?

Your short description and abstract are important!  Unless you are submitting a complete paper for peer review along the refereed scholarship track at the conference, the only way we can judge your proposal is by your short description and abstract. 

Submission Guidelines

Please note that each presenter must register for the conference. ILA does not pay presenters honoraria, reimburse expenses (e.g. travel, lodging or copying), or waive conference registration fees.  Last year's early-bird conference fee was $325 US for ILA members ($225 for fulltime student members who were not employed fulltime) and included one lunch, two receptions, coffee breaks, access to all conference sessions, keynotes, book fair, author signings, and post conference CD-ROM. The non-member rate was $450 and $350 respectively. 

In order to provide as many opportunities to include a wide range of presenters, ILA has instituted a rule of two guideline: No one can be part of more than two submissions. It is the responsibility of the primary contact person to check with their proposed co-presenters to assure this guideline is met. This does not apply to the roles of chair or commentator. In other words, an individual may present in two sessions and chair another one and comment on another one, etc.

ILA reserves the right to edit proposals to meet space constraints or to combine sessions and individual submissions on similar topics. This allows us to capture the broadest range of topics and ideas to include in the program. In the past, combined sessions have reported to us that they found the outcome to be fruitful. ILA will inform the primary contact person through the acceptance process of any edits or other changes that have been made. If sessions and/or proposals are combined, it is the responsibility of the primary contact people from the original submissions to coordinate a revised session title, etc. with each other.

ILA welcomes the submission of both pre-formed sessions (e.g. a submission for a single stand-alone workshop or a session containing multiple presentations grouped around a common theme) and proposal submissions intended to be grouped by ILA with other similar submissions (e.g. a 20 minute presentation of a paper). We encourage the formulation of complete sessions prior to submission (see "Improve Your Odds of Acceptance" below).

The types of sessions are:

• Paper(s) Non-Refereed (All MIGs except Applied Leadership)-- Presentation of written product(s) documenting research, presenting theories, or arguing a particular point of view.  Use online submission form to submit contact information, abstract, etc. by February 29th submission date.  Complete papers are not due until the conference. 
• Paper(s) Refereed (Leadership Scholarship MIG Only)-- Presentation of written product(s) documenting research, presenting theories, or arguing a particular point of view. Note: If your paper submission is along the refereed paper track of the Leadership Scholarship MIG, you must email the complete paper (4000 word max) to the following addresses, prior to March 17th, 2007: Michael Harvey mharvey2@washcoll.edu  and ILA: ila@ila-net.org. The paper should only have identifying information on the cover page, as it will be distributed for blind review. Please note: If you are submitting a refereed paper, the online portion of your submission is still due on Feb. 29th, only the complete paper is due on the later date of March 17th.
• Panel Discussion -- Presentations and/or discussions by one or more people with contrasting or complementary points of view. Note: if you submit as an individual under this format, make sure you check the box requesting that ILA group you with other submissions to form a complete session.
• Conversation with Author -- Lecture or talk given by an author of a recently published book.
• Workshop -- An interactive demonstration, application, and/or session that is rooted in audience participation and active learning.
• Interactive Roundtable -- These roundtables are designed to facilitate high levels of interaction and engagement by utilizing dialogue between the roundtable discussant(s) and attendees. Attendees may visit several roundtables during the conference session devoted to roundtables.
• Case Study - the presentation of detailed information about a specific, actual, leadership challenge or problem. Individuals analyze the situation from different perspectives, presenting their opinions on how best to solve the problem.
• Poster -- A visual display of a program, paper, or project that is set up in an exhibit space throughout the conference and staffed by the creator(s) during a Poster reception during the conference.

Notes: 1. The Leadership Scholarship Member Interest Group (MIG) only accepts proposals within the following formats: Paper, Panel, Poster, or Conversation with Author. 2. The Applied Leadership (Leadership Development) MIG does not accept paper presentations. In addition, it is strongly advised that submissions to Applied Leadership have a strong practice oriented link that highlights a resource, approach, tool or methodology for leadership development.

Time Formats

• 20 minutes (individual submission)
• 40 minutes (individual submission)
• 60 minutes (complete session submission)
• 75 minutes (complete session submission)
• 90 minutes (complete session submission)

Number of Presenters

The maximum number of presenters for a complete session is four.  In addition to this number, complete session proposals are also allowed to include a session chair and a session commentator/discussant.

Notification

By late April, once the Program Committee has finalized the program, all primary contact people will be notified via email of the Committee's decisions. Primary Contact People are responsible for notifying the members of the proposed session of the Program Committee's decision and, if accepted, confirming their intention to attend and present.

All presenters must then register (see submission guidelines above for registration costs) by July 14, 2008 or they will be DROPPED from the program.  The program will be finalized shortly after this date and we will begin preparing it for print.
 

Hints for Successfully Submitting Your Proposal Through Our Online Proposal Management System

Checklist of Materials

It helps to have all of your materials ready to enter into the online form before you start. The materials you must have on hand include:

• Contact information for you and any co-presenters, session chair or session commentator/discussant.  This includes affiliations, addresses, emails, and phone numbers;
• Short, one paragraph, narrative bios for you and any co-presenters, session chair, or session commentator. Please NO c.v./resume type bulleted lists.
• Time Requested for individual or session submission.
• Titles, short (50-word) descriptions, and abstracts (approx. 500-1000 words).  Individuals who need to be grouped should submit their individual title, description, and abstract.  Complete session submissions should submit a title, description, and abstract for the session as a whole as well as titles, descriptions, and abstracts for any individual components of the session.

Using the Forms

We recommend that you do not copy and paste descriptions from MSWord into the forms. Special characters and formatting may not come through on the form and will frequently appear as garbage characters. We recommend that you transfer any text into a text-only editor like Notepad prior to copying and pasting into the form. Notepad removes special characters and formatting from programs like MSWord.

When copying and pasting multi-paragraph items into the form (e.g. abstracts), make sure that all of your paragraphs paste into the form. Some users will have to paste each paragraph individually into the form.  To paste into the form, click in the appropriate box, and type CTRL-V.  Also, please make sure breaks between paragraphs are double-spaced.

Other Browser/Computer Hints

You must accept the cookies that the browser places on your computer. If you do not know what a cookie is, then you are most likely accepting them automatically and do not need to worry.

The link to the submission form opens up a popup box that contains the submission form.  If you click the link and the popup box does not appear, you need to re-enable pop-ups on your system.

Do not go backward through the form to correct errors. This will result in duplicate entries.  Please check over all of your entries carefully before clicking on the "Submit and Proceed to Next Step" button or hitting the enter key. After the first step in the submission process, you will be assigned a Login and Password that allows you to edit your proposal through February 29th, 2008.

Although you will be emailed a record of your submission, we recommend printing certain Web pages as you go. To print a page, type CTRL-P.

Improve Your Odds of Acceptance By Submitting a Complete Session

The odds of acceptance of a complete session is historically much higher than for the acceptance of individual papers/ presentations, which not only need to pass the test of excellence, but also must fit with other individual papers/presentations to form a session with internal coherence. Pre-proposal submission networking toward the formation of complete sessions makes good sense.  This guideline does not apply to complete papers submitted along the refereed leadership scholarship track.  Those papers are judged solely on excellence.

View Proposals in Progress

If you are an ILA member and you wish to submit a "proposal in progress" for the 2008 conference, send tentative session title, 200-word MAX description, and proposer's contact information to ILA@ila-net.org with the subject line "Proposals in Progress."

Submission Form

We are no longer accepting proposals through our online system.  If you have an idea for a proposal please contact Shelly Wilsey at: swilsey [at] ila-net.org.

Questions or help with the form may be directed to: ILA@ila-net.org  or 301.405.5218. Additional conference information will be posted to ILA's main conference page as it becomes available.