The theme for the 2017 SMS Annual Conference, “Unconventional Strategies for Emerging Complexity and Intensifying Diversity,” embraces these challenges and the types of unconventional (i.e., unusual, avant-garde, exceptional, against-the-grain) strategies that might be used to address them.

The purpose of this SMS Special Conference is to identify, discuss and grapple with these issues, so as to make substantive progress in our understanding of the relations between human capital, management practices, and firm performance. In addition to strategic management scholars, the...