Privacy Policy

Strategic Management Society Privacy Statement

Effective Date: November 1, 2023

This Privacy Statement (hereinafter referred to as “Statement”) discloses the privacy practices for the Strategic Management Society (hereinafter referred to as “SMS”). 

In this statement, you will find information about: 

  1. What Personal Data SMS collects when you visit our websites and interact directly with us and how we use it; 
  2. What Personal Data we collect about you from third parties and how we use it; 
  3. With whom SMS shares your Personal Data; 
  4. Your rights regarding the ability to access, correct, delete, or limit the processing of your data; 
  5. How long we retain your Personal Data; 
  6. How we secure your Personal Data; 
  7. Special provisions for European residents and residents of California and Nevada; and 
  8. How you can contact SMS staff members with any questions or concerns.

This Statement refers to “Personal Data.” Personal Data is any data that is associated with or can be associated with an identifiable individual.  

This Statement applies to Personal Data SMS collects. SMS collects Personal Data from individuals including, but not limited to, members; visitors to its websites; participants at its events; applicants for employment at SMS; vendors and suppliers; and employees and contractors. This Statement covers Personal Data collected about members, visitors to its websites, participants at events, and applicants for employment. If you are a vendor, supplier, employee, or contractor, how we handle your Personal Data is set out in our agreement with you and/or in our employee policies. 

This Statement does not cover Personal Data collected by third-party websites that you reach through links on our websites. You should refer to the privacy statements of these websites for more information about how they use and manage your Personal Data. If you have any questions about when this Statement applies, you may contact the SMS staff using the information provided at the end of this Statement.  

What Data Does SMS Collect from You and How Is It Used? 

SMS collects data from you directly when you provide it to us in the course of a transaction between you and SMS or when you otherwise volunteer data to us. This includes, but may not be limited to, when you apply for and/or participate in SMS membership; apply for an award or grant; sign up for conferences and other networking opportunities; access and/or purchase publications and research resources; apply for employment with SMS; visit the SMS website; or submit materials for publication or use at in-person or online conferences and meetings. 

Creating an SMS Profile

When you create an SMS profile, we receive and process your Personal Data, which may include: name, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, photo, employer, gender, birth date, demographics, education, purchase history, social media user IDs, communication preferences, and correspondence history. 

We use this data to process your membership application; process payments; notify you about new publications and upcoming conferences; send you promotional messages about opportunities we believe might interest you; improve our website; administer grants and awards; fulfill tax reporting and payment requirements; understand your preferences; develop and provide product offerings and services; facilitate your participation in programs; support your travel and hospitality arrangements at our events; and improve our overall relationship with you.  

We may also use this data for other legitimate business purposes, including but not limited to maintaining records on your transactions for tax and compliance purposes or keeping records of potentially qualified job applicants.  

Signing Up for Conferences and Network Opportunities

When you attend one of our events, you may share with us these types of data: all the data contained in your SMS profile plus leisure and social preferences, travel arrangements, survey results, the name of anyone attending with you, committee assignments, resume or CV, meal preferences, and health or allergy information.  

Some of our conferences include events that allow participants to visit locations that require additional Personal Data. When you attend one of these events, you may share with us these types of data: passport number, proof of citizenship, or emergency contact. 

Applying for an Award or Grant

If you apply for an award or grant, we may collect additional data to process the application or award payment. This data may include social security number, bank account number, and tax data, including whether a recipient is subject to U.S. taxes.  

Applying for Employment with SMS

If you are applying for a job or become an employee of SMS, we will process your contact information, gender, identification numbers, tax information, information required for administration of insurance and other benefits, emergency contact information, employment and educational history, and information related to days worked and job performance.  

Visiting the SMS Website

We process information about visitors to our website, including contact information, device, browser type, IP address, and browsing history. 

We collect some data from you automatically when you visit our website, including your IP address, browser type, browser version, and device used to access our website. We also collect some data from cookies. More specifics about the functions of cookies, tracking technologies, and “Do Not Track” (DNT) requests are listed below. We use this data to improve the functionality of our website and to understand who is visiting our website.  

In some circumstances, you may send to us unsolicited information such as health status, in connection with the cancellation of an event reservation or request for a refund. In general, we prefer not to receive details, but to the extent we receive health data, it will be processed in accordance with this policy. 

If you no longer wish to receive promotional messages, you may unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in promotional emails sent to you or by contacting us using the information provided below.  

What Data About You Does SMS Collect from Third Parties and How Is It Used? 

In some cases, SMS may collect data about you from third parties. These third parties may include: 

  • Institutions of higher learning; 
  • Business personnel listings; 
  • Hotel conference sites; 
  • Professional contacts, including third-party referrals and contacts we receive when nominating candidates for volunteer roles and awards; and 
  • Scholarly publications and tools including Wiley and ScholarOne. 

Some of the Personal Data obtained from these third parties is combined with other data SMS maintains about you. 

As noted above, when you visit our website, we automatically collect some data about you from Google Analytics that can be associated with your IP address, including the pages you visited, the date and time of your visit, the length of time spent on visited pages, how you reached our website, web browser, and operating system. We use this data to help us better understand how people are accessing our website and to improve our website. You may prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on our website by deleting or disabling cookies from our website. If you do not want your data to be shared by Google Analytics, you may install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. For more information, see the Google Analytics opt-out webpage. 

Additionally, if you apply to work for us through a third-party career website, we will receive data relating to your application through these third parties.  

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

When you access our website, we may automatically collect information as you browse.  This information is sometimes referred to as web analytics and/or clickstream data and may include, but is not necessarily limited to:  

  • the name of your Internet Service Provider (ISP);   
  • browser type and version;  
  • operating system and device type;   
  • average time spent on our site(s);   
  • pages viewed;  
  • information accessed;   
  • the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; and  
  • other relevant statistics.   

We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to enhance the services we offer you, to improve marketing and analytics, and to support site functionality.  

SMS uses technologies such as cookies, beacons, tags, and scripts. These technologies are used to analyze trends, administer the site, track users’ movements around the site, and gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. Companies providing these services may send Thread reports generated by the use of these technologies on an individual as well as aggregated basis.  

A cookie is a small, unique text file that a website sends to your computer when you visit a site. We may use session cookies, which terminate when a user closes their browser, and/or persistent cookies, which remain on the user's computer until manually deleted. Most web browsers can either alert you to the use of cookies or your choice to refuse to accept cookies entirely. If you do not want us to deploy cookies to your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to notify you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer.   

Cookies necessary for the functioning of the SMS website: 

  1. Session cookies: Used to manage user sessions, like keeping a user logged in. 
  2. Authentication cookies: Used to identify an authenticated user. 
  3. Comment cookies: If a user leaves a comment, a cookie may be saved to remember the user’s details for future comments. 
  4. Analytics cookies: Google Analytics uses cookies for tracking user sessions. 

The exact name and quantity of cookies used for third-party tools, including social media, is not under our control and is subject to change. 

For information about how to disable cookies on a variety of browsers on the web and on mobile devices, visit https://www.avast.com/c-enable-disable-cookies. Please note, however, that disabling cookies will prevent some functionalities, such as logging in, from working properly. 

The site does not respond to “Do Not Track” signals and operates as described in this Privacy Policy whether or not a DNT signal is received.  If we do respond to DNT signals in the future, we will update this Privacy Policy to describe how we do so. 

How We Share Your Personal Data

SMS may provide your Personal Data to third-party service providers that perform business tasks on our behalf, including email distribution providers, payment processors, cloud storage providers, journal publishers, offsite electronic backups, shipping and logistics providers, travel and event planners, hospitality venues such as hotels and restaurants, customer relationship management event, and enterprise management software providers or other software platforms.  

We may also share your Personal Data when we are required to do so by law, subpoena, warrant, court order, or administrative or regulatory requirement, when disclosure of your data is necessary to protect the rights, person, or property of SMS or another individual, or when disclosure is necessary to establish defences or claims in any legal action or dispute involving SMS or any of its officers, directors, employees, agents, contractors, and partners, or for the purpose of consummating a corporate transaction such as an assignment of assets. 

SMS does not disclose or share Personal Data for profit. 

Your Rights in Your Data

You may contact us at any time to: 

  • Ask that we stop sending you marketing and promotional messages. 
  • Correct any Personal Data we have about you. 
  • Request that we delete your Personal Data or restrict the way we use it unless SMS has a legal basis for retaining or continuing to process it. We will inform you of this instance when we determine that we have a legal basis to retain or continue processing the data; and 
  • Access the Personal Data we have about you. 

Subject to any legal, regulatory, or contractual obligations we may have, we will answer your request as soon as possible and in no more than one month from the time we receive your request. If your request is particularly complicated, we may extend this period up to an additional two months. 

To make a request, you may contact us using the information provided below. If you have an account with us, you may make changes to your Personal Data by logging in to your account and making changes to your profile. If you wish to unsubscribe from marketing communications, you may click the “unsubscribe” button in these communications or update your communication preferences in your profile. 

You may also request deletion or correction of Personal Data about you by contacting us at the SMS Executive Office using the email address shown below.  

In some instances, SMS may not be able to honor your request. This may be the case when the data is necessary for us to exercise the right of freedom of expression and information; to comply with a legal obligation; for reasons of the public interest; for archiving purposes in the public interest; for scientific or historical research purposes; and/or to allow us to bring or defend a legal claim. 

How Long We Keep Your Personal Data

Unless a longer retention period is required by applicable laws or regulations, we will retain your information for as long as your account is active, as well as for an additional period afterward to cover any outstanding issues or queries that may arise in relation to your account. This period of retention is subject to our review and alteration. 

How We Secure Your Personal Data

The SMS databases are kept in a first-party infrastructure environment with Salesforce and are not accessible publicly. Access to our databases, system drive, and organization machines is restricted using the principle of least privilege, and data in flight is encrypted. Access keys are per user and are thus revocable at any time. 

We make regular backups both on and off premise as part of our Disaster Recovery Plan. 

Information for Individuals in the European Union, the UK, California, and Nevada

SMS honors the rights of individuals provided in the data protection laws of their jurisdiction, whether countries and regions outside the United States or the laws of individual states in the United States.  

SMS is based in the United States, and SMS’s website is hosted on an origin server in the United States. To access our website, communicate with us, and order products or services from us, it is necessary to transfer your Personal Data to the United States. 

The European Union and the UK

If you are located in the European Union or the UK, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your country’s data protection authority in the event that you are not satisfied with our resolution of your requests relating to your Personal Data. 

Data Controller 

SMS is the data controller for processing Personal Data provided to us through your interactions with the site or with us directly. For our contact details, please see the “Contact Us” section below. 

SMS is the data controller for processing Personal Data provided to us through your interactions with the site or with us directly. For our contact details, please see the “Contact Us” section below.

California & Nevada

California and Nevada residents have the right to access and/or correct their Personal Data or opt out of the sale of Personal Data. 

If you are a California or Nevada resident and would like to review, correct, or update your Personal Data, you or your authorized representative may submit your request to sms@strategicmanagement.net. We will respond to your verified request as soon as reasonably practicable, but no later than sixty (60) days after receipt. If circumstances cause any delay in our response, you will be promptly notified and provided with a date for our response. 

Contact Us

Strategic Management Society is an international organization whose 3,000 members span 80 countries. SMS promotes the development and dissemination of insights on strategic management and fosters contacts and interchange around the world. 

SMS may update this Statement from time to time. When we change the policy in a material way, a notice will be posted on our website along with the updated Statement.  

If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement or wish to exercise any rights in your Personal Data, you may contact sms@strategicmanagement.net. You also can contact us by mail or by phone at: 

SMS Executive Office
134 N LaSalle St
Suite 1005
Chicago IL 60602
USA
1-312-492-6224

Related Information

In addition to this Privacy Policy, we encourage you to review the SMS Legal Disclaimer and the SMS Code of Conduct.

Questions or Concerns?

If you have any questions or concerns on this information or other aspects of SMS, please email sms@strategicmanagement.net or visit the Contact Us page to learn more.