SMS Emerging Scholar Award Recipients
The prize is awarded annually to a relatively young or new scholar, who displays exemplary scholarship as demonstrated in research, education, and related academic activities that seek to improve current strategic management practice.
2010 Emerging Scholar Winner
Yan Anthea Zhang
Yan Anthea Zhang has been selected to receive the 2010 SMS Emerging Scholar Award. Anthea Zhang received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and is currently a Distinguished Associate Professor of Management in the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. She has been a highly prolific scholar during her nine years in the profession with a total of 27 publications, 19 of which are in scholarly journals. In addition, many articles are in top scholarly journals in the field, to include the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies and Journal of Management, among others. She is first author or sole author on 16 of her journal articles. Her most prominent research has focused on CEO leadership, with an emphasis on CEO succession and dismissal in major organizations. In addition, she has also made contributions to research on firm strategies in emerging markets. One of her senior scholar described Anthea Zhang's research as characterized by theoretical novelty and rigorous empirical analysis applied to research questions of high managerial relevance. The practical influence of her research is shown by the citations in many top business media outlets such as the Economist, BusinessWeek, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, among others.
Anthea Zhang has also provided significant service to the profession. For example, she serves on the editorial review boards of several scholarly journals such as Strategic Management Journal and Academy of Management Journal. She has been active in the International Association for Chinese Management Research, holding several positions and also active in the Strategic Management Society, currently as a representative-at-large in the Corporate Strategy and Corporate Governance Interest Group. She is an incoming associate editor for the Academy of Management Journal.
One senior scholar summed up her record in this way "Professor Zhang is an extraordinarily productive scholar with a national and international reputation for her research... Her work has made a fundamental contribution to the strategy field and her service to the professional is impressive..."
Interview with Yan Anthea Zhang
Michael Lenox
Michael Lenox holds a Ph.D. from MIT and is currently the director of the Batten Institute and Samuel L. Stover Professor of Business at the Darden School, University of Virginia. Michael Lenox was selected from a field of excellent candidates because of his research productivity, contributions to the field and future potential. He has 22 journal articles with publications in top scholarly journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Management Science and Organization Science, among others. His research has focused in and made contributions to two primary streams of work (1) Strategy, Environment and Nonmarket Strategies (stakeholder engagement, operational efficiencies and the environment and industry self regulation) and (2) Technology, Strategy and Innovation (transformation in R&D foci and programs, open innovation).
He has served or serves on the editorial review board for several scholarly journals including the Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science. In addition, he was appointed as an Associate Editor for Management Science in 2009. His future research integrates theoretical notions from his two major streams of research with the intent of giving voice to strategic management research into public policies. In summary, he is a bright young scholar with much promise to make important contributions to the field of strategic management and in other arenas.
Riitta Katila
Riitta Katila is an Assistant Professor of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University. Since receiving her Ph.D. in 2000, her research has influenced two research directions in strategic management. The first focuses on boundary-spanning activities such as acquisitions and collaborations, and the second on how firms re-deploy their existing technologies to create durable competitive advantage. She studies these questions longitudinally in technology-based industries such as robotics using a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and computational methods. Her work on these two key questions in technology strategy has appeared in the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Research Policy, Administrative Science Quarterly and other outlets, and is frequently cited by scholars in the strategy field.
The SMS Emerging Scholar Award recognizes Riitta Katila's contributions as one of the leading young strategy scholars in the field, as well as her contributions to the professional community and to undergraduate and graduate student education.
Jeffrey J. Reuer
Professor Reuer is the Boyd W. Harris, Jr. Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Strategic Management at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina. Since he received his Ph.D. in 1997, he has been a prolific scholar with a number of articles in top scholarly journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and Journal of International Business Studies, among others. His research has made important contributions to our knowledge of the governance of strategic alliances (largely using theory in information economics) and to corporate investment decisions (applying real options theory). Although young in the field (10 years since his Ph.D.), his work is highly cited by scholars and recognized in practice evidenced by such prominent business press media as The Financial Times. Professor Reuer is one of the top young scholars in the Strategic Management field and is positioned to make additional major contributions to the field in years to come.
The 2007 award was presented to Jeff Reuer during the SMS 27th Annual International Conference in San Diego on Oct 16, 2007. The conference also featured a special session where Jeff Reuer presented his research.