Foundational Paper Award

Foundational Paper Award 2026: Call for Nominations

The AOM ENT Division is seeking nominations for the 2026 Foundational Paper Award!!

This award is given annually for a paper that has had a lasting and positive influence on the field of entrepreneurship.

Criteria

The Foundational Paper Award recognizes a published paper that has significantly and positively changed the conversation in the field of entrepreneurship research. To be eligible for this award, the author must be living. Generally, too, foundational papers will have been published for at least 10 years (i.e., prior to 2016). A list of past winners can be found on the ENT Division website, at https://ent.aom.org/awards  

Award process & background

The Research Committee of the Entrepreneurship Division will review all nominations and determine awards in accordance with the above criteria. Winner(s) will be announced when the award is presented in August at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Philadelphia.

How to nominate a paper:

Please submit your nomination at this form by April 15.

If you have any questions, contact Audra Quinn, Awards Committee Chair at agquinn@marshall.usc.edu 

Award Winners

2025

2025 Friederike Welter (University of Siegen and Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn): “Contextualizing entrepreneurship—conceptual challenges and ways forward” published in the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice in 2011.
2024 2024 Emmanuelle Fauchart (University of Fribourg​) and Marc Gruber (EPFL) for “Darwinians, communitarians, and missionaries: The role of founder identity in entrepreneurship”, published in 2011 in the Academy of Management Journal.
2023 2023 Melissa Cardon (University of Tennessee), Joakim Wincent (Hanken School of Economics and University of St Gallen), Jagdip Singh (Case Western Reserve University), and Mateja Drnovsek (University of Ljubljana) for “The Nature and Experience of Entrepreneurial Passion” published in 2009 in Academy of Management Review.
2022 2022 Dean Shepherd (University of Notre Dame) for “Learning from Business Failure: Propositions of Grief Recovery for the Self-Employed” published in 2003 in Academy of Management Review.
2021 2021 Howard Aldrich (University of North Carolina) & Jennifer Jennings (University of Alberta) for "The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: Toward a family embeddedness perspective" published in 2003 in Journal of Business Venturing. 
2020 2020 Ted Baker (Rutgers University and The University of Cape Town) & Reed Nelson (University of Louisiana, Lafayette) for “Creating something from nothing: Resource construction through entrepreneurial bricolage” published in 2005 in Administrative Science Quarterly.
2019 2019 Sharon Alvarez (University of Pittsburgh) & Jay B. Barney (University of Utah) for "The Discovery-creation: Alternative Theories of Entrepreneurial Action" published in 2007 in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.
2018 Jeffery S. McMullen (Indiana University) & Dean A. Shepherd (Notre Dame University) for "Entrepreneurial Action and the Role of Uncertainty in the Theory of the Entrepreneur" published in 2006 in Academy of Management Review.
2017 Saras D Sarasvathy for “Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency” published in 2001 in the Academy of Management Review.
2016 Jeffrey G Covin and Dennis P Slevin for “Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments” published in 1989 in the Strategic Management Journal.
2015 Benjamin Oviatt and Patricia McDougal for "Toward a Theory of International New Ventures" published in 1994 in Journal of International Business Studies.
2014 William J. Baumol for “Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive and destructive” published in 1996 in Journal of Business Venturing.
2013 Jerome Katz and William B. Gartner for “Properties of emerging organizations” published in 1988 in Academy of Management Review.
2012 Javier Gimeno, Tim Folta, Arnold Cooper and Carolyn Woo for “Survival of the fittest: Entrepreneurial human capital and the persistence of underperforming firms” published in 1997 in Administrative Science Quarterly.
2011 Scott Shane (Case Western Reserve University) for “Prior knowledge and the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities” published in 2000 in Organization Science.
2010 No award
2009 Howard Aldrich (U. of North Carolina) and C. Marlena Fiol (U. of Colorado, Denver) for “Fools rush in: The institutional context of industry creation”, published in 1994 in Academy of Management Review.

Tom Lumpkin (Syracuse U.) and Greg Dess (U. of Texas, Dallas) for “Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance,” published in 1996 in Academy of Management Review.
2008 S. Venkataraman (U. of Virginia) for “The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research,” published in 1997 in Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, Volume 3.

Committee Chair

Audra Quinn