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Winner of the 2011 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition

It is my pleasure to announce the results of this year's INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition.  We received 83 proposals. Eight finalists were selected based on evaluations by three reviewers. This past weekend the eight finalists presented their dissertation proposals to a distinguished panel of judges at the INFORMS Annual Conference in Charlotte, NC.  All of the finalists did an outstanding job of presenting their proposals. 

The winner of the 2011 INFORMS Dissertation Proposal Competition is:

Jessica Kennedy

University of California - Berkeley, Haas School of Business

"Power and Dissent: Implications for Ethics in Organizations"

The runner-up is:

Erin Scott

Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Business School

"The Impact of Regulation on Entrepreneurship and Innovation:

The Case of Bail Bonds"

If you know Jessica or Erin, or any of the other six finalists, please congratulate them for this significant accomplishment. The other six finalists for the 2011 competition, listed in alphabetical order, were:

Michael Bikard

MIT, Sloan School of Management

"Turning Science into Technology:

Organizations and the Commercialization of Simultaneous and Independent Discoveries"

Andreea Gorbatai

Harvard University, Department of Sociology

"Social Structure and Mechanisms of Collective Production: Evidence from Wikipedia"

Shoko Kato

Syracuse University, Whitman School of Management

"Entrepreneurship as a Process of Self-Fulfillment:

Well-Being, Affect, and Behavioral Strategies"

Kenji Klein

University of California - Irvine, Paul Merage School of Business

"Profound Institutional Change in the Face of Resistance:

Identity, Entrepreneurship, and Opportunity Cascades"

Daniel Smith

Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Psychology

"Investigating the Implications of Implicit Personality

for Leadership in Stressful and Dangerous Situations: A First Step"

Jeffrey Treem

Northwestern University, Department of Communication Studies

"Technologically-Mediated Presentations of Expertise in Organizations"

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the panel of judges who evaluated all of the proposals. Each judge generously volunteered his or her time and resources to attend the day-long competition in Charlotte and provided the finalists with feedback on their dissertations.  This year's panel of judges was:

Richard M. Burton, Duke University

Scott D. Graffin, University of Georgia

Donald E. Hatfield, Virginia Tech University

Benjamin Herndon, Georgia Institute of Technology

Candace Jones, Boston College

Anne S. Miner, University of Wisconsin

James B. Wade, Emory University

James P. Walsh, University of Michigan

Finally, I would like to offer my thanks to the close to one-hundred reviewers who volunteered their time in helping select the 8 finalists, and I would especially like to thank Dan Levinthal, Editor-in-Chief of Organization Science, and Kathleen Luckey, Managing Editor of Organization Science, for the tremendous amount of help and support they provided in managing the proposal review process.

Andreas Schwab

Assistant Professor of Management

Iowa State University

2011 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Competition Chair