Mentor Award
Mentor Award 2025: Call for Nominations (Due: May 9, 2025)
The Entrepreneurship Division seeks nominations for the 2025 Mentor Award. This award recognizes exceptional mentoring activities at all educational levels in the field of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship field is broadly defined as efforts by individuals and groups to establish new organizations, introduce new products and services, deploy new business models, and otherwise create new economic or social value. Entrepreneurship also includes processes and behaviors associated with the recognition, analysis, and exploitation of perceived entrepreneurial opportunities; the nature of novelty, creativity, and innovativeness among individuals and organizations; and how people and groups exercise judgment and make decisions under uncertainty.
The nomination process and selection criteria are provided below. Please consider submitting a nomination for the Mentor Award. The deadline for receiving applications is May 9, 2025.
Selection Criteria:
In order of importance, the Award seeks to honor:
1. Mentoring in Doctoral or Post-Doctoral Education in Entrepreneurship
Given the lack of full-time Ph.D. programs in the field, the future development and growth of the field is exceedingly dependent on the ad hoc efforts of interested graduate educators. Such individuals help identify promising doctoral students and post-doctoral candidates, interest them in the field, nurture their development in research and professional roles, and provide moral, social, and intellectual support to new entrants to the field in the early stages of their careers.
2. Mentoring Activities in MBA and Undergraduate Education in Entrepreneurship
Although the principal purpose of the Award is to honor doctoral and post-doctoral mentoring activities, not every potential mentor has the opportunity to do this. Therefore, individuals with truly exceptional records mentoring MBA, undergraduate, or other non-doctoral entrants to the field over sustained periods may also be considered as candidates for the Award.
Candidates for the Award will be evaluated according to the relative degree to which they have, throughout their careers, engaged in the mentoring activities described above. Primary consideration will be given to mentoring at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels. This Award is not meant to recognize research productivity, advocacy activities in the field, personal longevity in the field, or other non-mentoring types of service in professional organizations of the field.
Selection Process
Nominations for the award will be reviewed in accordance with the above criteria by a special committee convened by the Past Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Winners will be selected in early June and will be presented with a plaque in July at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management. As in all award categories, the Division reserves the right to not confer an award if adjudicators determine that no award is warranted in a given year. Typically, we recognize one winner per year. Nominations received in a given year that do not result in an award will automatically be considered for an award during the following year's review cycle as well. However, nominations that do not result in an award for two consecutive years must be re-nominated to be considered further. Such re-nominations are welcome, provided they are accompanied by up-to-date documentation.
Nomination Requirements
To nominate an individual for the Mentor Award, a complete packet of supporting documentation should be submitted to Jon Carr (jccarr@ncsu.edu) no later than Monday, May 5, 2025. The complete packet must include:
1. A letter of nomination that identifies the candidate, the individual(s) making the nomination, and lists the supporting documentation included.
2. A copy of the candidate's Curriculum Vita.
3. A detailed listing of the mentoring activities at the doctoral and post-doctoral level (or an explicit statement that such activities do not exist).
4. A detailed listing of the mentoring activities at the MBA or undergraduate level (or an explicit statement that such activities do not exist).
5. Letters of support from individuals who can describe the nature of the mentoring received from the candidate. These are essential and weigh heavily.
Whether or not the packet materials are obtained directly from the candidate, it is the responsibility of the person(s) writing the nomination letter to ensure that the nomination package is complete.
Previous Winners since 1991:
1991: Frank Hoy
1992: Charles Hofer
1993: Arnold Cooper
1994: Ian MacMillan
1995: Max Wortman
1997: Dale Meyer
1998: Howard Stevenson
2000: Jerome Katz
2001: Candida Brush
2003: Harry Sapienza
2005: Jeff Covin
2006: Shaker Zahra
2007: Howard Aldrich
2008: Dean Shepherd
2009: Mike Wright
2011: Johan Wiklund
2012: Sophie Manigart
2013: Per Davidsson
20214: Donald F. Kuratko
2015: David Audretsch
2016: Andrew Zacharakis
2017: Charles H. Matthews
2018: Tom Lumpkin
2019: Marc Gruber
2020: Lowell W. Busenitz
2021: Michael A. Hitt
2022: Jeffrey McMullen
2023: Maria Minniti
2024: Peter Klein
We look forward to receiving nominations.
Sincerely,
Jon C. Carr
ENT Past Division Chair
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Jon Carr
Distinguished Professor
North Carolina State University
Raleigh NC
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