SIM Awards

2025 Sumner Marcus Award

Jeremy Moon (Copenhagen Business School)

"It was a great honour to receive this award, particularly at the AoM conference in Copenhagen, and to be the first European recipient. The buzz lingered at the workshop/reception organized by my department, Management Society & Communication, on the following day, bringing together friends from around the world and family. One contributor read the nomination text submitted for the award by former PhDs, post-docs and colleagues which was truly humbling. It also underlined that my business and society journey has been a shared one, with respect to both elements of the award ’service and scholarship’.

It began in the early 1980s UK whilst investigating local employment initiatives in the context of mass unemployment, we kept finding companies acting in ways we had not anticipated; call it CSR. It continued in Australia: examining local initiatives; surveying Australian CSR and CSR & school education; and relating the findings to social capital.

As much of this CSR was framed or sparked by public policy, government has pervaded much of my thinking about the topic. The journey took another turn in the 2000s at the International Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Nottingham University Business School. Many wonderful collaborations unfolded, including researching: corporate citizenship; comparative CSR; implicit & explicit CSR; government policies for CSR; CSR and gender; and much more. We also invested heavily in CSR education, including MSc, MBA and executive programmes, and graduating 20+ PhDs.

And then to Copenhagen Business School where I have learned more about Nordic approaches, continued teaching and supervising, and collaborating, including on: responses to the Rana Plaza disaster; corporations and governance; and two edited texts.

And finally, in all these years, I have been welcomed in institutions around the world enriching my understanding of the field. So, a very big thanks to all who have journeyed with me in exploring our field, as well as in bringing the fun and strength of friendship." - Jeremy Moon

2025 Ann K. Buchholtz Award

R. Edward Freeman (University of Virginia)

"This is a very humbling award to me.

Of course I knew Ann and her incredible spirit that helped define SIM. When I was a Newbie, first time at AOM in 1980, Jim Post, Bill Frederick, Archie Carroll and others took me under their wings. I would have been lost without them. I have tried to repay them by spending time with doctoral students, early career Simians, and others that sought my help. It's one of the things that is most important to me as I stare at the end of my career. And it is the thing I enjoy the most. I can never live up to the standard that Ann Buchholz set, or even my early mentors who are legendary in their efforts to help build SIM and help Simians whenever they were asked.

Thank you for this wonderful award. I want to at least try to give back what so many have given to me." - R. Edward Freeman

2025 SIM Leadership Award

Michelle Westermann-Behaylo (University of Amsterdam)

"I am honoured to receive the 2025 SIM Division Leadership Award. It has been a labour of love to serve the SIM division for the past years on the executive track and before that in various roles organizing SIM PDWs. It has been so meaningful to me to give back to this Division as SIM has been an enormous source of support throughout my career. It is clear to me that I would not have an academic career today without the guidance, mentorship and collegiality I have benefitted from through SIM.

Like many doctoral students, I felt lost at AOM meetings until the SIM doctoral consortium helped me form a community with my fellow students and connect with mentors, many of whom have become my lifelong friends and co-authors. Their advice and encouragement helped me negotiate the demands of the PhD and later tenure-track while raising small children. My first academic position came about through an introduction and reference from an esteemed SIM scholar I met during SIM’s doctoral consortium. Wisdom and learned experience conveyed during SIM’s junior faculty consortium helped me to make sense of the challenges of tenure track and understand how to find my pace. Benefitting from SIM’s research development workshops and speed networking sessions helped me to publish my research and connect with leaders in new areas of thought that have shaped my scholarship over the years. It would take several pages to thank all the specific SIMians who have had such important influences on my career-but suffice it to say that you know who you are and please know I am eternally grateful!

It has been an exciting time to serve in SIM leadership, given the Division strategic review that took place in the 24/25 academic year. I am grateful for the wonderful review team who volunteered to serve SIM and undertook this important opportunity to make the most of our Division-more on that in another article in this newsletter. The Division membership survey confirmed that there is a deep bench of energetic talent within SIM who are just as passionate about giving back to our members. SIM members have terrific ideas of how to develop our Division to provide even more support, insight, learning and community-building opportunities and continue to build up SIM. Taking this valuable input from our membership, the Review Team developed a structure that will hopefully harness that energy and empower our members to take SIM to new heights. I’m grateful particularly to Erica Steckler, current SIM Division Chair, Rajat Panwar, SIM Division Chair-Elect, Punit Arora, SIM Program Chair, and Jegoo Lee, SIM Program-Chair- Elect, who have all stepped up in a wonderfully inclusive manner to build out this structure and put new traditions into place. I am confident that with Erica leading this fantastic team, SIM’s future is in excellent hands!" - Michelle Westermann-Behaylo

2025 William C. Frederick Outstanding Dissertation Award

Wenjie Liu (City University of Hong Kong)

"Winning this year’s William C. Frederick Outstanding Dissertation Award is a tremendous honor. I am truly humbled to receive this recognition, an encouraging reminder to keep pursuing the research I deeply care about. While the sustained economic expansion of the Chinese economy has led to significant welfare increases of most Chinese citizens, it has also brought about pressing environmental and social challenges.

At the same time, China’s economic growth has evolved through a system of industrial governance and political involvement that is very distinct from the Western trajectory. This dissertation builds endemically Chinese theoretical explanations for the institutional arrangements that drive sustainable business in China, based on how politically constrained NGOs clean local supply chains by leveraging the influence of foreign multinationals, and how the party-state spurs corporate social activities through reinterpreting the prevailing political ideology. I hope that my dissertation research will inspire scholars, both from the East and from the West, to revisit their current views on the contributions of indigenous research to global management knowledge and will encourage them to embrace an indigenous perspective in studying some endemic questions.

This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support of many people. I owe enormous gratitude to my PhD supervisors, Pursey Heugens and Frank Wijen, for their invaluable mentorship throughout my PhD journey. I also would like to thank other committee members, Christopher Marquis, Rose Xiaowei Luo, and Brian Pinkham, for their thoughtful feedback on my dissertation and helpful advice about academic life. I have also been fortunate to receive consistent intellectual support from colleagues at the Rotterdam School of Management. Finally, a heartfelt thank you to the 2025 SIM Division award committee, Lea Stadtler, Iteke van Hille, Laura Adler, and Alex Kowalski, and to the award sponsors, Mildred Myers and James Weber, for this recognition!" - Wenjie Liu

2025 Outstanding Paper Award

Onna Malou van den Broek, Stefano Pascucci, and Laura J. Spence

Governing Sustainability Locally: A Place-Based Cornish Case Study

Abstract: Sustainability scholars have traditionally focussed on global and national governance spheres, but the increase of “localism” means that subnational governments and local governance-including local businesses-are also becoming an integral part of these systems. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a rural county in the South-West of England, we examine how the concept of place impacts local sustainability governance. We contribute by: (1) demonstrating how local sustainability governance is part of broader multilevel governance systems, in which governance divisions happens along place-based lines rather than public-private spheres; (2) theorising how local sustainability governance is different because of its “local pragmatist” approach, emphasizing problem-solving, deliberation, creative action, and experimentation between local businesses, governments and civil society; and (3) explaining how local sustainability governance can alters the initial ‘sense of place’ through collective place-forming, bridging insights from geography studies. Our contributions help to complete the picture of sustainability governance and sketches an alternative, place-based governance system to enhance the resilience of societies and economies in the face of sustainability challenges.

2025 Outstanding Business Ethics Paper Award

Marian Eabrasu

When Corporate Social Responsibility Implies Breaking the Law: Integrating the Right to Corporate Disobedience into CSR

Abstract: This study investigates how U.S. media outlets grant or deny legitimacy to ethical resistance, focusing on two objectives: identifying the factors shaping legitimacy judgments and examining the influence of self-legitimating signals in media legitimizing behavior. Using a mixed-methods approach, we combine quantitative correspondence analysis with qualitative thematic analysis of 27 cases of ethical resistance during Donald Trump’s first presidency, which were discussed across 7,607 media articles. Our findings challenge the assumption that ethically informed acts inherently achieve legitimacy. Procedural conformity often outweighs moral considerations, as media outlets prioritize adherence to institutional norms and strategic priorities. We uncover a spectrum of media responses, reflecting how outlets balance their roles as gatekeepers, evaluators, and self-legitimizing entities. These legitimacy judgments involve self-interested calculations that emphasize institutional credibility over ethical advocacy. This research advances legitimacy theory by illustrating how ethical followership contends with procedural logics in media legitimacy activities. It highlights the strategic nature of media legitimacy construction. It offers practical guidance for leaders to overcome social issues in management, underscoring the importance of aligning institutional frameworks with ethical followership to enhance legitimacy and reduce misrepresentation in a media-driven landscape.

2025 Outstanding Student Paper Award

Jens Joachim Marga, Miriam Muethel

What Makes Legitimacy: Media Legitimacy Signaling and Judgments on Ethical Resistance

Abstract: This study investigates how U.S. media outlets grant or deny legitimacy to ethical resistance, focusing on two objectives: identifying the factors shaping legitimacy judgments and examining the influence of self-legitimating signals in media legitimizing behavior. Using a mixed-methods approach, we combine quantitative correspondence analysis with qualitative thematic analysis of 27 cases of ethical resistance during Donald Trump’s first presidency, which were discussed across 7,607 media articles. Our findings challenge the assumption that ethically informed acts inherently achieve legitimacy. Procedural conformity often outweighs moral considerations, as media outlets prioritize adherence to institutional norms and strategic priorities. We uncover a spectrum of media responses, reflecting how outlets balance their roles as gatekeepers, evaluators, and self-legitimizing entities. These legitimacy judgments involve self-interested calculations that emphasize institutional credibility over ethical advocacy. This research advances legitimacy theory by illustrating how ethical followership contends with procedural logics in media legitimacy activities. It highlights the strategic nature of media legitimacy construction. It offers practical guidance for leaders to overcome social issues in management, underscoring the importance of aligning institutional frameworks with ethical followership to enhance legitimacy and reduce misrepresentation in a media-driven landscape.

2025 Outstanding Book Award

R. Edward Freeman, Andrew Sell

Defeating Dengue: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Problem Solving

A few words from Petya Koleva, outstanding book award committee chair:

The SIM Outstanding Book Award serves as a distinguished recognition of scholarly excellence within the Social Issues in Management community. Established to honour works that significantly advance our understanding of the relationship between business, society, and ethical responsibility, the award reflects the Division’s longstanding commitment to impactful knowledge production. Its purpose is not solely to celebrate high-quality academic writing, but to highlight books that challenge assumptions, reframe debates, and provide novel insights into how organisations intersect with social, environmental, and institutional concerns. Through this recognition, SIM reinforces the understanding that responsible scholarship is central to navigating contemporary organisational challenges, contributing to positive societal outcomes, and influencing future generations of research.

The award’s significance lies in its ability to elevate texts that demonstrate conceptual depth, methodological innovation, and practical relevance. Winning books often become key reference points for scholars, students, and practitioners, shaping course curricula, informing policy discussions, and guiding executive decision-making. It also strengthens the visibility of emerging research areas within the Academy of Management, adding momentum to themes gaining global traction, such as sustainability transitions, stakeholder legitimacy, algorithmic ethics, and institutional resilience. By showcasing exemplary scholarship, the award amplifies voices that push disciplinary boundaries and encourages others to pursue intellectually courageous work.

The selection process is competitive, rigorous, and reflective of the diversity within the SIM research community. Submitted books are assessed within a defined publication window to ensure timeliness and relevance. The committee reviews each text independently before convening to discuss findings, identify thematic patterns, and agree on a shortlist. Selection criteria include intellectual originality, theoretical contribution, clarity of argumentation, and engagement with real-world issues. Methodological robustness, accessibility to broader audiences, and the potential to shape future scholarly conversations are also essential considerations. Particular attention is paid to whether the book advances pressing debates within business and society research, offers compelling evidence, and demonstrates sensitivity to global and institutional contexts. The deliberation process is grounded in consensus-building, open dialogue, and fairness, ensuring that all perspectives are represented.

Notable highlights from this year’s submissions demonstrate the vibrancy and evolution of the field. A strong interdisciplinary presence was immediately evident, with several books integrating insights from political theory, sociology, anthropology, and environmental studies. Many titles addressed emerging concerns around climate governance, digital surveillance, post-pandemic organisational reconfiguration, and the ethical tensions embedded in AI-mediated work. There was also an encouraging increase in research rooted in non-Western institutional environments, providing substantive contributions to global debates on legitimacy, cultural embeddedness, and context-specific responsibility.

Methodologically, this year’s cohort showcased innovation far beyond traditional narrative forms, including longitudinal qualitative designs, visual process modelling, and multi-level institutional analysis. Books grounded in practice-oriented frameworks offered clear relevance for policymakers, corporate boards, and civil society organisations, illustrating how scholarship can inform action. Overall, the breadth, sophistication, and originality of submissions made the committee’s decision both intellectually stimulating and highly competitive. Collectively, they reflect the growing maturity of SIM scholarship and its ability to meaningfully engage with an increasingly complex world.

In Defeating Dengue: A Multistakeholder Approach to Problem Solving, R. Edward Freeman and Andrew Sell present a compelling narrative that brings to life the power and complexity of stakeholder engagement. Centred around the true story of the Tahija family in Indonesia and their determined fight against dengue fever, the book delivers a rich, multi-layered case study that highlights how collaboration among diverse actors can lead to profound, real-world change.

The authors deftly unpack the core elements of a multistakeholder approach-including collaboration, shared responsibility, inclusion of diverse perspectives, and sustainability-through vivid storytelling and strategic reflection. The tale of the Tahijas is not just a story of triumph over disease; it is a testament to how theory and practice can intersect to produce impactful, localized solutions.

Importantly, the book also candidly explores the challenges of multistakeholder problem-solving, including coordination complexity, conflicting interests, and the endurance required to maintain collective action over time.

Ultimately, A Multistakeholder Approach to Problem Solving is a powerful example of stakeholder theory in action. It will resonate with scholars, practitioners, and students seeking to understand how engaged, cross-sector collaboration can tackle some of the world’s most persistent problems.

2025 SIM-ONE Outreach Award

Jeannie Eun Su Lee, Betina Szkudlarek

Unveiling the Canvas Ceiling: A Multidisciplinary Literature Review of Refugee Employment and Workforce Integration

Jeannie Eun Su Lee: "I am deeply honoured to receive the 2025 SIM/ONE Outreach Award. As an early-career researcher, this recognition is especially meaningful, as it highlights the growing importance of scholarship that extends beyond academic publications to inform, engage, and benefit the wider public. My research focuses on how organisations can create more equitable opportunities for migrants and refugees. This award marks a personal milestone, but more importantly, it affirms the collective effort of mentors, colleagues, and communities who have inspired and supported my journey.

I am particularly grateful to Professor Betina Szkudlarek, whose mentorship has profoundly shaped my development as a scholar and reinforced my belief that impactful research can be both intellectually rigorous and socially responsive. The SIM community has provided an academic home that values both ethical reflection and practical relevance. It embodies the conviction that management research should not only deepen understanding but also contribute to building more just, inclusive, and sustainable forms of organising. For me, outreach is a natural extension of this vision of translating research into insights that resonate beyond academia, influencing practice, policy, and public awareness.

I am sincerely thankful to the SIM and ONE Divisions for this honour, and for fostering a community that encourages researchers to see themselves not only as producers of knowledge, but as active participants in shaping a more compassionate world out there."

Betina Szkudlarek: "This award means a great deal to us because it recognizes a commitment that I believe should be central to all our work: ensuring that our research reaches and benefits the people whose lives it seeks to improve. I strongly believe that too often, as scholars, we find ourselves confined within academic “ivory towers,” speaking primarily to one another and celebrating contributions that may never touch the communities most affected by the issues we study. For me, outreach is not an add-on to research, but an integral part of the research itself. The impact of our work should extend beyond publications and conferences to inform the decisions and practices of those who can make real-world change, especially among those who are less privileged or less heard.

I hope this award will inspire others in our community to bridge the gap between research and practice, and to see outreach as an integral part of scholarly work. Together, we can make management research more inclusive, accessible, and impactful.

For those interested, more about our outreach can be found here. https://www.sydney.edu.au/business/our-research/research-partnerships/why-you-should-hire-refugees.html

Thank you again!"

2025 Reviewer Awards