Professor Marno Verbeek, RSM Dean of Research and Scientific Director of ERIM, opened the award ceremony reflecting on this year’s milestones and on the future. He talked about the impressive number of scientific events organised in 2015 (over 250, or on average one per working day!), the fact that the Research Master programme has been reaccredited by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation organisation (NVAO) and of the fact that ERIM received over 4 million euros in research grants. Looking forward to 2016, a major event on campus will be the EFMD Doctoral Programme conference hosted by ERIM in May.
Professor Huibert Pols, rector magnificus of Erasmus University Rotterdam, was present to name and present the ERIM Award recipients.
The 2015 Junior Top Article Award, for the best publication in management with a junior ERIM member as the lead author, has been awarded for the second time. It was presented to Dirk Deichmann for his article with Professor Jan van den Ende, “Rising from failure and learning from success: The role of past experience in radical initiative taking” published in Organization Science. Dirk Deichmann is assistant professor at the Department of Technology and Operations Management at RSM. The jury said: “This article uses an innovative data set to examine highly relevant questions related to learning in the context of radical initiatives. The jury especially appreciates the unexpected finding that failures, rather than successes, of initiators increase the likelihood of repeat initiative taking. The results of the paper therefore provide important and clear guidelines for practice.”
The 2015 Top Article Impact Award is granted for an article published by ERIM faculty having made the most impressive academic impact. Also awarded for the second time, it was presented to John Roberts (London Business School), Ujwal Kayande (Melbourne Business School), and Stefan Stremersch (ESE), for their article "From academic research to marketing practice: Exploring the marketing science value chain" published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing. The jury said: “This excellent paper is unique in that it connects marketing research in academia and in practice. By introducing and giving content to the concept of the “marketing science value chain” this paper will have a crucial impact on the way we do research and the way we turn research into practice. Therefore, this paper excels in both its academic impact as well as its impact on practice.”
The 2015 Dissertation Award was presented to Ivana Naumovska from RSM for her dissertation entitled “Socially Situated Financial Markets: A Neo-Behavioral Perspective on Firms, Investors and Practices”. Promoters were professors Pursey Heugens and Abe de Jong. Ivana Naumovska now is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD. The jury said: “This is a timely, important and well-written dissertation that exceeds all the standards for a PhD thesis. Ivana carefully positions each chapter in a specific strand of literature, connecting to both finance and more general management literature. The individual chapters are excellent, and it is very exceptional to find them back in top journals from various academic domains as outlets, such as Review of Finance, and ASQ.”
The 2015 ERIM Award for Outstanding Performance by a Young Researcher, for ERIM Members or ERIM Associate Members who received their PhD less than five years ago, went to Gabriele Paolacci, Assistant Professor at the Department of Marketing Management at RSM. The Jury says: “For this award we had a number of excellent candidates, exemplary of the large pool of young talent that is currently at ERIM. Gabriele has been very productive in the last years, leading to some excellent publications with an exceptionally high number of citations. Several of his papers focus on Amazon’s mechanical Turk, an interesting and relatively novel tool for hiring a flex workforce for simple self-contained tasks. The recently acquired VENI grant reflects Gabriele’s academic quality, his research potential and the originality of his work.”
ERIM continues to honour the research support services of Erasmus University’s staff members. High-quality services play a vital role in enabling top academic research. This award aims to recognise that. The ERIM Management Team selects the recipients of the award. For 2015, the ERIM Service Award was presented to the Support Team of the Erasmus Behavioural Lab: Gerrit-Jan de Bie, Christiaan Tieman and Marcel Boom. The jury said: “Gerrit-Jan and his team are true service professionals, always ready to help. The EBL team supports ERIM researchers with all their lab activities in a pro-active, effective and efficient way, and they are always ready to go the extra mile. In combination with their great loyalty for the organization, they are a leading example of outstanding support for our research business.”
Rounding out this year’s award programme was the 2015 Award for the Impact on Management Practice going to INSCOPE, directed by Professor Henk Volberda, of the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at RSM, supported by dr. Kevin Heij The jury said: “Professor Volberda and his team are leading the debate on innovation and especially the item of social innovation. INSCOPE Research and innovation is impressive in what it attempts to do, and is a great example of how businesses can benefit from academic knowledge. Media appearances of its director, and the annual Innovation Award, are nice illustrations of the impact of this research centre.” In his short thank you speech, Professor Volberda said that he considers this award as a recognition of the achievements of the research institute. Numerous management scholars affiliated to INSCOPE, such as Professor Frans van den Bosch and Dr Rick Hollen, and support from ERIM, such as from former executive director Wilfred Mijnhardt, were instrumental to realise those achievements.”
