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Oxford University Reputation Conference 2024

Published

Best Social Evaluation Paper Award Winners.

Professor Kate Odziemkowska has won the Best Paper Award 2024.

Kate Odziemkowska, Assistant Professor at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, is today announced as the winner of the Oxford University Reputation Symposium Best Paper Award 2024. The award, selected from a field of over 1000 papers published in top ranked academic journals over the last three years, is for her single authored paper published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 2022 entitled ‘Frenemies: Overcoming Audiences’ Ideological Opposition to Firm–Activist Collaborations’. 

This paper, in the opinion of the judges, makes a valuable contribution to our collective understanding of how potential reputational concerns impede cross-sector collaborations between firms and social movement organisations (SMOs) irrespective of their potential societal benefits. Professor Odziemkowska’s paper is based on an exploration of 25 years of data on interactions between SMOs in multiple environmental movements and Fortune 500 firms.

The judges commented: ‘Kate’s paper shows how, even when SMOs want to collaborate on societal issues, fears about reputational contagion hamper putting intent into practice. We are also struck by her finding that SMOs who cooperate with peers in the social movement sector when collaborating with corporations are better able to handle the negativity that is associated with such collaborations.’

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The judges commented: ‘Kate’s paper shows how, even when SMOs want to collaborate on societal issues, fears about reputational contagion hamper putting intent into practice. We are also struck by her finding that SMOs who cooperate with peers in the social movement sector when collaborating with corporations are better able to handle the negativity that is associated with such collaborations.’

The Oxford Reputation Symposium Annual Best Paper Awards celebrate and recognise significant scholarly contributions to the literature on social evaluations, including but not limited to legitimacy, status, stigma, celebrity, reputation, and trust.

The review panel consists of Alan Morrison (Professor of Law and Finance, University of Oxford), Michael Jensen (Professor of Strategy, University of Michigan) and Rupert Younger (Director of the Oxford University centre for Corporate Reputation, University of Oxford), assisted by the postdoctoral research team at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation.

Our congratulations go also to these two excellent papers, both of which are very well-deserved runners up, offering new insights into important contemporary issues in organisational life.  And finally, our sincere thanks go to our talented colleagues at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation for their work shortlisting the body of academic work under consideration.

The Judges

Oxford University Reputation Symposium Best Paper Award 2024

In addition to the winning paper, two further papers have been awarded as joint runners up. The two runners up papers are

  • ‘How Organizations Influence Interpersonal Trust Repair: The Case of a French Antiterrorist Unit,’ published in Academy of Management Journal in 2023 by Gabriel R Sala (Northeastern University) and Michael G Pratt (Boston College); and
  • ‘The Impact of Mandated Pay Gap Transparency on Firms’ Reputations as Employers,’ published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 2022 by Amanda Sharkey (Arizona State University), Elizabeth Pontikes (University of California – Davis), and Greta Hsu (University of California – Davis).

 

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