Publication Awards

OB Division awards

Publication awards

The OB Division presents two publication awards each year: one recognizing the most significant scholarly contribution to the advancement of organizational behavior, and one recognizing the publication that most significantly shapes the practice of management in the field.

Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior Award

Sponsored by the Journal of Managerial Psychology

This award recognizes the publication that represents the most significant contribution to the advancement of the field of organizational behavior.

2025 recipients

Laura J. Kray
University of California
Jessica A. Kennedy
Vanderbilt University
Margaret Lee
University of California

Kray, L. J., Kennedy, J. A., & Lee, M. (2024). Now, women do ask: A call to update beliefs about the gender pay gap. Academy of Management Discoveries, 10(1), 11-37.

From the award committee

It's such a delight to discover a paper that proves we have been wrong about an assumption we have clearly taken for granted for too long. OB scholars need to be exposed to this type of research and, more importantly, actively engage in the academic dialectic, not only by writing papers that challenge the status quo, but also by being willing to accept and support such work as reviewers. Overall, this paper is both theoretically significant (by updating the literature) and academically valuable (by exemplifying the importance of dialectical progress in science). Our field will learn something critical from this cogent, rigorous, and insightful paper, which is also elegantly framed, clearly written, and easy to read. Kudos to the authors for having the guts to challenge precedent, show that things have changed, and do so with such clarity and rigor that we can put the final nail in the coffin of the "women don't ask" chorus.

Past recipients by year
  • 2024 — Chatterjee, A. (ESSEC Business School), Ghosh, A. (Suleyman Demirel University), & Leca, B. (ESSEC Business School), for Double weaving: A bottom-up process of connecting locations and scales to mitigate grand challenges. Academy of Management Journal, 66(3), 797-828.
  • 2023 — Natalya Alonso (University of Calgary) and Olivia (Mandy) O'Neill (George Mason University), for Going Along to Get Ahead: The Asymmetric Effects of Sexist Joviality on Status Conferral, Organization Science, 33(5), 1794-1815.
  • 2022 — Priti Pradhan Shah (U. Minnesota), Randall Peterson (London Business School), Stephen Jones (U. Washington Bothell), and Amanda Ferguson (Northern Illinois U.), for Things are not always what they seem: The origins and evolution of intergroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 66, 426-474.
  • 2021 — Allison Gabriel (U. Arizona), Sabrina Volpone (U. Colorado Boulder), Rebecca MacGowan (U. Arizona), Marcus Butts (SMU) and Christina Moram (March and Co).
  • 2020 — Jennifer Chatman (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley), Lindred L. Greer (University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business), Eliot Sherman (London Business School), and Bernadette Doerr (UC Berkeley Haas School of Business) for Blurred Lines: How the Collectivism Norm Operates Through Perceived Group Diversity to Boost or Harm Group Performance in Himalayan Mountain Climbing.
  • 2019 — Aruna Ranganathan (Stanford), for The artisan and his audience: Identification with work and price setting in a handicraft cluster in Southern India. Administrative Science Quarterly, 63: 637-667.
  • 2018 — Riana Brands (London Business School) & Isabel Fernandez-Mateo (London Business School) for Leaning Out: How Negative Recruitment Experiences Shape Women's Decisions to Compete for Executive Roles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 62, 405-442.
  • 2017 — Jason Greenberg (New York University), Ethan Mollick (University of Pennsylvania) for Activist Choice Homophily and the Crowdfunding of Female Founders. Administrative Science Quarterly, 62, 2, 341-374.
  • 2016 — Yan Zhang (Peking University), David Waldman (Arizona State University), Yu-Lan Han (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics), and Xiao-Bei Li (East China University of Science and Technology) for Paradoxical leader behaviors in people management: Antecedents and consequences. Academy of Management Journal, 58: 538-566.
  • 2015 — Tiziana Casciaro (Rotman School of Management), Francesca Gino (Harvard Business School), Maryam Kouchaki (Kellogg School of Management) for The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59, 4, 705-735.
  • 2014 — Daniel Cable (London Business School), Francisco Gino (Harvard Business School), and Bradley Staats (University of North Carolina) for Breaking Them In or Eliciting Their Best? Reframing Socialization Around Newcomers' Authentic Self-Expression. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58, 1-36.
  • 2013 — Ethan S. Bernstein (Harvard University) for The transparency paradox: A role for privacy in organizational learning and operational control. Administrative Science Quarterly, 57, 181-216.
  • 2012 — James Detert (Cornell University) and Amy Edmondson (Harvard University) for Implicit voice theories: Taken-for-granted rules of self-censorship at work. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 461-488.
  • 2011 — Emilio J. Castilla (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Stephen Benard (Indiana University) for The paradox of meritocracy in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55, 543-576.
  • 2010 — J. Stuart Bunderson (Washington University at St. Louis) and Jeffery A. Thompson (Brigham Young University) for The call of the wild: Zookeepers, callings, and the double-edged sword of deeply meaningful work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 54, 32-57.
  • 2009 — Joshua Margolis (Harvard University) and Andrew Molinsky (Brandeis University) for Navigating the bind of necessary evils: Psychological engagement and the production of interpersonally sensitive behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 51(5), 847-872.
  • 2008 — Arijit Chatterjee and Donald C. Hambrick for It's all about me: Narcissistic chief executive officers and their effects on company strategy and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52(3), 351-386.
  • 2007 — Glen Kreiner, Elaine Hollensbe, and Matthew Sheep for Where is the "me" among "we"? Identity work and the search for optimal balance. Academy of Management Journal, 49(5), 1031-1057.
  • 2006 — Raymond T. Sparrowe & Robert C. Liden, for Two routes to influence: Integrating leader-member exchange and network perspectives. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 505-535.
  • 2005 — Seibert, S. E., Silver, S. R., & Randolph, W. A., for Taking empowerment to the next level: A multiple-level model of empowerment, performance, and satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 332-349.
  • 2004 — Elsbach, K.D., & Kramer, R.M. for Assessing creativity in Hollywood pitch meetings: Evidence for a dual process model of creativity judgments. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 283-301.
  • 2004 — Schneider, B., Hanges, P. J., Smith, D. B., & Salvaggio, A. N. for Which comes first: Employee attitudes or organizational financial and market performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 836-851.
  • 2003 — Jeff Polzer, Laurie Milton and Bill Swann for Capitalizing on Diversity: Interpersonal Congruence in Small Work Groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47 (2) 296-324.
  • 2003 — Jim Harter, Frank Schmidt and Ted Hayes for Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87 (2), 268-279.
  • 2002 — Terry Mitchell and Tom Lee for The unfolding model of voluntary turnover and job embeddedness: Foundations for a comprehensive theory of attachment. Research in Organizational Behavior, 23, 189-246.
  • 2001 — Pino Audia, Ed Locke and Ken Smith for The Paradox of Success: An Archival and a Laboratory Study of Strategic Persistence Following Radical Environmental Change. The Academy of Management Journal, 43 (5), 837-853.
  • 2000 — Amy C. Edmondson (Harvard Business School) for Psychological safety and working behaviour in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44 (4), 350-383.
  • 1999 — Dora C. Lau and J. Keith Murnighan for Demographic Diversity and Faultlines: The Compositional Dynamics of Organizational Groups. Academy of Management Review, 23 (2), 325-340.
  • 1998 — Barbara Lawrence for The black box of organizational demography. Organization Science, 8 (1) 1-22.
  • 1995 — Chao, G. T., O'Leary-Kelly, A. M., Wolf, S., Klein, H. J., Gardner, P. D. for Organizational socialization: Its content and consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79 (5), 730-743.
  • 1993 — Anne S. Tsui, Terri D. Egan, Charles A. O'Reilly III for Being Different: Relational Demography and Organizational Attachment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 549-579.
  • 1989 — G. P. Latham, M. Erez and E.A. Locke for Resolving scientific disputes by the joint design of crucial experiments by the antagonists: application to the Erez-Latham dispute regarding participation in goal setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73 (4), 753-772.
  • 1988 — Katherine J. Klein for Employee stock ownership and employee attitudes: A test of three models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72 (2), 319-332.

Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in Organizational Behavior Award

Sponsored by the Organizational Behavior Division

This award recognizes the publication that provides the most significant contribution to the practice of management in the field of organizational behavior.

2025 recipient

Sylvia Ann Hewlett
Hewlett Consulting Partners

Hewlett, S. A. (2024). The new rules of executive presence: How leaders need to think and act now. Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 134-139.

From the award committee

This article has immediate and timely implications not only for practicing managers, but also for educators of the next generation of leaders. We so often talk about leadership qualities in amorphous ways, but Hewlett links cultural shifts to concrete behaviors and skills, giving all professionals a roadmap for leading modern organizations.

Past recipients by year
  • 2024 — Sullivan, D. M., & Bendell, B. L. (2023). Help! Lonely at work: Managerial interventions to combat employee loneliness. Business Horizons, 66(5), 655-666.
  • 2023 — James Detert (University of Virginia), Kevin Kniffin (Cornell University), & Hannes Leroy (Erasmus University Rotterdam) for Saving management from our obsession with leadership. MIT Sloan Management Review, 63(4), 1-9.
  • 2022 — Francesca Gino (Harvard Business School) and Katherine Coffman (Harvard Business School) for Unconscious Bias Training That Works. Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Sep/Oct 2021, Vol. 99, Issue 5.
  • 2021 — Robin Ely (Harvard Business School) and David Thomas (Morehouse College).
  • 2020 — Morela Hernandez (Darden School of Business, University of Virginia), Roshni Raveendhran (Darden School of Business, University of Virginia), Elizabeth Weingarten (ideas42), and Michaela Barnett (Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative, University of Virginia) for How algorithms can diversify the startup pool. MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall.
  • 2019 — Jennifer Petriglieri (INSEAD) for Talent management and the dual-career couple. Harvard Business Review, May-June: 106-113.
  • 2018 — Laura Kray (Berkley) & Jessica Kennedy (Vanderbilt) for Changing the Narrative: Women as Negotiators—and Leaders. California Management Review, 60, 70-87.
  • 2017 — Frank Dobbin (Harvard University), Alexandra Kalev (Tel Aviv University) for Why Diversity Programs Fail. Harvard Business Review, July-August 2016, 52-60.
  • 2016 — Herminia Ibarra (INSEAD) for The authenticity paradox. Harvard Business Review, January-February 2015, 52-59.
  • 2015 — Ethan Bernstein (Harvard Business School) for The Transparency Trap. Harvard Business Review, 92(10) 58-66.
  • 2014 — Lisa Calvano (West Chester University) for Tug of War: Caring for Our Elders While Remaining Productive at Work. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(3) 204-218.
  • 2013 — Alex Pentland (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for The New Science of Building Great Teams. Harvard Business Review, 90(4), 60-70.
  • 2012 — Gary Ballinger (University of Virginia), Elizabeth Craig (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Rob Cross (University of Virginia) and Peter Gray (Boston College) for A stitch in time saves nine: Leveraging networks to reduce the costs of turnover. California Management Review, 53, 111-133.
  • 2011 — David G. Allen (University of Memphis), Phillip C. Bryant (Christian Brothers University), and James M. Varadaman (Mississippi State University) for Retaining talent: Replacing misconceptions with evidence-based strategies. Academy of Management Perspectives, 24, 48-64.
  • 2010 — Haig Nalbantian and Richard Guzzo (both Mercer Human Resource Consulting) for Making mobility matter. Harvard Business Review, March 2009, 76-84.
  • 2009 — Rob Cross (University of Virginia) and Robert Thomas (Tufts University) for How top talent uses networks and where rising stars get trapped. Organizational Dynamics, 2008, 37: 165-180.
  • 2008 — David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone for A leader's framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, November 2007.
  • 2007 — Brooks C. Holtom, Terence R. Mitchell, & Thomas W. Lee for Increasing human and social capital by applying job embeddedness theory. Organizational Dynamics, 35(4), 316-331.
  • 2006 — D. Christopher Hayes, for The destructive pursuit of idealized goals. Organizational Dynamics, 34(4), 391-401.