Risk paper wins Organisation and Management best paper award

25 June 2007

Two academics from the Australian School of Business™ have received a best paper award from the prestigious Academy of Management Review (AMR).

The paper, authored by Associate Professor Prithviraj Chattopadhyay and Associate Professor Elizabeth George, from UNSW’s School of Organisation and Management, was judged the best of the 47 papers published in the AMR in 2006.

The AMR is the highest rated theory journal in the management field and also has the highest impact factor in that area.

The paper, Cognitive underpinnings of institutional persistence and change: A framing perspective, was chosen for its innovative integration of prospect theory and threat-rigidity theory with institutional theory.

Prospect theory is how people make choices in situations when each alternative involves some risk, particularly risk linked to material resources. Threat-rigidity theory explains organisational responses to loss of control over the environment. Institutional theory considers how rules and norms become authoritative guidelines for social behaviour.

Judges were impressed with the way the paper brought across new ideas in micro-level research, and shed light on institutional persistence and change.

Associate Professor Chattopadhyay and Associate Professor George will receive their award in August, at the Academy of Management’s annual meeting in Philadephia.