UHV professor's management research wins 2007 Best Paper Award
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| Stephanie Solansky |
The paper, titled "Radical Change Accidentally: The Emergence and Amplification of Small Change," was named one of three finalists for the award in June and then won the 2007 Best Paper Award earlier this month during the Academy of Management's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.
The best paper was selected from the 60 articles published in 2007 in the Academy of Management Journal, which has a circulation of 18,100 and is published six times a year. The journal has been published for more than 50 years as a way to present research about new management thoughts and techniques.
The journal's six-member Advisory Council chose the best paper based on four criteria, said Duane Ireland, journal editor and Texas A&M University Bennett Chair in Business. The paper had to address an important idea or question. The research methods used for the paper had to provide sound, clear answers to the question, and the paper had to have a theory that advanced an understanding of organizations. Finally, the paper had to be expected to affect future management research and practices.
"Having one's work chosen as the best paper appearing in a particular year in the Academy of Management Journal is truly an honor," he said. "Of course, we are very pleased that Professor Solansky and her colleagues chose to submit their work to AMJ."
Solansky said the idea for the paper came about when she was working on a decision-making consulting project with the other authors. Through this project, they examined how an organizations decision to offer breakfast to homeless people dramatically altered the organization and its environment. The authors found that existing theories of change did not fully explain the type of change they observed. This led to them coming up with a new perspective of change.
Jifu Wang, interim dean of the School of Business Administration, praised Solansky for her work.
"It is no small feat to receive the Best Paper Award from AMJ, the premier empirical journal in the field of management," he said. "Dr. Solansky's work in the management field truly is inspiring to all of us in the School of Business Administration."
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
