Discussion: View Thread

2025 STR Guth Distinguished Service Award

The STR William D. Guth Distinguished Service Award recognizes an STR member with at least 15 years of service to the field, who has made significant contributions to activities within the STR Division, the Academy of Management, and/or to the broader field of strategic management. Award criteria include editorial contributions at journals or of edited volumes of strategy research, significant contributions to the Academy of Management, conference organizing, administrative roles, or textbook authorship.

The 2025 STR Guth Distinguished Service Award goes to Don Hambrick!

Don Hambrick is Evan Pugh University Professor and the Smeal Chaired Professor of Management, Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. He is also Bronfman Professor Emeritus at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. Don studies executive psychology, top management team dynamics, and history and evolution of the field of strategic management. He is an internationally recognized management scholar, the author of numerous articles and books on strategy formulation, strategy implementation, executive psychology, executive staffing and incentives, the composition and processes of top management teams, and corporate governance.  He teaches courses on upper echelons, strategic implementation and change, and corporate strategy. 

Aside from his ground-breaking research that includes early contributions in competitive strategy, the pioneering of upper echelon theory and much more, and the exemplary longevity of his scholarship, Don has been a multi-faceted leader for our field in many ways. He has led the BPS (former STR) Division and the whole of the Academy of Management, in each case leaving a lasting imprint and challenging the status quo – about the role of theory, about relevance, and about how scholars relate with each other – in ways that have made our field stronger. He planted then the seed that, decades later, would see this annual meeting held outside the US and Canada for the first time! He also contributed field-shaping editorial service, from serving as founding associate editor of Organization Science to special issues and conferences. Behind the scenes, his departmental and association leadership, support of junior colleagues, and contributions to upholding the standards of scholarship has been exemplary. 

Don became a fellow of the Academy of Management in 1990, was the president of the Academy of Management between 1992 and 1993, and was Dean of Fellows from 2008 to 2011. He has also served twice on the Academy of Management Board of Governors. He has received distinguished awards for educator impact from the BPS (former STR) Division and the Academy of Management.  He is a fellow of the Strategic Management Society since 2005, has served on the Strategic Management Society Board of Directors, and received the career achievement C.K. Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice in 2021.

In short, Don has been dedicated to all aspects of the field of strategy, and the Awards Committee picked Don to receive the Guth Distinguished Service Award this year to recognize his outstanding service to the field of strategic management.  

Please join us in congratulating Don for all he has done to make the field of strategy as vibrant as it is today! We will be celebrating Don at the July conference in Copenhagen and we hope that you will participate in the award session!