FRANK T. ROTHAERMEL TO RECEIVE THE 2026 STR OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR AWARD
2026 STR Outstanding Educator Award
The STR Outstanding Educator Award recognizes (in even years) an established strategy scholar who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to MBA/executive education in strategic management. The award recipient's contributions typically include outstanding teaching over an extended period, demonstrated mastery of the field, training future business leaders with an impactful strategic perspective, and developing and disseminating teaching methods or materials widely adopted by others.
The 2026 STR Outstanding Educator Award for Excellence in MBA/Executive education goes to Frank T. Rothaermel!
Frank T. Rothaermel is a Regents’ Professor, the highest academic rank in the University System of Georgia. He holds the Russell and Nancy McDonough Chair in the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is an Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellow, and is a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award. He holds a Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the University of Washington, an MBA from Brigham Young University, and a Diplom-Volkswirt in Economics from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, a degree broadly recognized as equivalent to a U.S. master’s.
Professor Rothaermel is the author of Strategic Management, the #1 strategy textbook in the United States since its fifth edition, with translations into Greek, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish; and has written 70 case studies distributed by Harvard Business Impact (HBI) and McGraw Hill, including 34 HBI bestsellers. Frank received the Theory-to-Practice Award from the Vienna Strategy Forum at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and the Kauffman Foundation recognizes him as one of the world’s 75 thought leaders in entrepreneurship and innovation.
Professor Rothaermel is a global leader in evidence-based teaching and learning. He is the recipient of the Strategic Management Society Educational Impact Award, and Harvard Business Impact has recognized him as the #1 bestselling case author in corporate strategy for undergraduate education, reflecting exceptional global classroom reach and instructional impact. He received Georgia Tech’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award, the Institute’s highest honor for research-driven innovation in pedagogy.
Professor Rothaermel’s research focuses on strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He has published extensively in the field’s leading journals, including Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, and Academy of Management Review. Based on papers in the top 1% by citations, Thomson Reuters named him one of the world’s most influential scientific minds, ranking him among the top scholars in economics and business for sustained research impact. He is also listed among the world’s top 2% most-cited researchers by Stanford University’s Meta-Research Innovation Center, with 27,500 citations on Google Scholar. ScholarGPS ranked him among the top 0.5% of business and management scholars worldwide and #10 globally for lifetime impact in technological innovation.
In recognizing Prof. Rothaermel’s contributions, the Awards Committee underscored the impact of his textbook and cases on strategy teaching, as well as the various recognitions he received from universities and external sources. Testimonials offered on his behalf noted that “his remarkable textbook has now become a pillar of the field from which legions of students have been taught the fundamentals of strategic management. In addition, he has also written a series of outstanding cases (which he frequently updates), which have also had an outsized impact. As a strong and active scholar, Frank’s contributions to teaching have a rigorous foundation in scholarship and intellectual leadership.”
The STR Division congratulates Frank T. Rothaermel on being selected as the 2026 Outstanding Educator Award Winner and thanks him for his important contributions to teaching and scholarship. Prof. Rothaermel will be recognized in the Award Session at the 2026 AOM Annual Meeting, where he will provide a keynote speech. We hope to see you all in the award session to celebrate Professor Rothaermel!
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Isin Guler
STR Division Chair Elect
Kenan-Flagler Business School
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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