STR 2026 CAREER AWARDS
Isin Guler, STR Division Chair Elect, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The STR Division invites you to attend the following Career Award Sessions. Please see the following announcements for more detail on this year’s recipients.
Aug. 2 Sunday 8am-9am: STR 2026 Career Awards Breakfast Social (Philadelphia Convention Center, 100 Level, 113C)
Aug. 2 Sunday 9am-10am: STR 2026 Distinguished Scholar Award in Honor of Sidney G. Winter (Philadelphia Convention Center, 100 Level, 113C)
Aug. 2 Sunday 10am-11am: STR 2026 Outstanding Educator Award in Honor of Frank R. Rothaermel (Philadelphia Convention Center, 100 Level, 113C)
SIDNEY G. WINTER RECEIVES THE 2026 STR DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR AWARD
2026 STR Distinguished Scholar Award
The STR Distinguished Scholar Award recognizes an individual who has developed a set of ideas that fundamentally advanced research and understanding in the field of strategic management. While these ideas may involve specific theoretical or empirical discoveries, priority is given to the discovery's importance to the field rather than the accumulation of disparate facts or findings. The intent is to recognize contributions that altered the development of the field.
The 2026 STR Distinguished Scholar Award recognizes Sidney G. Winter!
Sidney Winter is the Deloitte and Touche Professor of Management, Emeritus, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has held tenured positions at three major universities, in addition to policy research and government roles, including at The RAND Corporation, and as Chief Economist of the U.S. General Accounting Office. In addition to his earned economics degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A.) and Yale (M.A., Ph.D.), he holds honorary doctoral degrees from four European institutions and the University of Miami. Winter has earned recognition that includes election as Fellow of the Econometric Society, Fellow of the AAAS, and Fellow of the Strategic Management Society.
From the start, he has pursued a theoretical perspective on firm behavior that is more realistic than the standard neoclassical brand, and also provides better foundations and stronger links to studies of innovation, organization and managerial practice. With the late Richard Nelson, he developed the leading modern statement of an evolutionary view of economics, which in its firm-level aspects largely meets the requirements just named. The classic statement of their position is An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982), which is still in print at Harvard University Press after 43 years. It is also in print in translation into Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese. Outside of the domains of firm behavior, management and evolutionary theory, Winter has published on a variety of topics, ranging from general equilibrium theory to weather forecasting and beyond.
In conveying this award, the STR Division Awards Committee has noted that “Winter’s professional journey reflects not only extraordinary range and distinction, but also a rare capacity to shape multiple fields at once.” They provided the following statement:
“Winter’s scholarship transformed the study of strategy by introducing and developing ideas that became central to the field’s theoretical core. His work with Richard Nelson, especially An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, opened an enduring line of inquiry into routines, organizational knowledge, capabilities, firm adaptation, and competitive heterogeneity. Subsequent contributions on knowledge and competence, capability learning, replication, and dynamic capabilities gave the field not only powerful concepts, but an integrated way of understanding how organizations evolve, grow, and sustain advantage over time. At the same time, this work reached well beyond theory. His scholarship has been consequential for questions of managerial practice and public policy, illuminating issues such as firm boundaries, industrial change, appropriability, and the institutional structure of production.
The legacy of this scholarship is visible in its extraordinary reach and durability. Winter’s work has generated a remarkable level of scholarly impact, including well over 150,000 Google Scholar citations, with foundational contributions continuing to shape research across strategy, organization theory, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Just as important, that legacy endures through the generations of scholars influenced by his ideas and example. Beyond serving as a mentor, advisor, committee member and coauthor to influential scholars in the field, Winter gave his time generously in conferences and workshops to help scholars worldwide develop their ideas. Taken together, Sid's writings have guided major research programs, while his intellectual leadership and mentorship have helped cultivate a broader tradition of inquiry into routines, capabilities, and evolutionary theories of the firm. Uniquely, his work has given interested economists a bridge to strategic management, just as he has inspired countless strategic management scholars to absorb useful insights from economics.”
The STR Division congratulates Sidney G. Winter on being selected as the 2026 Distinguished Scholar Award Winner and thanks him for his seminal contributions to the field. Prof. Winter 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 Winter!
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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