MGMT Awards 2025

24 June 2025 by Merete Elmann

This year a total of six awards were given out at the summer get-together 19 June. The traditional three awards from the Departmental Council and three research awards from the MGMT Research Committee based on the list of articles published in journals ranked as 4/4* on the Academic Journal Guide.

And the awards went to:

Teacher of the Year 2024-25: Finn Schøler
Finn Schøler won the Teacher of the Year award. Finn has consistently stepped up as a dependable problem-solver in the accounting group, which has historically faced recruitment challenges. For many years, he has reliably filled critical teaching gaps whenever the need has arisen, consistently approaching these responsibilities with a positive and collaborative attitude. Finn has supervised a substantial number of seminars and theses across all programmes. Whenever additional supervisory capacity is required- even at short notice - Finn reliably offers his support, demonstrating a strong commitment to student guidance and academic responsibility. His teaching is grounded in a thoughtful understanding of what students truly need to grasp within the subject matter, consistently prioritising depth and rigour over convenience.
See the full nomination and other teacher nominations at https://mgmt.staff.au.dk/news/mgmt-newsletters/nominations-teacher

PhD Student of the Year 2024-25: Jason Dipalma
Jason Dipalma received the the PhD Student of the Year award because he deserves some recognition. Jason has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to fostering a collaborative and supportive environment among the PhD students and research assistants in our hallway. He often takes initiative to engage socially and is even hosting an event to ease our foreign colleagues into SKAT and the maze of "forskudsopgørelsen". Moreover, he has a positive and outgoing personality as seen on his very scientific LinkedIn videos, in which he helps the department by highlighting the fun in academia while representing Management.
See all the PhD nominations at https://mgmt.staff.au.dk/news/mgmt-newsletters/nominations-phd

Colleague of the Year 2024-25: Inger Larsen
Inger Larsen won the title of Colleague of the Year – a title that truly fits her. Inger is an invaluable asset, not just to the secretariat, but to everyone around her. Her extensive knowledge, skills, and willingness to help have made her an indispensable support. There is a reason we call her "Inger's hotline" – no matter the challenge, she always has answers, ideas, and solutions that bring everything together seamlessly. But Inger is not just a source of knowledge – she is also a source of calm. She maintains a cool overview in any situation and handles even the most complex tasks with impressive confidence. Moreover, Inger brings a positive energy that is contagious. She greets each day with a smile, has a great sense of humour, and helps create a pleasant and uplifting atmosphere among colleagues.
See the full nomination and other colleague nominations at https://mgmt.staff.au.dk/news/mgmt-newsletters/nominations-colleague

MGMT PhD Research Award 2024-25: Caroline Kjær Børsting
PhD Student Caroline Kjær Børsting received the award based on her article: 'Choosing not to see: Visual inattention as a method of information avoidance'. Caroline is first author. Co- authors are Aleksandr Batuev, Shaul Shalvi, Jacob Lund Orquin. The article has been published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in November 2024. Focussing on information avoidance in these times of fake news and information overload is interesting. Choosing to use eye tracking to investigate the behaviour is innovative and inspiring.
The committee is impressed that Caroline already as a PhD student has been able to publish an article at this level. Caroline's achievement is also a good example of early carreer development done by her supervisors Jacob Orquin and Carsten Bergenholtz. Congratulations Caroline. So well deserved!

MGMT Junior Research Award 2024-25: Athanasia Lampraki
Assistant Professor Athanasia Lampraki (Nancy) won the the Junior Research Award for the article 'The new friends: Simmelian strangers and the selection of novelty, published in Strategic Management Society'. Nancy is first author. Co-authors are Cristos Kolympiris,Thorsten Grohsjean, T., & Linus Dahlander. The article touches a field close to our academic hearts. Organisations (like our own) often face a paradox: they want to select novel ideas but tend to reject them. This study examins how seconded employees can help. Through both quantitative data and interviews at the National Science Foundation's secondment programme, the authors found that seconded employees choose more novel ideas and influence permanent staff to do the same. This suggests a simple intervention can significantly boost the acceptance of innovative ideas, offering valuable insights for those in the science and innovation.
The committee finds this inspiring also for our own way of working with idea creation here at MGMT. Congratulations Nancy!

MGMT Senior Research Award 2024-25: Michela Beretta
Associate Professor Michela Beretta has over the years consistenly published in top journals like Research Policy and Journal of Product Innovation Management:

Selina Lehmann, Michela Beretta, Hung Dao, Bernd Ebersberger; 'Are You Judging Me Or My Idea? How Feedback Impacts Future Idea Success In Web-Based Idea Management Systems', The paper has been published in Journal of Product Innovation Management.
Michela Beretta, Dirk Deichmann, Lars Frederiksen, Daan Stam; 'Do you see what I see? How expertise and a decision-maker role influence the recognition and selection of novel ideas'. The article has been publiced in Research Policy.

Michela has build strong research collaborations with international teams, thus inspiring the department on this focus area of the MGMT research evaluation and strategic development. She has set a good standard for our international societal outreach activities by sharing her research findings with practioners through practitioner-oriented journals like MIT Sloan Management Review and California Management Review: