Gupta named “Ascendant Scholar” by Western Academy of Management

Abhinav Gupta, an assistant professor of strategic management at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, has received the 2019 Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management.

The west coast affiliate of the Academy of Management bestows this distinction each year to a handful of young b-school scholars who have demonstrated an exemplary record of research, teaching and service—and even greater potential.

Gupta joined the Foster School in 2015 after earning a PhD in strategic management and organization theory from the Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business.

A Michael G. Foster Endowed Fellow, Gupta has published extensively since his arrival and earned numerous awards for his work.

Quantity and quality

His research examines the implications of political ideologies in organizational strategies and outcomes, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, social activism and inter-organizational diffusion.

Gupta’s 2018 Academy of Management Journal paper documents that a CEO’s political ideology influences resource allocation within an organization.

His 2018 paper in the Strategic Management Journal finds that firms tend to imitate competitors led by charismatic—not narcissistic—CEOs. It was featured in the London School of Economics Business Review blog.

His 2017 Administrative Science Quarterly paper exploring the way that the political ideology of boards affects CEO pay was a finalist for the Best Paper Award at the Strategic Management Conference Conference and included in the Best Paper Proceedings of the 2016 Academy of Management Meeting, and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and on the LSE Business Review blog.

His 2017 study in the Strategic Management Journal linking an organization’s political ideology with its tendency to practice corporate social responsibility was a finalist for the Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practice, Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division of the Academy of Management. It was also featured in the LSE Business Review blog.

His 2015 work in Administrative Science Quarterly showing that social movements spread by reason rather than disruption was featured in another LSE blog.

Contributing early (and often)

Several newer papers by Gupta have been selected in the Best Paper Proceedings of Academy of Management annual meetings. He also won the 2017 OMT Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices Award and the OMT Best Symposium Award at the 2016 Academy of Management Meeting.

Gupta has received the Dean’s Excellence Award for Faculty Research from the Foster School.

He is an editorial board member of Administrative Science Quarterly, and a reviewer for the most influential scholarly journals in his field, including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, and the American Sociological Review. He also has served as a reviewer for several Academy of Management annual meetings and Strategic Management Society conferences.

At Foster, Gupta teaches courses on strategic management (to undergraduates) and competitive strategy (to MBAs).

Several of Gupta’s colleagues in the Foster School’s Department of Management and Organization have previously received the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management, among them Crystal Farh (2017), Ryan Fehr (2016), Chris Barnes (2014), Michael Johnson (2012), Tom Lee (1988) and Vandra Huber (1987).

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