AWARD CRITERIA
This award recognizes a portfolio of work that suggests the candidate will make fundamental contributions to the way we think about knowledge essential to achieving durable organizational success. Contributions that complement existing strategic management theory with ideas from other fields and disciplines will be considered.
Nominees for this award will be judged according to the following criteria:
- Have completed their PhD no more than 10 years and no less than 5 years ago
- Have a record of publication and professional activity that has demonstrated their work to be significant and with impact
The recipient of the SMS Emerging Scholar Award will be recognized during the Welcome Reception at the SMS Annual Conference and receives prize money of $5,000 USD.
Nomination Process:
The applicant themselves should complete their submission after collecting the nomination materials from their nominators. If you are a nominator interested in nominating someone for this award, please reach out to them directly and provide them with this information and a nomination letter so that they can complete the application form.
Nominations are invited from any member of the SMS and should include:
- A nomination letter by another SMS member, who is not a faculty member at the same university as the nominated individual
- Two additional letters of recommendation for the nominated individual
- A full current CV for the nominated individual
The recipient of this award is selected by a sub-committee appointed by the SMS Awards & Honors Committee.
SMS Emerging Scholar 2026 Recipient:
Sunkee Lee
Sunkee Lee was selected because of his clear, strong, and unique research identity. He works at the intersection of organizational learning, micro foundations of strategy, organization design, and strategic human capital to examine how organizations can structure incentives, relationships, and environments so that individuals and teams learn more effectively, offering a more nuanced view of learning as a contingent process rather than an outcome of accumulated experience. Over a relatively short period of time, he has published an impressive body of work in leading journals, as well as other articles and chapters.
About Sunkee:
Sunkee Lee is a tenured Associate Professor of Organizational Theory and Strategy at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on individual and organizational learning, organization design, and the microfoundations of firm strategy and performance. His work has been published in leading management journals, including the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, and Management Science, and has received several awards, including the Academy of Management William H. Newman Award for Best Paper Based on a Dissertation (2017) and the Ralph Gomory Best Industry Studies Paper Award (2025). In 2024, he was named one of the Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors by Poets&Quants.
He currently serves as an associate editor at the Strategic Management Journal and co-editor-in-chief at the Journal of Organization Design. He is also a member of the editorial review board at Organization Science. He received his bachelor’s degree from Korea University, master’s degree from Seoul National University, and Ph.D. in Strategy from INSEAD. Visit Sunkee’s Website and LinkedIn to learn more.
Award Past Recipients
Exequiel Hernandez, 2018
Emilie Feldman, 2017
Guoli Chen, 2016
Aaron Chatterji, 2015
Andrew Shipilov, 2014
Gary Dushnitsky, 2013
Dovev Lavie, 2012
David Sirmon, 2011
Yan Anthea Zhang, 2010
Michael Lenox, 2009
Riitta Katila, 2008
Jeff Reuer, 2007