Michelle Weck, Dennis Veltrop, Jana Oehmichen, Floor Rink and Ryan Krause win the SMS Strategic Leadership and Governance Best Paper Prize

Michelle Weck, Dennis Veltrop, Jana Oehmichen and Floor Rink, along with Ryan Krause (Texas Christian University) have won the Best Paper Prize in the Strategic Leadership and Governance track at the annual conference of the Strategic Management Society (SMS). They received the award for their paper ‘Towards a Configural Theory of Director Influence within Boards’.

In their paper, Weck, Veltrop, Oehmichen, Rink and Krause draw on classical group and team research to understand the phenomenon of who has the most and least to say within boards of directors better. Specifically, previous group research has highlighted the importance of the formal role, social dominance, prototypicality, and social and intellectual competence to become influential within groups. The authors integrate these topics and explore the complex interdependencies in boardrooms. The paper is part of Weck’s PhD dissertation, which she recently completed at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB).

In the paper, the researchers use a qualitative comparative analysis on a sample of 299 Dutch supervisory directors in 60 boards to elaborate theory on how directors become influential within the board. Specifically, their findings highlight that directors can improve their influence level within the board via their behavioral cues; however, the options for non-prototypical directors are much narrower. Overall, the authors’ configurations support their theoretical arguments and provide evidence for the fact that there are many ways in which influence can be obtained within the boardroom, as there are interconnected and hard-to-isolate dynamics at play within the boardroom. As such, their study offers novel theoretical and empirical insights to academics and practitioners alike.

About the award

The Strategic Management Society presents the Best Paper prizes to honor the best papers in various tracks that are presented at the SMS Annual Conference. Nominated authors are invited to submit a full paper version of their submitted proposal for consideration by the selection committee. These papers are reviewed and finalists are named prior to the conference. The committee determines the winners, who are announced during the conference.

About the authors

Michelle Weck recently obtained her PhD at FEB and is currently a research assistant at the Department of Organization, Human Resources, and Management Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. As a PHD candidate at the University of Groningen, Weck was (co-)supervised by Professor Jana Oehmichen, Professor Floor Rink and Associate Professor Dennis Veltrop, who are all affiliated with FEB. Ryan Krause is Professor of Strategy at the Neeley School of Business of the Texas Christian University.