Sruthi Thatchenkery has won the Academy of Management’s ‘Wiley Blackwell Outstanding Dissertation Award.’

The award, given by the Strategic Management Division of the Academy of Management (AoM), was announced at the AoM’s annual meeting in Chicago.

Sruthi’s dissertation, ‘Competetive Intelligence: Drivers and consequences of executives’ attention to competitors in enterprise software,’ was chosen ahead of fiver other finalists as the best dissertation in 2018.

Using a novel dataset on competitor monitoring, product innovation, executive teams, and firm financial performance in the enterprise infrastructure software industry from 1995-2012, Sruthi examined how the competitors that executives pay attention to differ between firms, and what that means for their product innovation strategy.

Her main findings were that 1) firms are more innovative when they pay attention to more “distant” competitors outside their markets or on the fringes of an industry, and 2) the past experience of the CEO and how well it meshes with the experience of the rest of the executive team is crucial in helping firms notice those more distant competitive threats.