Carina Keller received this recognition for her paper titled "(De-)Constructing Gender Power Asymmetry at the Base of the Pyramid - A relational approach." The Academy of Management Conference is the world's most important conference in the field of management research. The William H. Newman Award honors the best annual meeting paper based on a dissertation, recognizing outstanding academic work with significant impact.
 

The paper explores how micro-finance based programs targeting female entrepreneurs in Uganda can actually attain their social impact goals - gender equality and female empowerment. While we already knew that equipping women with resources previously denied to them will not change their agency, this paper elucidates the relational dynamics that are constitutive of empowering women. 
 

Although the working title of the paper indicates a regional focus, the research team discussed that the findings and implications can be translated in other contexts - where well-intended yet ineffective programs target women to “empower” them. The study prompts reflections and questions such as by whom such programs are initiated, if they exclusively target women, if, how, and where men are included, at what times and spaces such programs take place, by whom they are evaluated and based on which impact indicators. Such programs can have a transformative character if they are set up in a (more) conscious manner. 

We warmly congratulate Carina Keller on this outstanding honour!
 

Read more about the study here