Johanna Mair, Christian Seelos receive Academy of Management 2018 ONE Book Award

The Academy of Management (AOM) has awarded Professor of Organization, Strategy and Leadership Johanna Mair and Hertie School Adjunct Christian Seelos the ONE Book Award at its annual meeting in Chicago in August. ONE is the Organization and Natural Resources division of the AOM.

Nominated books were judged on four criteria: originality in substance and approach, significance for scholarly and/or policy debate in the field, rigor in approach and analysis, and readability.

In Innovation and Scaling for Impact: How Effective Social Enterprises Do It, published by Stanford University Press, Mair and Seelos share deep insights and offer diagnostics on how organisations create impact. The book draws on a decade of research, exploring how social sector organisations create value. There is an overlooked tension, according to the authors, between organisations’ need to innovate - or implement new ideas, and how they build on existing strengths - a process the authors call “scaling”. An organisation, and ultimately its impact, can be fundamentally defined by its ability to manage this tension.

Innovation and Scaling for Impact includes four case studies which detail effective strategies for combining innovation with scaling. This ultimately leads readers to better understand how to drive progress and which tools can help organisations to learn and become more effective in tackling social problems and societal challenges.

“Innovation and Scaling for Impact: How effective social enterprises do it” was also the recipient of the 2017 Terry McAdam Nonprofit Book Award, sponsored by the Alliance for Nonprofit Management.

Excerpts and reviews can be found at Stanford University Press.