Each year our Division bestows a Distinguished Scholar Award to a leading global scholar in our community. This award is intended to serve a dual purpose. The first is to honor distinguished leaders in the field of operations and supply chain management scholarship. Second, the award helps define the unique position of the OSCM division at the Academy of Management within the larger field of OSCM scholars. The award has two primary criteria:
1. to recognize commitment to serve the operations and supply chain field, both as a whole and within the Academy of Management, and
2. to honor scholarly excellence which has helped to shape both the field’s body of knowledge and practice.
The OSCM division promotes research on important and broad problems, with a focus on empirical research that is often cross-disciplinary. The Distinguished Scholar award offers an opportunity to highlight, define and honor scholars that emphasize this focus.
2022 OSCM Distinguished Scholar Award
Kevin Dooley (Arizona State University) and Dave Ketchen (Auburn University)
Award Winner Interviews
Dave Ketchen
serves as Harbert Eminent Scholar and Professor of Management at Auburn University. Much of his current research lies at the intersection of strategic management, supply chain management, and entrepreneurship. His work has appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Operations Management, Strategic Management Journal, and other leading journals. At present, he serves in editorial roles for Business Horizons, Decision Sciences Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. He previously served in editorial roles for Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Perspectives, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Operations Management, and Organizational Research Methods. In 2022, research.com ranked him 24th in the United States and 41st in the world among the ”Top 1000 scientists in Business and Management.” |
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Kevin Dooley
Dr. Kevin J. Dooley a Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management in the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, Chief Scientist of The Sustainability Consortium, a Senior Global Futures Scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, and Co-Director of the Complex Adaptive Supply Networks Research Accelerator. At TSC Dooley leads a global research team that works with the consumer goods industry to make products more sustainable. He has published more than 100 research articles and has provided training or consultation for over 200 companies in the areas of sustainability, supply chain management, quality, and technology and innovation. He obtained his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois. |
Our warmest congratulations, Kevin and Dave, on winning our division’s Distinguished Scholar Award! What does winning the award mean to you?
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Dave Ketchen: Both of my parents spent their careers with the Defense Logistics Agency and as a young man I worked in shipping and receiving at a Sears store in Philadelphia. So it is a full circle moment to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Management division that is devoted to supply chain management.
Also, because I’ve spent my career at state universities in the American south – LSU, Florida State, and Auburn – I think the award sends a signal to young scholars that you don’t need to work at one of the traditionally “elite” schools in order to receive recognition from your peers. |
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Kevin Dooley: It’s wonderful to be recognized by your peers that your work has mattered to others. The word “scholar” is very positive to me, so it’s a nice word to be attached to. |
What made you take a job in academia?
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Dave Ketchen: Depending on your beliefs, it was either good fortune or divine intervention. After graduating college at Penn State, I was planning on getting an MBA and then starting my own business. My undergraduate honors thesis found its way to the faculty in charge of recruiting Ph.D. students. They liked my writing and invited me to join the doctoral program. I was 21 at this point with hair down to my shoulders and I had no aspirations of becoming a professor. But I looked at the two curricula and they were the same for the 1st year. If I entered the Ph.D. program, the university would waive my tuition and pay me $8000. Meanwhile, a year of MBA courses would cost me $8000. So I figured I would try the Ph.D. program for a year and then switch if I didn’t like it. Turns out I loved it. That was 1988 and I’m still here.
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Kevin Dooley: As a MS student in IE, I got a chance to perform research and teach right away, so that got me interested in the PhD. When we were able to publish a paper out of the MS thesis, that got me hooked – I knew I really liked writing papers. I also was able to do a lot of industry training as a PhD student since TQM was taking off and we had developed some educational SPC software, so that showed me the connections between research, education, and practice. |
Who were your mentors?
Dave Ketchen: In graduate school, Jim Thomas (who later became dean at Penn State) and Chuck Snow were my main mentors. Jim and Chuck have different strengths and I tried to absorb those strengths like a sponge during my five years studying under them. I learned a lot from other Penn State professors too, especially Denny Gioia who recently retired.
After graduation, Duane Ireland and Mike Hitt have been my biggest influences and my role models. Both of them have a combination of work ethic, productivity, humility, and generosity that I admire and try to emulate.
The late, great Reuben McDaniel was a tremendous influence too – he had an uncanny ability to share corrective feedback in a supportive way. When you’re successful, most people tell you how great you are. You need someone that will keep you from letting it go to your head and for me, Reuben was that person.
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Kevin Dooley: As a graduate student at U of Illinois, my advisors Shiv Kapoor and Dick DeVor got me passionate about manufacturing, quality, and statistics. As a young faculty member at U of Minnesota, John Anderson and Andy Van de Ven were instrumental to my career, both taught me how to think like a social scientist. I’ve always been thankful to all the department chairs who gave me the freedom to explore. |
What were the defining moments in your career?
Dave Ketchen: In 1999, Tomas Hult walked into my office and asked me to help him with a paper on supply chains that he was developing for AMJ. That initiated my most productive research partnership and a fantastic friendship. It also launched my interest in studying supply chains.
Landing a chaired position at Auburn in 2006 has to be high on the list. I set a goal when I left graduate school to earn a chair before I was 40 and I signed Auburn’s offer letter at 39.
The most fulfilling moments have been when some of my proteges have landed their own chairs – Jim Combs at Alabama, Jeremy Short at Oklahoma, Brian Connelly at Auburn, and most recently Chris Craighead at Tennessee.
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Kevin Dooley: For about a decade we owned and operated a university spin-off based on some patented technology we created to do text analysis. Crawdad Technologies taught me what it meant to run all aspects of a company, and to have people on payroll that depended on you. But much more importantly, our eventual failure became the opportunity to look for the next “big thing”, and that was how I discovered my passion for sustainability. I was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time to be part of The Sustainability Consortium from the beginning, and that has shown me the profound satisfaction in being part of a larger team, and how fun and impactful it is to work with companies in a pre-competitive, collaborative network. |
What was your most important lesson you would like to share with younger faculty?
| Dave Ketchen: Without a doubt, it has to be the importance of other people to your success, as well as your importance to their success. I work closely with a non-profit called the Why Not Win Institute (whynotwin.org). The founder, Larry Thornton, likes to say that each of us would be more successful if we took 10% of the time and energy we spend on work tasks and invest it instead in relationships. I think that is great advice. |
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Kevin Dooley: Collaborate broadly, with students, faculty, and companies. It’s the most enjoyable part of the job and working with a diversity of skills and perspectives is the best way to continue to learn. Every year you should be able to say that you learned more than in the year previous. |
What are your plans for the years to come?
Dave Ketchen: That’s a broad, multi-layered question. If we just focus on research, my aim for the future is to work with top-quality co-authors on questions that both scholars and managers care about at the intersection of strategic management, supply chain management, and entrepreneurship. A central element of that work will be helping ambitious assistant and associate professors make their way up the academic ladder to reach their career goals.
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Kevin Dooley: I will continue to devote my time to sustainability research and working with corporations to make all consumer goods more sustainable. I am especially optimistic that research can innovate and drive progress towards a circular economy. I like to say that we are all sustainability professionals, some of us just realize it sooner than others. |
Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Kevin and Dave!
Past OSCM Distinguished Scholar Awards
2021 Lutz Kaufman, WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management
2020 Mark Pagell, University College Dublin
2019 Lisa Ellram, Miami University
2018 1. Craig Carter (Arizona State U.) / 2. Daniel R. Guide, Jr. (The Penn State U)
2017 Steven Melnyk (Michigan State U.)
2016 Kevin Lindermann (U. of Minnesota)
2015 Elliot Bendoly (Ohio State U.)
2014 Janet Hartley (Bowling Green State U.)
2013 Robert D. Klassen (Ivey School of Business)
2012 1. Tom Choi (Arizona State U.) / 2. Keong Leong (California State U.)
2011 Morgan Swink (Texas Christian U.)
2010 Ken Boyer (Ohio State U.)
2009 Ram Narasimhan (Michigan State U.)
2008 Chris Voss (London Business School)
2007 Peter Ward (Ohio State U.)
2006 Aleda Roth (Clemson U.)
2005 Barbara Flynn (Wake Forest U.)
2004 1. Richard Chase (U. Southern California) / 2. Roger Schroeder (U. Minnesota)
2003 1. Chan Hahn (Bowling Green U.) / 2. Jack Meredith (Wake Forest U.) / 3. Linda Sprague (China Europe International)