AAA-AACSB-RRBM Award for Research Impacting Societal Challenges
Thank you to the AACSB for generously supporting the AAA-AACSB-RRBM Award for Research Impacting Societal Challenges!
Call for Nominations and Award Criteria
Nominations Deadline: January 31 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time
The AAA-AACSB-RRBM Award for Research Impacting Societal Challenges Committee is currently accepting nominations for the 2025 AAA-AACSB-RRBM Award for Research Impacting Societal Challenges.
The Committee calls for nominations of published work that exemplifies the seven principles of responsible research as outlined on www.rrbm.network and described in detail in the position paper “Responsible Research for Business and Management: Striving for Credible and Useful Knowledge.”
Examples of topics include but are not limited to – societal benefits of corporate social responsibility initiatives; promoting the physical and financial well-being of at-risk individuals including those who experience homelessness and those from underrepresented populations; promoting the financial health of federal, state, and local governments; improving public health; increasing access to quality healthcare and education.
Award Intent
The purpose of this award is to recognize the impact to society of responsible research in accounting where responsible research is defined as research that produces both useful and credible knowledge addressing problems important to policy-setters, organizations, and society.
- Useful knowledge addresses important social challenges and provides meaningful implications that have the potential to inform policy and practice. Findings and insights from useful research have implications beyond what is good for the financial performance of the individuals or organizations studied and will have wider societal implications.
- Credible knowledge refers to the validity, reliability, and trustworthiness of the findings, in either inductive or deductive work, using either qualitative or quantitative data, or both.
Award Selection Criteria
Eligible works must have been published or posted as an online early publication during the three calendar years preceding the year of the award. For 2025, work would have been published or posted as an online early publication in 2022, 2023, or 2024 and must meet the following criteria:
Research that exemplifies the Seven Principles of Responsible Research:1
- Provides service to society
- Values both basic and applied contributions
- Values plurality and multidisciplinary collaboration
- Uses sound methodology
- Values stakeholder involvement
- Impacts stakeholders
- Has broad dissemination2
- Research that provides credible knowledge (as described in award intent).
- The research can be on any level of analysis (individual, team, organization, society), for any kind of organization (e.g., business, non-profit) and focus on any population and on any region of the world.
- The article should be published in a refereed accounting journal.
- The AAA-AACSB-RRBM Award for Research Impacting Societal Challenges Committee will select one paper as the recipient of the award per year.
1 For further details on the definitions of the seven principles, click here.
2 Including dissemination to stakeholders beyond the academic community (e.g., cited in Congressional testimony, published a practitioner- or student-friendly summary of the paper, business press and social media mentions).
Instructions for Submitting Nominations
- Any person or group may make nominations.
- Self-nominations are encouraged.
- Members of the committee are encouraged to solicit and submit nominations.
- Current committee members who are nominated for the award will be asked to either recuse themselves from the committee or remove their nomination from consideration.
- Beginning with the 2025 submissions, nominations may include work that was not selected for the award in a prior year, as long as the eligibility requirements continue to be met.
- Eligible nominations will not automatically roll-forward to the following year, although the award committee has the option to recommend eligible nominations be rolled forward. The nominator will be informed of the nomination status at the completion of the award cycle, and updates to the nomination letter are encouraged even for nominations that are selected to be rolled forward.
- Each nomination must include:
- The DOI link and an electronic copy (preferably in PDF) of the article, or a pre-print or finalized manuscript for an in-press article, that meets the award criteria, and
- A nomination letter. The nomination letter should describe why the article deserves to be considered for the Award, in one single-spaced page and no more than 500 words. Evidence on the “usefulness” of the research (i.e., how the work has made a positive impact on practice or society), and information on how this work has been disseminated to stakeholders beyond the academic community, must be included in the letter.
- If a manuscript has been submitted previously for consideration and the work was not selected by the award committee to be rolled over, it is recommended that the nomination letter highlight what features of the nominated work have materially changed, referring directly to the award criteria.
- The nomination letter must include the name(s) and email(s) of the submitter as well as the work’s author(s) name(s) and email(s).
- Submissions without nomination letters will not be considered. Incomplete nominations can be finalized within two days of the submission deadline.
- Please attach an electronic copy of the article and nomination letter to an email and send to Barbara Gutierrez, Professional Staff Liaison, at awards@aaahq.org with "AAA-AACSB-RRBM Award for Research Impacting Societal Challenges" in the subject line of your email.
- Upon receipt of your nomination you will receive an acknowledgment message Barbara Gutierrez, Professional Staff Liaison.
- All documents submitted in support of your nomination become the property of the American Accounting Association.
- Deadline: January 31st (11:59 pm Eastern Time)
Award Presentation
- The recipient(s) will receive an award and $5,000 at the AAA Annual Meeting. If multiple recipients, the amount is divided equally.
- The recipient(s) will be recognized and featured on the AAA and RRBM websites.
- The selected recipient(s) will be invited to present their research at a 90-minute concurrent session during the Annual Meeting, to be moderated by the Chair of the Committee.
- The recipient(s) will receive a certificate of recognition from the joint sponsors.
- A recognition letter will be sent to the relevant deans and department heads upon request.
- The recipient(s) will be announced on the AAA website and in multi-topic mass emails.