Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award

The Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award is presented once every two years. The award recognizes scholars who have taken a leadership role in the field of OMT by opening up new lines of thinking or inquiry. A Trailblazer is a boundary-spanner and a conversation starter, someone who extends and builds the OMT community by shepherding new ideas and new scholarship, often in unconventional ways. Actions that may indicate “trailblazing” behavior include starting up or moving forward a journal or scholarly series, organizing a conference or workshop, and beginning or continuing a conversation about a set of OMT ideas.

The establishment of the award was motivated by the retirement of Joanne Martin. An important part of her legacy is that she has challenged and extended the boundaries of OMT. She was a critical voice in research on culture, and she leveraged her position in an attempt to bring feminism and critical theory into the mainstream of organization theory. Professor Martin encouraged people that wouldn’t have traditionally been considered in the mainstream of organization theory to develop ideas that did not fit into existing theories and has thus broadened the membership of OMT. For instance, Joanne was a panelist at the first Critical Management Studies PDW at the Academy of Management in 1998, and she has been a frequent panelist at junior faculty and Ph.D. consortia. In this role, she has supported and encouraged junior faculty and acted as an early role model for women entering the field.

Members of the Trailblazer Award Screening Committee include the Research Committee Chair, one Research Committee Member, the Past Division Chair, and both Third Year Representatives-at-Large. The Screening Committee is responsible for forwarding three finalists to the Executive Officer Meeting each year.

2010 OMT Joanne Martin Trailblazer Award
Positive Organizational Scholarship Group
Wayne Baker
Kim Cameron
Jane Dutton
Robert Quinn
Gretchen Spreitzer
Lynn Wooten

Past Winners

2008 Arie Lewin for his leadership in founding Organization Science and the Organization Science Winter Conference. Download Award Presentation.