Smith’s Anil Gupta Recognized by Strategic Management Society for Scholarly Impact

Anil K. Gupta, Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business has received the 2023 CK Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice from the Strategic Management Society (SMS).

The award, established in 2011, recognizes “excellence in the application of theory and research in practice” and “contributions [that] have shaped the understanding of global strategic leadership.” According to SMS, Gupta’s “work in the areas of globalization and global strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship, and digital strategy lies at the intersection of important phenomena in strategic management, key theoretical ideas, and grounded empirical work.”

Gupta has addressed the World Economic Forum multiple times on globalization and on high growth markets such as India and China. Ranked by Thinkers50 as one of the “world’s most influential management thinkers,” he also is one of just three professors elected by his peers as a Lifetime Fellow of the world’s three most prestigious bodies of scholars in the field – Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society, and Academy of International Business.

The award’s namesake CK Prahalad is recognized for reaching “across boundaries and expanded possibilities with his uncompromising emphasis on impactful research.” In advance of presenting the award as part of its fall 2023 Annual Conference, the SMS profiled Gupta with a Q&A through which he shares insights, including:

How does your interaction with companies inform your research?

Gupta: “I vividly remember an article titled “Maps and Territories” that I read early in my doctoral studies at HBS. The thesis of the article was that our theories are like maps of the real world, the territory. A good map should portray the territory accurately. Yet, even a good map hides a lot more than it reveals. The same is true of today’s theories. So, how do you push the envelope? How do you figure out what research questions to pursue in order to generate tomorrow’s theories? One way to do so is to juxtapose current theories against the complexity of the real world and see what the current map can’t explain. For me, that has been a very fruitful way to figure out what my next research project should focus on.”

Read more: from the Q&A and SMS's recognition of Gupta at the CK Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice website.

Watch: Gupta sharing his perspective on the emergence of Globalization 4.0 at the World Economic Forum’s 2019 annual meeting in Davos.