Prof. Minjae Kim Wins Best Entrepreneurship Paper Award from Academy of Management
The international professional association recognized Kim’s research on the role founders play in retaining employees as their startups grow.
Minjae Kim, assistant professor of organizational behavior, has won the 2026 Best Entrepreneurship Paper Award from the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management, a global professional association for organization and management scholars.
Presented annually since 2015, the award recognizes a paper that “advances understanding of entrepreneurship, drawing on organization and management theory.”
Kim won the award for his working paper “The Evolving Impact of Founders on Startup Employee Retention,” co-authored with Daniel Kim, an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The study examines how founder departures affect employee retention—a challenge with which startups often struggle given their lack of formal structures, settled routines, or reputation.
Kim previously won the Best Entrepreneurship Paper Award in 2021 and 2024. Other SOM-affiliated recipients of the award have included then-faculty member Olav Sorenson, Professor Tristan Botelho, and then-PhD student Melody Chang.
Before joining SOM, Kim was an assistant professor of management at Rice University. His research focuses on when, why, and how social actors—including individuals and firms—coordinate their actions.
