Anna Brattstrom and Katharina Scheidgen, 2021 Carolyn B. Dexter Award Winners. 

AOM members Anna Brattstrom and Katharina Scheidgen share a research interest in entrepreneurship, interorganizational collaboration, and networks. They came together as co-authors on, “Lukewarm or Hot? Comparing Investor Tie Formation of Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and Berlin", a paper that earned them the 2021 Carolyn B. Dexter Award.

The two approached this project from different perspectives—Katharina looked at the research from a sociology perspective, while Anna brought her background of studying entrepreneurs and their social activities. Their unique experiences provided different aspects of the data set and were able to develop a more comprehensive view of the research.  

Anna and Katharina hope their study raises awareness of how social context shapes entrepreneurial activities and how entrepreneurs engage with others in their particular context.  

Entrepreneurship is inherently a social activity. Entrepreneurs team up with others, find support in understand this social activity, it is important to see it as situated in a particular social context, with particular norms about what is socially accepted behavior.

Their research also offers a concept—relational warmth—to capture what social norms entail in relation to networking practices of entrepreneurs. Their ambition is that others will find this concept useful when studying networking practices in other contexts.  

The winners also find value in being AOM members: 

The AOM Annual Meeting is a great opportunity to connect and re-connect with colleagues from all over the world. Attending the meeting helps to keep us up to speed with the latest developments in the field and it is also quite inspiring to be able to listen in to what is going on outside your own field of expertise.