Department of

Management and Technology

The Department of Management and Technology’s Beppe Soda, Alessandro Iorio and Pier Vittorio Mannucci win in three different categories. This is also a recognition for a whole group of researchers working on social and organizational networks.

At the Social Network Society’s reception during the recent Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Giuseppe (Beppe) Soda (Bocconi Department of Management and Technology) was presented with the SNS Distinguished Scholar Award. This is the highest award conferred by SNS, recognizing individuals whose sustained and exceptional contributions have shaped the intellectual direction of the field and advanced its impact on scholarship and/or practice. This award celebrates a career marked not only by scholarly excellence but also by leadership, mentorship, and service to the academic community. Beppe Soda has remarked that “I have always seen every contribution, every good idea, and every insight behind my work as a collective achievement. None of it would have been possible without my co-authors, colleagues, mentors, students, and the many people from whom I have learned over the years. This award therefore also belongs to them, as well as to the companies and managers who trusted me and allowed me to conduct research within organizations.”

The Junior Scholar Award goes to Alessandro Iorio (Bocconi Department of Management and Technology). This honor recognizes early-career members of the academic society who have begun to establish themselves as independent scholars and to make meaningful contributions to the field. The award is intended to acknowledge promising research achievements during the initial stage of an academic career. Alessandro Iorio commented “This is a great recognition of what we are building at Bocconi: a growing and vibrant group of people interested in understanding how networks shape organizations. My sincere thanks to the Social Networks Society, to my colleagues and mentors for their support over the years, and to everyone who has made my work much more interesting than it would have been if I had worked on it on my own.”

Pier Vittorio Mannucci, also belonging to Bocconi’s Department of Management and Technology, received The Network Research Decade Award, which recognizes a scholarly article published in the last ten years that has made a sustained and meaningful contribution to the field. The award is intended to acknowledge work that has demonstrated enduring value, continuing relevance, and influence beyond its initial publication. The winning article, by Pier Vittorio Mannucci and Jill Perry-Smith, is “From Creativity to Innovation: The Social Network Drivers of the Four Phases of the Idea Journey”, published in the Academy of Management Review. Pier Vittorio Mannucci commented: “My deepest thanks to the Social Network Society for this honor, and to all those who have found the paper – the first I ever published – useful and made it impactful. I am also grateful to Jill Perry-Smith who trusted me to work together on this paper when I was just a PhD student: I hope to do the same with other students in the future.”

The Social Network Society (SNS) brings together scholars dedicated to advancing network theory in management and organizational research. They provide a space to support a community that advances research on how relationships and network structures shape organizational behavior and outcomes.