Donald Hambrick, Smeal chaired professor of management at Penn State's Smeal College of Business, has received an honorary doctoral degree from the Université Panthéon-Assas, one of the major affiliates of the Universities of Paris.
Hambrick was recognized for his "many important and influential contributions to the social sciences, particularly his path-breaking research on executive leadership and the role of human factors in business strategy and effectiveness."
Widely regarded as the premier law university of France, Panthéon-Assas houses faculties of law, economics and social sciences. It bestows honorary doctorates only every five years to "distinguished foreign nationals who have made outstanding contributions to the arts, letters, science and technology."
In addition to Hambrick, this year's nine honorees included Vassilios Skouris, president of the Court of Justice of the European Community, and author Umberto Eco.
The selection process requires unanimous endorsement by the faculty in the honoree's field, approval by an all-university council and concurrence of France's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The awards ceremony was held on Jan. 29, in the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne at the University of Paris.
An acknowledged leader in the field of management, and one of its most highly cited authors, Hambrick has been researching the impact of executives on corporate performance for nearly 30 years. He has written numerous articles, chapters and books on the topics of strategy formulation and implementation, executive staffing and incentives, and the composition and processes of top management teams.
He is a fellow and past president of the Academy of Management and has served on the board of directors of the Strategic Management Society and on the editorial boards of almost all of the major scholarly journals in his field.
Hambrick holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Colorado, a master of business administration from Harvard University, and a doctorate in organizational strategy and policy from Smeal.