From Baby Nappies to Reshaping Communications for the Disenfranchised: HEC Professors Rewarded for Breakthrough Publications

For its 47th edition, the HEC Foundation Awards once again recognized the outstanding publications by research professors at HEC Paris. From finance to marketing, from corporate strategy to information systems, the production of new knowledge is geared towards impact in its many different dimensions. As with last year’s edition, these March 4 awards illustrated how research and teaching can contribute to building a better future for society at large.

One week after rewarding the best dissertations and theses by HEC Paris students, the school's professors were awarded five prizes for the most outstanding work in 2023. They received their trophies in front of representatives of the Foundation, the school, members of the jury, donors and partner companies. 

"(These awards are) helping to create a favorable research environment, to give our professors the means to push back the boundaries of knowledge, to create new knowledge that will guide our students, our alumni, businesses, public authorities and have an impact on tomorrow's world. The Foundation's Awards ceremony is an important event to celebrate and highlight the excellence of the faculty and the cutting-edge research carried out at HEC Paris". With these words, Delphine Colson, Managing Director of the HEC Foundation, opened a ceremony which was first held back in 1978.

“Creating a More Inclusive, Fairer and more Generous Future”

As Christophe Pérignon, Associate Dean for Research, pointed out, the HEC Paris faculty publishes around a hundred articles each year, half of which  found their way into the world’s best scientific journals. Competition was therefore “fierce” between the five articles nominated for the Research Article of the Year prize, which rewards both academic excellence and potential impact on teaching, business or public policy. The article "Communication Frames and Beneficiary Engagement in Corporate Social Initiatives: Evidence From A Randomized Controlled Trial in France" stood out for its rigor, relevance, readability and, above all, its societal contribution. The authors of the paper, Marieke Huysentruyt, Associate Professor of Strategy and Corporate Policy, and Rodolphe Durand, Joly Family Chair in Purposeful Leadership, analyze the impact of corporate social initiative communication on beneficiaries, particularly the most disadvantaged.

Professor Huysentruyt, who is also Academic Director of the S&O Institute's Centre for Inclusive Economy, expressed her deep gratitude to the Foundation for the award, which she described as "a real surprise". She assured those gathered she will continue to study the issue of communication and language between public administrations (in particular France’s Caisse des Allocation Familiales, the state’s welfare agency) and the beneficiaries of its social programmes.

Huysentruyt also works in the Impact Company Lab, where scientific measurements are used to assess the effectiveness of the environmental, societal and governance (ESG) solutions and approaches implemented by companies.. This reflects her commitment to the application of research in the field and its implementation in the corporate world. Aware of the urgency of the environmental crisis, the scholar’s work is an attempt to create what she calls “a more inclusive, generous and just future." As she concludes, she points to a little girl in the audience.

Re-marketing the Fight Against Cot Deaths

The desire to produce impactful research cuts across the departments of the HEC faculty, and it is to a marketing professor that the 2024 Faculty Impact Prize was awarded. The winner, Anne-Laure Sellier, holds the Cartier Chair in Creativity and Marketing, specializing in behavioral sciences. Her study (carried out in collaboration with 15 European medical research laboratories) analyzes the link between baby nappy packaging showing children on their stomachs and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Sellier thus has the firm intention of forcing advertisers to follow health recommendations in their representations on packaging. Indeed, this research has already given rise to a petition calling on French and European legislators to intervene and ban photos and images for commercial or official use of babies asleep without respecting safe sleeping recommendations.

But Sellier’s research and engagement is not confined to infancy: "This award,” she told the audience gathered at the Foundation’s headquarters in central Paris, “marks the start of a wider collaboration that brings together around 25 people to work on violence against children and adolescents". Sellier went on to quote some chilling statistics: "22% of adults today have experienced violence during their childhood, while the cost to society of violence against children amounts to 73 billion euros". Yet, although this is a highly topical issue, there is little research into it. Sellier took the opportunity of the award ceremony to call on companies to "get involved in this societal impact movement".

Transforming English Courses to Train for Tomorrow's World

Research feeds into teaching, and innovation in teaching is crucial to the transmission of this knowledge. The role of professors at HEC Paris is to "pass on knowledge in the best possible way. It is therefore important to constantly renew our practice and encourage us to do so. And that's why this prize is so important," explained Anne Michaut, Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean of Education Track and Pedagogy and Director of Digital Learning, before presenting the Pedagogical Initiative prize. Supported by the Roux de Bézieux Foundation, this award honors courses that have distinguished themselves through their originality, relevance and effectiveness. The project entitled "Communicating for tomorrow: HEC's New English Curriculum", which won the 2024 prize, was set up as part of the Master in Management’s curriculum review. In this program, the 'classic' English courses have been transformed into 'workshops' to equip students linguistically to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

On receiving their prizes, the two winners, Chantal Carleton, Associate Professor in HEC's Languages and Cultures Department, and Marine Burke, Professor of English, thanked their students, whom they lovingly call their ”guinea pigs”.

Finance and AI: a Thesis Rewarded for its Relevance

When it came to deciding on the Thesis or Doctorate Prize, the members of the jury quickly agreed: the rigor, depth, relevance and contribution to economics of Maxime Bonelli's work made it a unanimous choice. For the jury members one thing was certain: this thesis should make a big splash in the media. In "Three Essays on Innovation and Human Capital in the Investment Management Industry", the young prize-winner studies how innovation, artificial intelligence and human capital are shaping the organization of the asset management industry. 

As he was unable to travel to Paris, Maxime Bonelli received his prize remotely from London (where he works as a teacher-researcher), and his speech was webcast live on a large screen. In all humility, he emphasized the "world-class" support provided by the Finance department at HEC Paris.

The Prix du Chercheur, a "Testimony of Peer Support”

Information systems professor Xitong Li was touched and moved to receive the Researcher's Prize, which rewards an HEC professor who has particularly distinguished himself through both his research productivity and the impact of his work. Professor Li is involved in a wide range of activities: as deputy editor-in-chief of the journal Information Systems Research, he studies the application of artificial intelligence in business, as well as interactions between humans and machines at various levels. He is also the youngest full professor at  HEC Paris.

Xitong Li thanked his colleagues at the faculty for "their invaluable guidance in shaping [his] trajectory". This award, he said, is not only an "achievement in [his] career, but also a testimony to the support, encouragement and kindness" he has received at the school.

With 167 professors spread across nine departments and three centers of expertise in sustainability (S&O), AI (Hi! PARIS) and innovation & entrepreneurship, the faculty's diversity and excellence are a feature which the school puts at the service of society. This contribution is made possible by the support of the HEC Foundation, which each year funds the faculty's research to the tune of 4.6 million euros, or 36% of the foundation’s budget.