News Release

LUT's post-doctoral Researcher Anne Quarshie wins international dissertation competition

Grant and Award Announcement

Lappeenranta University of Technology

Post-doctoral researcher Anne Quarshie from Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) has won an international doctoral dissertation competition in the field of purchasing and supply. The IPSERA Doctoral Dissertation Award 2017 was presented to the year's best dissertation related to purchasing and supply.

Quarshie received the award in the annual conference of the International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association (IPSERA) in Athens, Greece, on 25-28 March 2018. The awards committee considered Quarshie's dissertation on corporate social responsibility and sustainability to be, influential, relevant, and of exceptionally high quality.

"This award is a high honour for both the author and our science community. It is yet another testimony to the extremely high level of our activity on the international business research arena," says Dean Sami Saarenketo, LUT School of Business and Management.

The dissertation award was granted for the third time. Its purpose is to showcase the most successful purchasing and supply researchers in the early stages of their career. Quarshie is the first Finnish recipient of the award.

Research on the challenges of sustainability

Anne Quarshie's dissertation seeks to advance scholarly understanding of how firms can bring about transformational change that pursues sustainability and corporate social responsibility within their own organisations or as part of broader networks and systems.

The dissertation includes an extensive literature review of previous studies on responsible supply chains and a survey on the United States national disaster preparedness system. In the survey, Quarshie and professor Rudolf Leuschner of Rutgers University examined the connections in the social interaction between the public, private and third sectors. The study focused on the outcomes of the interaction and changes to the US national disaster preparedness system in the context of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Quarshie graduated in 2017 from the Aalto University Department of Management Studies. The primary supervisor of the dissertation was Professor Asta Salmi from LUT, and the supervisory group also included Professors Kristiina Mäkelä and Carl Fey from Aalto University.

After graduation, Quarshie transferred to the research group of Professor Salmi at LUT, where both currently collaborate in research on corporate the contribution to the protection of biodiversity in Finland. This new research project aims to determine the best practices of companies and organisations to protect biodiversity as a part of their business operations and supply chains.

"Quarshie's dissertation lays an excellent foundation for research in LUT's strategic focus areas, including the corporate-driven biodiversity protection project," elaborates Professor Asta Salmi, LUT.

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Additional information:
Post-doctoral Researcher Anne Quarshie, anne.quarshie@lut.fi and +358 50 433 2514
Professor Asta Salmi, asta.salmi@lut.fi and +358 50 383 2476

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