Ole Miss Business Professor Receives Hodgetts Award

By Stella Connell

UM Business School

The Academy of Management has bestowed a rare honor on Milorad Novicevic, associate professor of management at the University of Mississippi School of Business Administration.

Novicevic received the Richard M. Hodgetts Award for his contributions to management history research, excellence in teaching and service to the academy and its management history division.

The academy’s management history division established the award in 2002 in memory of Hodgetts. The former University of Nebraska and Florida International University faculty member was an innovator in distance learning and an active member of the academy.

The award is only given when a recipient is deemed worthy by the division, and Novicevic is just the third recipient in its history. Previous recipients include Arthur G. Bedeian, of Louisiana State University, in 2007 and Robert Ford, of the University of Central Florida, in 2014.

“I am delighted that my contributions in all three areas – education, research and service – have been recognized at a time when the academy has about 20,000 members, with the majority of them international,” Novicevic said. 

“I am also proud that not only my name, but also the name of the University of Mississippi, will be carved on the Awards Wall of the Academy of Management.”

Novicevic came to Ole Miss in 2003. He has taught courses at the undergraduate, MBA and doctoral levels, including Principles of Management, International Business, International Management, Organization Theory, Strategic Management, Global Business, Management History, and Leadership and Ethics. 

He has twice won awards for outstanding teaching in the undergraduate program and twice for outstanding teaching in the MBA on-campus program.

With the academy, he served as a member of the executive committee of management history division from 2011 to ’15, during which time he was chair of the division. He has also served the academy as the reviewer of strategic plans submitted by five other divisions.

“(Novicevic) provides mentorship for doctoral students and early career scholars,” said Trish McLaren, past chair of the division and associate vice president of academics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. “He has actively worked to broaden the disciplinary scope of the division and welcome scholars from a variety of paradigms, and he always has a smile and a laugh to enliven the room.”

Novicevic has published more than 170 articles in numerous journals. He won the John F. Mee Award, and Halloran Award for Best Paper in Ethics, from the academy’s management history division. He also won the SAGE Award for Best Paper in Leadership from the International Leadership Association.

“(Novicevic) sets the standard for both service, scholarship, and mentorship for the management history division,” said Jeffrey Muldoon, of Emporia State University, the MHD chair-elect who presented the award at the academy’s annual meeting Aug. 7 in Boston.