News > 2010 > Charlotte Cloutier Wins the 2009 Mercure Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis

Charlotte Cloutier Wins the 2009 Mercure Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis

June 7, 2010

Charlotte Cloutier has won the 2009 Mercure Award for the best doctoral thesis, with a prize of $3,000. The award was presented at the evening to recognize scholarship recipients on the Honour Roll, on April 8. Charlotte was one of 21 graduates in 2009, including five finalists in this competition.

Directed by Ann Langley, Full Professor with the Department of Management and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Strategic Management in Pluralistic Settings, Charlotte’s thesis is entitled Managing Opportunity, Managing Power and Managing Difference:  How Nonprofits Strategically Manage Their Relations with Funders.

Presented in the form of three papers, her thesis analyzes the strategic management of relations with funders, a crucial consideration in the survival of most non-profit organizations (NPOs). The author is particularly interested in the NPOs’ praxis (meaning their actual – and often creative – conduct in response to circumstances).

Charlotte’s thesis deals with an important issue, but one that has received very little attention to date. Solidly researched, it draws on three different theoretical frameworks and relies on rigorous qualitative methodology applied to data from different respondents in NPOs and funders. The thesis will have both scientific and professional benefits.

The jury for the Mercure Award consisted of Michèle Breton, Full Professor with the Department of Management Sciences, Richard Déry, Full Professor with the Department of Management, and Guy Paré, Full Professor with the Department of Information Technologies.

The three papers in the thesis have been presented at a number of conferences, including those of the Academy of Management in 2007 and 2009, of the European Group of Organization Studies in 2008 and of the Association for Research on Nonprofits and Voluntary Action in 2006. The Journal of Management Studies and Organization Studies, two scientific journals, are currently evaluating two articles taken from her thesis for publication.

Charlotte has received a number of fellowships and scholarships: from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in 2009-2010 ($31,000 per year for two years), the Postdoctoral Award from the Chaire FCRSS/IRSC sur la transformation et la gouverne des organisations de santé of the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Montréal in 2009-2010, along with a cash award of $15,000, a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Doctoral Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for 2005-2008 ($35,000 per year for three years), a doctoral fellowship from the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture in 2005-2008 ($20,000 per year for three years) and the Emerging Scholars Award from the Association for Research on Nonprofits and Voluntary Action in 2006.

Charlotte is now completing an 18-month postdoctoral internship at Oxford University, in England. Before obtaining her PhD from HEC Montréal, she earned a Master’s degree in Management (McGill–McConnell Program for Voluntary Sector Leaders) and a Bachelor of Commerce, both from McGill University.

The other finalists for the 2009 Mercure Award for the best doctoral thesis:

Jérémy Laurent-Lucchetti, Essais sur la gestion de biens communs
Co-directors: Justin Leroux and Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné

Yaromir Munoz Molina, Trois essais sur les mises en garde visant à prévenir le jeu pathologique : le cas des appareils de loterie vidéo (ALV)
Director: Jean-Charles Chebat

Anis Samet, American Depositary Receipt (ADR) Listings and the Financing Decisions of Foreign Firms
Co-directors: Jean-Claude Cosset and Narjess Boubakri

Denitsa Stefanova, Three Essays on Modeling Asset Co-Movement Asymmetries Using Copula Functions
Codirectors : Georges Dionne and Tony Berrada