Davies was awarded the prize during the UvA in Tuschinski event on Friday 20 October for his thesis Legitimacy management within the international business environment: do EM-MNEs adopt a dual strategy as they try to overcome their liability of origin?
Davies is enrolled in the MSc Business Administration International Management track and his thesis supervisor was Dr. Federica Nieri.
His thesis was judged for its contribution to sustainability, overall quality, practical relevance, and level of ambitiousness. The George Molenkamp Sustainability Thesis award includes a €1,000 prize sponsored by KPMG.

Other finalists

In addition to Willem Davies’ thesis, we would also like to congratulate finalists Tessa Werter (thesis: Does a firm’s corporate governance structure affect their corporate goodness? supervised by Dr. Ilir Haxhi) and Bart Verkaaik (thesis: The transition of financial audit professionals into sustainability audit professionals: The case of sustainability assurance in a Big 4 firm, supervised by Professor Brendan O’Dwyer).

About the award

The award is in honour of Dr George Molenkamp, a pioneer in business sustainability. Dr. Molenkamp is a former Partner and Chairman of KPMG Sustainability Services and he was instrumental in developing the field of environmental and sustainability management and auditing. He has also served as a professor at the University of Amsterdam, among many other positions of responsibility he has held in society and business. We were honored to have Dr Molenkamp himself to present the award during UvA in Carré.

The award committee consisted of Jolande Sap (Supervisory Board, KPMG), Arjan de Draaijer (Managing Partner, KPMG Sustainability), Berke Cavusoglu (Faculty Student Council, FEB/UvA), and Bernd Hendriksen (Lecturer, Amsterdam Business School and sustainability entrepreneur).

Congratulations to Willem Davies for the award and for the exceptional thesis!
For more information about the theses or the award, please contact Arno Korula:  A.E.Kourula@uva.nl.