The Inaugural ISMS Practice Prize Competition ISMS Practice Prize Competition

Background ISMS'S bylaws state that its purpose "... is to foster the development, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge, basic and applied research, and science and technologies that improve the understanding and practice of marketing. " Note the emphasis on implementation and on practice. The Society's goals are well served by its journal, Marketing Science, and it has recognized outstanding new developments each year since 1982 through the John D. C. Little Best Paper Award and each year since 1990 through the Frank Bass Award for the best paper related to a doctoral dissertation. Those two awards focus primarily on the scientific merit of the work. However, they do not explicitly recognize the practice and implementation aspects cited in the Society's charter. To address this need, the Society established the ISMS Practice Prize. According to the Prize protocol, the Practice Prize is awarded for an outstanding implementation of marketing science concepts and methods. The methodology used must be sound and appropriate to the problem and organization, and the work should have had significant, verifiable, and preferably quantitative impact on the performance of the client organization. Any work completed in recent years is eligible; prior publication of the work does not disqualify it. In other words, the award is designed to recognize both the rigor of the work and its focus on relevance and organizational impact. Specifically, the following criteria have driven the selection of finalists and the winner: Implementation-Who uses it, for what, and how Impact-Organization and what value Methodological Quality-Leading edge/appropriateness Technical Originality-Uniqueness and flair Difficulty-Problem(s), politics, and technical Transportability-Use in other applications or similar organizations Charm-Impact on society or newsworthiness