Anne Marie Knott, the Robert and Barbara Frick Professor of Business at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, has won the 2021 Olin Award for “RQ Innovative Efficiency and Firm Value,” forthcoming in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
The Olin Award, which includes business school recognition and a $10,000 prize, is intended to promote scholarly research that has timely, practical applications for complex, real-world management problems.
Dean Mark Taylor surprised Knott with the good news March 2 during a Zoom chat, which she initially believed was to discuss her annual performance review. Also on the chat was Richard J. Mahoney, former CEO of Monsanto Co. and a distinguished executive-in-residence at Olin.
Knott’s winning entry explores research quotient (RQ)’s ability to serve as a robust measure of a firm’s innovation for the finance audience. RQ is measured as the output elasticity of research and development (R&D). First developed by Knott in 2008, RQ can be estimated for any firm reporting R&D.
