Facebook Skip to main content


Bradford-Osborne Research Award

About the Bradford-Osborne Research Award

Bill Bradford (left) and Al Osborne (right)

Bill Bradford (left) and Al Osborne (right)

Named for its founders, William “Bill” Bradford and Alfred “Al” Osborne Jr. who, over their 40+ year careers, have published more than 60 research articles focused on entrepreneurs of color and the dynamics of their businesses. Their funding of this award is yet another of their many innovations.

Bill is an Emeritus Dean and Emeritus Professor of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. Al is the founder and faculty director of the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the UCLA Anderson School of Management where he is also a Professor of Global Economics, Management, and Entrepreneurship. In addition to recognizing groundbreaking research, the award seeks to stimulate additional research, provide public and corporate policy makers with insights to guide decision-making, and equip business support organizations to deliver impactful programming.

2024 Winner

Revealing and Mitigating Racial Bias and Discrimination in Financial Services

Dr. Maura Scott is the Dr. Persis E. and Dr. Charles E. Rockwood Eminent Scholar in Marketing in the Dr. Persis E. Rockwood School of Marketing at Florida State University’s College of Business (Ph.D. Arizona State University, M.S., and B.S. Purdue University). Her research interests include consumer behavior, consumer and societal well-being, public policy, and services marketing. Her research examines how to help improve consumers’ financial, health and food decisions, particularly among vulnerable populations.

Dr. Scott is joint editor-in-chief of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M). She also serves as associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing Research, and area editor for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. She previously served as associate editor for the Journal of Marketing. She is an editorial review board member of leading journals including the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Joint authors:
Sterling Bone, Glenn Christensen, Anneliese LedererMartin Mende, Brandon G. Christensen, and Marina Cozac.

2024 Award Ceremony

The award will be presented on April 27, 2024, at the University of Washington Foster School of Business in Seattle, WA.

Previous Award Winners

2023 – Can FinTech reduce disparities in access to finance? Evidence from the paycheck protection program

Professor Isil Erel is the David A. Rismiller Chair in Finance and the academic director of the Risk Institute at the Fisher College of Business of The Ohio State University. She holds a Ph.D. in financial economics from MIT Sloan School of Management. Her research spans various areas within corporate finance, with emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and financial institutions. This research has been published in top finance journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies.

Jack Liebersohn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics, UC-Irvine. His research is on banking, household finance, and real estate topics. He received my Ph.D. in Financial Economics from the Sloan School of Management in 2018.

2022 – Black and White: Access to Capital Among Minority-Owned Start-ups (2022 Bradford-Osborne Research Award)
Robert Fairlie – Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz
Alicia Robb – an author, researcher, angel Investor, and managing partner of two early-stage venture funds. Ph.D. economist specializing in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, and international development. Alicia Robb’s current projects for economic consulting include work for the SEC, the DOJ, and the Census Bureau. Dr. Robb is the founder and CEO of Next Wave Impact.
David T. Robinson – is the James and Gail Vander Weide Professor of Finance at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is an internationally recognized expert in private equity, venture capital and entrepreneurial finance. His work has appeared in leading academic journals in finance and economics and has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The Economist.

2021 – The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: The First Three Months after Social-Distancing Restrictions (2021 Bradford-Osborne Research Award)
Robert Fairlie
Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Robert Fairlie was recognized for his important and timely research published in 2021 in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Fairlie’s research was one of the first papers published in academic journals to explore the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses.

2020 – The Colorblind Crowd? Founder Race and Performance in Crowdfunding (2020 Bradford-Osborne Research Award)
Peter Younkin
Associate Professor of Management, University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business
Venkat Kuppuswamy
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Northeastern University, D’Amore-McKim School of Business

Published in 2017 in Management Science this paper uniquely combined methods and concrete/evidence-based recommendations regarding the disadvantage that African American men face when attempting to raise funding.

Lifetime Leadership Award

Timothy Bates
Distinguished Professor of Economics, Wayne State University (ret.)
Since 1973, Tim has published nearly 100 peer-review articles, 30 articles in the business and popular press, and five books on issues related to entrepreneurs of color. Prior to teaching at Wayne State, he was Chair of the Urban Policy Analysis graduate programs and Professor or Urban Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Vermont. He is also taught at UNC-Chapel Hill, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin.

2025 Call for Submissions

The Bradford-Osborne Research Award aims to advance scholarly research on entrepreneurship and business ownership by under-represented minority individuals, families, and communities in the United States. Papers published in peer-reviewed journals over the last four years (2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025) will be considered. The award recipient(s) will receive a $5,000 prize and present their paper in 2025 at an awards ceremony at the University of Washington M.G. Foster School of Business. The Foster School will provide travel expenses for this presentation. For co-authored papers, the prize will be shared by the lead authors.

The application is now closed. Call for submissions will open in late November 2024.

Contact

For questions about submission or general topics on the award, please contact Jasper Kinnay at [email protected]