Title:  Rising Higher, Reaching Farther? The Joint Effects of Winning a Major Award and Initial Status on Exploratory Behavior

Speaker: Huisi Li, Associate Professor, University of Washington

Host: Can Ouyang, Associate Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Time: 10:00‑11:30, Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Venue: Online via Tencent Meeting

(Faculty and students on campus who require meeting access information, please send an email in advance to luckyjiang@sjtu.edu.cn)

Brief introduction of the content: 

Would winning a major award fuel or hinder subsequent exploratory behavior? Exploratory behavior refers to venturing into unfamiliar domains beyond one’s expertise. Understanding this question matters because post-award exploration can shape recipients’ career trajectories and organizations’ adaptation, yet prior research suggests competing possibilities regarding whether major recognition promotes or constrains exploration. Integrating theories of motivational ambivalence and status dynamics, we propose that winning a major award creates motivational ambivalence that influences exploratory behavior simultaneously through two opposing mechanisms. While it can boost felt energy to evoke exploratory behavior, it can also heighten the status maintenance motive that inhibits exploratory behavior. Moreover, we hypothesize that an individual’s initial status moderates these mechanisms, such that the indirect effects are stronger for individuals with a lower initial status. Results from two studies using different methodologies (i.e., an experiment and a longitudinal archival study) provide consistent support for our predictions. Our findings contribute to the nascent research on individual-level exploration, status dynamics, and motivational ambivalence. They also have practical implications in designing nuanced approaches to induce exploratory behavior in organizations.

Speaker's profile:

Huisi Li (Jessica Li) is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Management and Organization, Foster School of Business, University of Washington (Seattle). Her research focuses on power, status, and hierarchical relationships within organizations. Specifically, she examines how low‑power individuals perceive and respond to organizational hierarchies, as well as how power and status shape individual, team, and organizational behaviors. Her work has been published in leading international academic journals including Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. She currently serves as a Senior Editor for Organization Science.

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