Paurav Shukla, Veronica Rosendo-Rios, and Dina Khalifa Win the 2025 S. Tamer Cavusgil Award

Paurav Shukla, Veronica Rosendo-Rios, and Dina Khalifa have been selected as the recipients of the annual S. Tamer Cavusgil Award for their article, “Should Global Brands Engage in Brand Activism?” which appeared in the March 2025 issue of Journal of International Marketing.

The award honors a Journal of International Marketing article from the most recent calendar year (2025) that has made the most significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of international marketing management. The committee overseeing the selection process included Ayşegül Özsomer (Koç University), Goksel Yalcinkaya (University of New Hampshire), and Stanford Westjohn (University of Alabama). The committee stated,

“This article deserves the Cavusgil award due to its timely exploration of brand activism. The authors provide a nuanced understanding of brand activism’s effects. They offer fresh theory by linking schema change to brand origin and self–brand connection. The research demonstrates that activism can act as a catalyst for schema change, helping global brands with a perceived negative brand origin improve their market position, regardless of consumers’ prior attitude valence toward the issue.

In contrast, global brands with a positive origin only reap the benefits of activism when their stance directly aligns with consumers’ prior attitudes. Ultimately, the study highlights under what conditions brand activism is beneficial and when it is not, offering practical guidance to brand managers on when to engage in brand activism. The paper gives managers clear guidance on when activism pays off, especially for brands from less favored countries.”

Paurav Shukla is Professor of Marketing and Head of Research for the Digital and Data Driven Marketing Department at the Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, UK. His research interests include cross-cultural consumer behavior, luxury marketing and branding, health policy, and international marketing with a particular focus on emerging markets. He is one of the most cited academic scholars in the past five years in the luxury branding domain and is included in the top 2% of scientists globally. Paurav’s career began in industry, and he continues to work hand-in-hand with academic institutions and corporate organizations including not-for-profit organizations in the capacity of visiting professor, advisor, and board of directors. He has published many articles in top-tier academic journals, chapters to edited books, and popular accounts of his work and views appear in mainstream press regularly. He has been delivering corporate training, teaching, and consulting assignments for various organizations in the Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Veronica Rosendo-Rios is a faculty member at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas-ICADE, Spain. She holds a PhD in Marketing (Business Economics; Universidad Rey Juan Carlos). She has completed studies in Business Administration, English Philology, Executive-MBA (Universidad Pontificia Comillas), and Postgraduate Course in Statistical Techniques and Quantitative Research Methodology (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), as well as an Executive Program in Business Analytics (Universidad Pontificia Comillas). She teaches at the Faculties of Business and Law. She has more than a decade of corporate experience at the headquarters of multinational companies, such as Sony (UK), Johnson & Johnson (UK), and EDS (UK), among others. She has previously taught at various universities (CUNEF and URJC, among others) and she has carried out research stays at various universities such as King’s College (UK), University of Salento (Italy), and Southampton University (UK). She has participated in various research projects, both national (funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AECID, etc.) and international (funded by the EU), which cover multiple institutions in various countries. Her work has been published in national and international journals such as Journal of International Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, etc. She has also won several awards for her research in the area of international marketing and she regularly participates in national and international conferences.

Dina Khalifa is a Senior Lecturer/Course Leader MA Luxury Brand Management at Regent`s
University London and a Senior associate at University of Cambridge Institute for
Sustainability Leadership (CISL). Her research focuses on luxury branding and consumption,
brand activism, and social inclusion in the luxury sector. She has been awarded the
Prestigious Prince of Wales Global sustainability fellowship at CISL, where she looked into
the role of the luxury sector in fostering social inclusion.

The authors will be honored at the 2026 AMA Summer Academic Conference, July 24-26 in Denver, CO. View a list of past S. Tamer Cavusgil Award winners here.

Go to the Journal of International Marketing