Won the Lehmkuhl Grant for ‘A Punch in the Face’
Former NHH students Odin Sande and Erik Tien Huynh have been awarded the Lehmkuhl Grant for their master’s thesis ‘A Punch in the Face’.
‘It is a moment I will remember for a very long time,’ says Erik Tien Huynh.
‘We both have experience as entrepreneurs and have faced rejection along the way, so this was a topic we genuinely cared about and wanted to explore,’ says Odin Sande.
The award was presented during this year’s Lehmkuhl Lecture at NHH on Tuesday, where entrepreneur and NHH alumnus Martin Schütt delivered this year’s lecture.
Surreal
Erik Tien Huynh attended the ceremony and received the award on stage. His friend and thesis co-author Odin Sande was away on a business trip and was unable to receive the award with Huynh.
‘It feels surreal. I am the first person in my family to go into higher education, so I was already very proud just to get a good grade. But to win an award as well, together with Odin, was not something I had imagined.’
The Lehmkuhl Grant should, as a general rule, be awarded for a master’s thesis in the field of innovation or entrepreneurship. The thesis should address new products or services or new business models. It should contribute directly or indirectly to innovation and be of high academic quality.
The grant is worth NOK 50,000.
‘What do you think your family will say?’
‘I think they will be very proud. They will dance for joy when they hear about this,’ Huynh says with a laugh.
Young entrepreneurs
Sande and Tien Huynh receive the NOK 50,000 Lehmkuhl Grant for their master’s thesis ‘A Punch in the Face – A Qualitative Study of How Early Rejection Affects Young Entrepreneurs and Their Subsequent Entrepreneurial Journey’.
Young entrepreneurs give up after one ‘no’ | NHH
In their thesis, they examined what happens when young entrepreneurs receive an early and decisive rejection.
The two former NHH students conducted in-depth interviews with 17 entrepreneurs who had applied for funding through Innovation Norway’s STUD-ENT scheme but had been turned down. When applicants perceive the reasons for rejection as inadequate, it becomes difficult for them to understand what they could improve.
In several cases, this contributed to the projects being abandoned altogether.
Could have practical implications
It is precisely this combination of academic quality and practical relevance that the jury, chaired by NHH Professor Øivind A. Nilsen, highlights in its citation for this year’s Lehmkuhl Grant.
The jury points out that the thesis shows how emotional processing, learning and the loss of resources influence whether entrepreneurs continue, change course or give up. The findings also have practical applications. According to the jury, the thesis identifies simple, low-cost improvements to the way institutions communicate rejection decisions.
The thesis has already attracted attention outside academia, including in Shifter. The jury considers the findings particularly relevant following the reduction in funding for the STUD-ENT scheme in 2026.
Praises their supervisor
The supervisor for the master’s thesis was Professor Bram Timmermans at the Department of Strategy and Management.
‘He has been fantastic,’ says Huynh.
‘The credit is theirs,’ says Timmermans. ‘They are the ones who did the work. They worked hard on the thesis. And one of the reasons they are receiving the award is that they had a good idea.’
‘How important is it that NHH students write master’s theses on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship?’
‘We want more people to become entrepreneurs, to take part in entrepreneurship and to contribute to innovation, including within established companies.
‘Looking at the bigger picture, this is part of the expertise we give our students: strategy, marketing, finance and accounting. It is important to strengthen both entrepreneurship and the capacity for innovation in Norwegian business and industry,’ Timmermans concludes.