Professor Heng Xu received the inaugural Impact Award from MIS Quarterly for her article “Information Privacy Research: An Interdisciplinary Review” (joint work with Tamara Dinev and the late H. Jeff Smith).

According to the selection committee (consisting of three current and past Editor-In-Chiefs of MIS Quarterly and two representatives from the MIS Quarterly Policy Council), this 2021 award honors one paper published a decade earlier that has had “the most significant and sustained scholarly impact, as shown by citations, by how it led to a change in thinking in the field, and by its prescience in identifying an important issue today” and “a real or potential impact beyond academia, especially through how it influences the way our field engages in an important real-world domain.”

In presenting the award, the selection committee notes that “This landmark paper has inspired a generation of privacy researchers and continues to offer new insights and challenges. It is only becoming more important over time as digital environments become more pervasive”.