Two students from Copenhagen Business School have become the first undergraduates in their programme to have their research accepted for presentation at the annual conference of the prestigious Academy of Management (AOM).

Jochen Lenders and Luisa Lund completed their bachelor degrees at CBS’s Business, Language & Culture programme in June 2012. Their bachelor thesis, ‘Smoke for Thought’, won the award for best bachelor project in their programme, and examined the relationship between the Danish government and the tobacco industry.

“We studied the potential strategies of tobacco companies in Denmark to tackle the challenges of tobacco legislation, and formulated a number of solutions for the precarious situation in the industry,” Lenders explained in a press release.

With the help of their academic advisor, Charles Tackney, and other CBS faculty, Lenders and Lund then revised and expanded upon their project for submission to the conference. Nearly a year later, the two were notified that their paper had been accepted for a panel presentation.

"We are very likely the first students in the history of CBS to have successfully revised an undergraduate project paper for academy acceptance," Lenders pointed out.

While he and Lund were thrilled about their achievement, Lenders simply hoped that their success would serve to highlight the opportunities available even to undergraduate students at CBS.

“We strongly hope our story can encourage other students to work hard and achieve even more,” Lenders said.

The AOM Conference will take place this August in Orlando, Florida.