Shaz Ansari

• MPhil, PhD
• Professor of Strategy & Innovation at University of Cambridge

Given its extremely negative impact, it is not surprising that there is extensive literature focused on understanding and reducing corruption. However, the existing academic work focuses largely on corruption in government. Yet, corporations play a key role in much of the corruption that occurs in society and are important contexts for corruption t...

Why would an academic project incentivised towards scientific publications be repurposed to become a medical platform for responsible innovation? Patient Innovation, a non-profit medical platform that focuses on the sharing and dissemination of innovations to find solutions for rare and chronic diseases, was initially set up as an academic research...

Technologies are known to alter social structures in the workplace, reconfigure roles and relationships, and disrupt status hierarchies. However, less attention has been given to how an emerging technology disrupts the meaning and moral values that tether people to their work and render it meaningful. To understand how workers respond to such an em...

While there have been several studies on overt forms of marginalization, few examine benevolent marginalization, where people may unquestioningly participate in their own paternalistic subjugation by following a prescribed identity. How might such individuals end up achieving emancipation from an infantilizing identity? To address this puzzle, we c...

While scholars have explored how focal firms harness demand-side value through ecosystem development, less emphasis has been placed on understanding how peripheral complementors become competitive. Unlike focal firms, complementors can seldom set value extraction rules. How can complementors lacking critical supply-side resources establish themselv...

Addressing international sustainable development is an urgent and critical challenge. Existing research has focused on the role of individual intermediary organizations in supporting and shaping inclusive local markets to enhance development. However, it has overlooked how clusters of organizations act as intermediaries to build development capacit...

Individuals bear the weight of emotional distress when exposed to brutality and suffering in warzones. Yet, immersed in scenes of intense human tragedy, they must publicly mask their emotional turmoil. How then may such individuals cope with the emotional distress they suffer but mute? Through the analysis of 53 unsolicited, personal diaries, non-p...

Current models of substantive reputation repair primarily focus on isolated reputation-damaging events (RDEs) and corresponding responses by firms within short time frames. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that firms encounter numerous RDEs over extended periods while only sporadically and intermittently engaging in top-down substantive repair. To i...

For more than two decades, disruptive innovation theory (DIT) has stood as one of the most influential business theories of the 21st century. Despite its widespread impact and the extensive scholarly work it has inspired, DIT has encountered divergent views among academics, sparking debates over its evolution and applicability. This essay dives int...

Abstract In this article, based on a Symposium held at the 2022 Academy of Management Meeting, we present a moderated discussion between established scholars in the field of grand challenges—Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari, Natalie Slawinski, and Eero Vaara—focusing on the role of institutional, paradox, and practice theories in research on grand challenges....

In this article, based on a Symposium held at the 2022 Academy of Management Meeting, we present a moderated discussion between established scholars in the field of grand challenges—Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari, Natalie Slawinski, and Eero Vaara—focusing on the role of institutional, paradox, and practice theories in research on grand challenges. Our goal...

This symposium series focuses on the role of chance, luck, and serendipity in the management and strategy context. Leading management scholars discuss these themes from the perspectives of organizational learning, strategy, and innovation. Panelists: Henry Mintzberg, McGill University Amy Edmondson, Harvard University Daniel Levinthal, Universit...

Management theory is a diverse field where multiple theoretical perspectives coexist and coevolve, leading to conceptual pluralism. While conceptual pluralism is useful for grasping different aspects of the complex reality we live in, it may limit the further development of knowledge on elemental concepts. In this article, we focus on knowledge on...

We illustrate the potential of diaries for advancing scholarship on organization studies and grand challenges. Writing personal diaries is a time-honored and culturally sanctioned way of animating innermost thoughts and feelings, and embodying experiences through self-talk with famous examples, such as the diaries written by Anne Frank, Andy Warhol...

Research Summary How firms respond to the emergence of dominant platforms that undermine their competitiveness remains a strategic puzzle. Our longitudinal study shows how one incumbent, Cisco, responded to such a challenge by creating a new platform, Fog, without undermining the dominant platform, Cloud, where it played a complementor role. By dev...

Much of the literature on multistakeholder partnerships that addresses grand challenges has extolled the virtues of such partnerships as a means of reducing uncertainty, acquiring resources, and solving local and global wicked problems. These virtues include opening up "access and agendas to wider participation" (Gray 1989: 120), coordinating acros...

"Performativity" describes the phenomenon of theories not only describing, but at times also producing social reality. Over recent years, the performativity of theories has become an increasingly prominent topic in management research. At the same time, technological developments have motivated new theories ascribing drastic organizational impacts...

We illustrate the potential of diaries for advancing scholarship on organization studies and grand challenges. Writing personal diaries is a time-honored and culturally sanctioned way of animating innermost thoughts and feelings, and embodying experiences through self-talk with famous examples, such as the diaries written by Anne Frank, Andy Warhol...

Movements seeking to infuse markets with moral values often end up utilizing the market mechanism and support from mainstream actors to scale up, even if it comes at the cost of diluting their founding ethos. However, this process can be particularly challenging for movements that are explicitly opposed to using a market mechanism as a means of sca...

Why would an academic project incentivised towards scientific publications be repurposed to become a medical platform for responsible innovation? Patient Innovation, a non-profit medical platform that focuses on the sharing and dissemination of innovations to find solutions for rare and chronic diseases, was initially set up as an academic resea...

In 2019, the Oxford Word of the Year was climate emergency, “a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it.” Indeed, with other developments such as the rise of the Fridays for Future school strikes for the climate and the naming of 16-year o...

Research applying a socio-cognitive lens to disruptive digital innovation often fails to account for intra-firm heterogeneity in how an established incumbent frames and responds to disruptive innovation. To explore the heterogeneous framing processes involved within a firm, we conducted an in-depth case study of the response of a multinational insu...

Given its extremely negative impact, it is not surprising that there is extensive literature focused on understanding and reducing corruption. However, the existing academic work focuses largely on corruption in government. Yet, corporations play a key role in much of the corruption that occurs in society and are important contexts for corruption t...

Social movement scholars typically have focused either on how social movements strategically use collective action frames to confront targets and mobilize supporters, or on how targets respond to social movements. Few have captured the interactional dynamics between the two. This neglect tends to obscure how an extant collective action frame may sh...

The authors explore the emergence of altmetrics and Open Access (OA) publishing and discuss why their adoption in the management field lags behind other fields such as life sciences. The authors draw on the status literature to discuss the knowledge production and consumption underpinned by the ‘Impact Factor’ metric and high-status ‘Toll Access’ j...

How management ideas come, how they go and why some come back https://books.google.co.uk/books? hl=en&lr=&id=WPqNDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA251&ots=SkMgNqt1PA&sig=ffT7nE1m1ahBCkYi_Jzd0EBL3QQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

ABSTRACT Divestitures and other forms of organizational separation are not commonly associated with continuity and ongoing collaboration in inter-organizational relationships. Instead, separation is often equated with terminating relationships and gaining independence. Here, we argue that achieving separation does not require terminating relationsh...

We explore the emergence of altmetrics and Open Access (OA) publishing and discuss why their adoption in the management field lags behind other fields such as life sciences. We draw on the status literature to discuss the knowledge production and consumption underpinned by the "Impact Factor" metric and high-status "Toll Access" journals and their...

This a fully collaborative effort, with authors listed in reverse alphabetical order. We, the guest editors and contributors to this special issue, are indebted to Dries Faems, the Journal of Management Studies handling editor, and the many anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive feedback.

Recent work on temporal orientation in the sensemaking and strategy literature has emphasized the importance of developing coherent accounts of the firm, it's environment and intended course of action across both the past, present and future. This paper explores the manner in which organisations undergoing substantial change develop such coherent a...

MAINTENANCE OF CROSS-SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS: THE ROLE OF FRAMES IN SUSTAINED COLLABORATION ABSTRACT We examine the framing mechanisms used to maintain a cross-sector partnership (XSP) that was created to address a complex long-term social issue. We study the first eight years of existence of an XSP that aims to create a market for recycled phosphoru...

We examine the framing mechanisms used to maintain a cross-sector partnership (XSP) that was created to address a complex long-term social issue. We study the first eight years of existence of an XSP that aims to create a market for recycled phosphorus, a nutrient that is critical to crop growth but whose natural reserves have dwindled significantl...

In July 2017, Dr. Barbara Gray was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the IACM during its 30th annual conference in Berlin, Germany. In this tribute article, we celebrate Barbara's unique and varied contributions to our understanding of conflict and collaboration. We highlight multiple aspects of Barbara's scholarly work including res...

In July 2017, Dr. Barbara Gray was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the IACM during its 30th annual conference in Berlin, Germany. In this tribute article, we celebrate Barbara's unique and varied contributions to our understanding of conflict and collaboration. We highlight multiple aspects of Barbara's scholarly work including res...

Understanding institutions requires attending both to their social fact qualities and to the bidirectional nature of institutional processes as they influence and are influenced by actors. We advocate for frames and framing as tools to elucidate meaning making activities, and to explain whether and how meanings subsequently spread, scale up, and pe...

We argue for the merits of adopting an emergent research design. By this we do not mean starting with a completely blank slate in terms of the empirical phenomenon, theory and/or methods when entering the field. Instead, we are referring to the ability and willingness to continuously respond to emerging puzzles, ideas and insights in a flexible and...

Understanding institutions requires attending both to their social fact qualities and to the bidirectional nature of institutional processes as they influence and are influenced by actors. We advocate for frames and framing as tools to elucidate meaning making activities, and to explain whether and how meanings subsequently spread, scale up, and pe...

The topic of corruption has always attracted widespread interest and debate. While there is a growing body of work in management on corruption and related issues such as corporate misconduct and deviant behaviors, a systematic review remains beneficial. Our review starts by building upon extant work in management, economics, sociology and criminolo...

Radical innovations often upend the incumbents firms and even render them obsolete (Ansari & Krop, 2012; Benner, 2010), as these firms often have great difficulties in addressing the challenge posed by these innovations due to inertia (Ghemawat, 1991), tendencies to exploit existing competences (Levinthal & March, 1993; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008), o...

While existing research has explained how actors can disrupt even deeply entrenched practices, we focus on the role of the context in fueling these efforts. To do so, we analyze one of the largest anticorruption operations ever launched in Brazil: the “Lava Jato” (Car Wash Operation) and its antecedents, the contextual enablers of change, and the i...

While there has been increasing attention in institutional theory on how purposeful actors can disrupt even deeply entrenched practices, we focus on the role of the context in fuelling these efforts. We analyse one of the largest anti-corruption operations ever launched in Brazil: the 'Lava Jato' (Car Wash Operation) and its antecedents, the contex...

In this study we integrate insights from ‘top-down' and ‘bottom-up' traditions in organizational change research to understand employees' varying dispositions to support change. We distinguish between change initiation and change execution roles and identify four possible role configurations in which top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs) can...

Radical innovations often upend the incumbents firms and even render them obsolete (Ansari & Krop, 2012; Benner, 2010), as these firms often have great difficulties in addressing the challenge posed by these innovations due to inertia (Ghemawat, 1991), tendencies to exploit existing competences (Levinthal & March, 1993; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008), o...

In this study we integrate insights from ‘top-down' and ‘bottom-up' traditions in organizational change research to understand employees' varying dispositions to support change. We distinguish between change initiation and change execution roles and identify four possible role configurations in which top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs) can...

Why do some organizations become famous? We argue that fame results from a conjunction of several audience-specific reputations. Expert reputation (i.e., reputation among members of a knowledgeable group, such as a cultural elite or critics) acts as a mediator for achieving fame for organizations held in esteem by their peers and clients. Based on...

While scholars have developed increasingly well-developed accounts of institutional change, little attention has been paid to how change is resisted and, in particular, how efforts to marketize fail. We draw on the institutional logics perspective to guide analysis of an empirical case of the failed attempt by the Dutch state to marketize childcare...

While much research has focused on how institutional complexity can be managed at the organizational level, we know less about how individuals experience and cope with conflicting institutional prescriptions. To examine how individuals balance multiple logics as an ongoing accomplishment, we conducted an in-depth case study at a leading Benefit Cor...

Organisations routinely participate in inter-organisational relationships such as mergers & acquisitions, conglomerates, networks, business alliances, and industry associations. However, our understanding of how these relationships affect organisational identities remains limited. To address this issue, we study how members construe their organisat...

While the notion of reputation has attracted much scholarly interest, few studies have addressed the strategic issue of reputational multiplicity and managing the interactions among different types of reputations. We suggest that an organization can have several stakeholder-specific reputations—peer, market, and expert— and that reputational spillo...

This paper explores the cognitive processes involved in incumbent organizations following the emergence of a disruptive innovation. An in-depth case study of the response of Aviva plc. to the ambiguity driven by a disruptive innovation - the rise of general insurance aggregator sites between 2005 and 2007 - is used to develop a grounded model of th...

Firms introducing disruptive innovations into multisided ecosystems may confront the disruptor’s dilemma – they must gain the support of the very incumbents they disrupt. We examine how these firms may address this dilemma through a longitudinal study of TiVo, a company that pioneered the Digital Video Recorder. Our analysis reveals how TiVo naviga...

While scholars have explained how business has increasingly taken on regulatory roles to address social and environmental challenges, less attention has been given to the process of how business is made responsible for wicked problems. Drawing on a study of ‘conflict minerals’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we examine the process through whic...

While the deliberative democracy approach to ethics seeks to bridge universalist reason and contextual judgment to explain the emergence of intersubjective agreements, it remains unclear how these two are reconciled in practice. We argue that a sensemaking approach is useful for examining how ethical truces emerge in equivocal situations. To unders...

Studies on the diffusion of practices provide valuable insights into how organisations adopt, adapt, sustain and abandon practices over time. However, few studies focus on how stigmatised practices diffuse and persist, even when they risk tainting the adopters. To address this issue and understand how firms manage stigmatized practices, we study U....

The purpose of this panel symposium is to examine the range of theoretical tools that are available to understand the cognitive foundations of institutions and how meanings in institutions are constructed and changed. The institutional logics perspective has become a dominant approach to institutional analysis among organization theorists; however,...

We study the influence of a pervasive Western organizational mentality – clock-time orientation – in market-based models for human development. While a linear, clock-time orientation optimized for markets is meant to enhance efficiency, coordination and control, it may be unsuitable for managing emergent, complex and indeterminate processes such as...

Research has shown that management practices are adapted and ‘made to fit’ the specific context into which they are adopted. Less attention has been paid to how organizations anticipate and purposefully influence the adaptation process. How do organizations manage the tension between allowing local adaptation of a management practice and retaining...

We examine the process through which responsibility for ‘wicked problems’ is socially constructed and attributed to particular actors. Private companies have taken on increasing responsibilities for what were previously considered public issues. However, what counts as public or private responsibilities especially in the context of wicked problems...

Despite the centrality of meaning to institutionalization, little attention has been paid to how meanings evolve and amplify to become institutionalized cultural conventions. We develop an interactional framing perspective to explain the microprocesses and mechanisms by which this occurs. We identify three amplification processes and three ways fra...

We study the influence of a pervasive Western organizational mentality – clock-time orientation – in market-based models for human development. While a linear, clock-time orientation optimized for markets is meant to enhance efficiency, coordination and control, it may be unsuitable for managing emergent, complex and indeterminate processes such as...

Despite increasing interest in transnational fields, transnational commons have received little attention. In contrast to economic models of commons, which argue that commons occur naturally and are prone to collective inaction and tragedy, we introduce a social constructionist account of commons. Specifically, we show that actor-level frame change...

Multi-stakeholder standards co-developed by business and civil society have been celebrated as powerful tools to promote ethical governance. Democratic participation rooted in Habermasian discourse ethics has been argued as a powerful way to ensure fair outcomes. However, the desire to be fair in developing standards may not always translate into f...

The “value problem” or the process through which actors assign value to goods is central to the functioning of markets. While economists have emphasized market price as the principal measure of value, sociologists and organizational theorists have focused more on the influence of the social, cultural and ethical values on value. Few studies however...

Over the past decade, various novel practices have increasingly diffused within and across organizations. Some of these practices might be characterized as multi-valued practices (MVP) combining both economic value (e.g., efficiency and higher performance) and ethical value (e.g., transparency and sustainability). Although previous research has gen...

We argue that discursive repertoires from various societal institutions underpin the ‘value’ attributed to organizational resources in a market. Discourses at different levels connect and port concepts and products across different domains, thereby constructing both products and their users. Since firms are not just shaped by discourses but their a...

When radical innovations impact an industry, established incumbents are sometimes displaced by new challengers, yet at other times, survive and prosper. What are the factors that influence these possible outcomes? Extensive as the studies are in providing insights into incumbent-challenger dynamics (ICD), the fragmented nature of the literature and...

abstractRooted in the notion of inclusive capitalism, the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) approach argues for the simultaneous pursuit of profit and social welfare by creating markets for the poor. This idea has been both celebrated and criticized in the literature. We do neither in this paper. Instead, by leveraging insights from Amartya Sen's work on...

While scholars have provided increasingly well-developed theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of institutional entrepreneurs and other purposeful actors in bringing about change in organizational fields, much less attention has been paid to the role of unorganized, nonstrategic actors in catalyzing change. In particular, the role of co...

Organizational scholars have so far remained relatively passive around the debate on climate change. We argue that organizational scholars could and should get more involved and show how this could be done through the lenses of institutional, stakeholder, and complexity theories.

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in local institutional change. To what extent do multinational organizations help or hinder change, in particular new industry creation? Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a qualitative case study examining the role of multinationa...

Companies are increasingly asking which of their value chain activities are best performed within their own company and which may be outsourced. In addition, they are also considering which pieces of their value chain may be better performed abroad. These interrelated decisions concerning outsourcing and offshoring have not only changed entire indu...

We extend research on the diffusion of corporate practices by providing a framework for studying practice variation during diffusion processes. Specifically, we theorize about how population-level mechanisms of diffusion link with organization-level mechanisms of implementation that lead to the adaptation of practices. We also identify technical, c...

Recent studies in strategy have highlighted both the successes and failures of applying conventional perspectives in strategic management to developing markets. Within this debate, Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) strategies, aimed at exploiting high-volume, low-margins strata at the bottom of these societies, have particularly drawn interest. We critic...

It has been well established that organizations often need to restructure themselves to meet new technological challenges. We review the organizational impact of a recent technological development, sometimes referred to as Web 2.0 that enables users to leverage the Internet and generate “user-generated content” by acting as a supplier, co-producer,...