The Strategy and International Business subject group

Business in a complex global environment

The Strategy and International Business group takes an inter-disciplinary approach to shedding light on critical competitive, economic, social and environmental issues facing organisations and their top leaders. Members of the group have broad research interests in the areas of strategy, organisation theory and international business and actively contribute to both academic and business communities.

The group’s research has uncovered how corporations deal with disruptive events and compete in an increasingly complex global environment with a diverse set of socio-political and economic influences. A distinctive feature of the group is its ability to produce leading research at the juxtaposition of how corporations achieve and sustain competitive viability, and how their social and environmental footprints can be examined and moderated through internal and external governance systems.

Strategy and International Business concept.

Key research and teaching areas

The research of the group falls broadly into the following categories:

  • Disruption, business models, strategic renewal, and competitive dynamics and decision making in volatile environments (Shahzad Ansari, Allègre Hadida, Yasemin Kor, Christopher Marquis, Kamal Munir)
  • Top management teams and corporate governance (Yasemin Kor, Christopher Marquis, Lionel Paolella) 
  • Business, technology, and society (Shahzad Ansari, Yasemin Kor, Christopher Marquis, Kamal Munir, Lionel Paolella)
  • Categorisation processes and social structures of markets (Kamal Munir, Lionel Paolella)
  • Social stability and change (Shahzad Ansari, Christopher Marquis, Kamal Munir)
  • Cultural industries (Allègre Hadida) and legal services markets (Lionel Paolella)
  • Political economy and evolution of Chinese businesses (Christopher Marquis, Peter Williamson)

Research centres

Group members have leading roles in the following research centres:

Teaching

Faculty members of the Strategy and International Business subject group teach across the full range of undergraduate, postgraduate and executive educations programmes offered by the Business School. 

Members

Meet our members including faculty, research and teaching staff, PhD students, and honorary appointees.

View faculty

View research and teaching staff

View PhD candidates

View honorary appointments

Subject group head

Shazhad (Shaz) Ansari

Professor of Strategy & Innovation

PhD (University of Cambridge)

Publishing output

Editorial boards

Members of the Strategy and International Business group have published in top-tier journals such as:

  • Administrative Science Quarterly
  • Academy of Management Annals
  • Academy of Management Journal
  • Academy of Management Review
  • Journal of International Business Studies
  • Journal of Management
  • Journal of Management Studies
  • Organization Science
  • Strategic Management Journal

Peer reviews

They currently serve or have served as associate editors at journals such as Journal of Management and Organization Studies and sit on the editorial boards of prestigious journals such as:

  • Administrative Science Quarterly
  • Academy of Management Journal
  • Academy of Management Review
  • Strategic Management Journal
  • Strategic Organization 
  • Organization Science

Selected publications

Industry and policy engagement 

Organisations

Members of the Strategy and International Business group have worked with some of the world’s leading organisations. They engage deeply with the business community, multilateral agencies and governments through their impactful research, innovative executive education programmes and area expertise.

Members of the group have spearheaded several research projects and grants funded by companies such as Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton and Newton Asset Management (a division of BNY Mellon Bank).

They have advised major multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank and UNCTAD, as well as governments of countries such as Greece and Pakistan.

Examples of engagement projects

Below are some examples of recent and current research projects that faculty members have been conducting in collaboration with or in support of businesses.

  • Professor Shaz Ansari works as a consultant at Thinfilms, a New Jersey firm providing thin film services to over 150 corporations in the hybrid microelectronics, semiconductor, optical, medical and sensor industries. He has also delivered executive education and training to several multinational corporations.
  • Dr Chris Coleridge founded and is now the CEO of Carbon13, a startup accelerator funded by ARM, Volkswagen, BP, EY and DLA Piper. The accelerator works to foster scalable ventures with the potential to take 10 million tonnes of CO2 per annum out of the emissions base through technically- or behaviourally-based innovations across the energy, mobility, manufacturing, buildings, agriculture and finance sectors.
  • Professor Yasemin Kor is collaborating with the Cambridge Global Food Security Initiative on projects for the food industry, to enhance sustainability and resilience.
  • Professor Kamal Munir frequently consults with blue chip and technology firms facing disruption related challenges. He also serves on the advisory board of a healthcare company and is involved with start-ups in the technology space. Professor Munir also consults for governments and multilateral institutions in the area of competitiveness at the national and industry levels. He serves as an Advisor to OECD’s Centre on Philanthropy. Professor Munir is currently working with a global network of professional accounting and advisory firms on issues related to diversity and inclusion.
  • Dr Lionel Paolella has been advising organisations on ways to foster equity, diversity and inclusion. He has also delivered executive education and training programmes on diversity to several corporations.
  • Professor Peter Williamson has been advising several multinationals and Chinese companies on globalisation strategies and development of their business ecosystems. He currently serves as a non-executive director of the global renewal energy firm Green Gas International and non-executive chairman of the global digital process automation company Bizagi.

Research seminars

The Strategy and International Business subject group hosts a seminar series of distinguished visiting scholars. Please contact Luke Slater, if you would like to be added to the mailing list.

Upcoming seminars

A Strategy and International Business seminar with Professor Rodolphe Durand, HEC Paris.

Speaker: Geoffrey G Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School, Harvard University.

Speaker: Fabrice Lumineau, Professor of Management and Strategy at HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong.

A Strategy and International Business seminar with Dr Amanda Sharkey, W P Carey School of Business.

Past seminars

2024

Join our Strategy and International Business seminar with Dr Rebeca Mendez-Duron, Universitat de es Balears.

Join our Strategy and International Business seminar with Professor Maja Korica, IESEG School of Management.

A Strategy and International Business seminar with Dr Ivona Hideg, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

2023

Michaelmas term

A Strategy and International Business seminar with Professor Patrick Haack, HEC Lausanne, University of Lausanne.

Lent term

27 February 2023 | 12:30-14:00, Room W4.03, Cambridge Judge Business School

Disrupting a regulated market: fintech ventures’ trade-offs in resource management and consequences for firm growth

Professor Pinar Ozcan, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

3 March 2023 | 12:30-14:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Talk normal! How management consultants translate academic knowledge into practical advice

Professor Eva Boxenbaum, Copenhagen Business School

17 March 2023 | 12:30-14:00, Room W4.03, Cambridge Judge Business School

Principal costs: re-examining the relationships among principals, agents and firms

Professor Maria L. Goranova, Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

2022

Michaelmas term

22 September 2022 | 13:00-14:30, Castle Teaching Room, Cambridge Judge Business School

Going beyond optimal distinctiveness: a machine learning approach to strategic positioning for gaining an audience composition premium

Dr Eric Zhao, Indiana University

6 October 2022 | 12:30-14:00, Room W4.03, Cambridge Judge Business School

Mind the gap: responding to the grand challenge of displacement through field bridging

Professor Christine Beckman, USC

13 October 2022 | 12:30-14:00, Room W2.02, Cambridge Judge Business School

Rhetorical strategies of authenticity: social value judgements in the emerging contest over cellular meat

Professor Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria, Washington State University and University of Liverpool

28 October 2022 | 12:30-14:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Product-line decisions and rapid turnover in movie markets

Professor Darlene C. Chisholm, Suffolk University

11 November 2022 | 12:30-14:00, Online and at Cambridge Judge Business School

Seminar from Professor Davide Ravasi

Professor Davide Ravasi, UCL School of Management

6 December 2022 | 12:30-14:00, Room W4.06, Cambridge Judge Business School

Nonmarket strategies for social and legal licenses: a necessary condition analysis

Dr Shuna Shu Ham Ho, Dalhousie University

7 December 2022 | 12:30-14:00, Room S3.04, Cambridge Judge Business School

Physical climate risk and firms’ adaptation strategy

Ms Xia Li, Questrom School of Business, Boston University

8 December 2022 | 11:00-12:30, Room S3.04, Cambridge Judge Business School

Stakeholder engagement for sustainable development: a conceptual model of orchestration

Dr Lite J Nartey, INSEAD

8 December 2022 | 14:00-15:00, Room S3.04, Cambridge Judge Business School

Why am I here? Meaningfulness in unsettled times

Dr Madeleine Rauch, Copenhagen Business School

Lent term

1 March 2022 | 12:00-13:30, Room W4.03, Cambridge Judge Business School

The radical flank revisited: how regulatory accountability shapes the effectiveness of social activism on business outcomes

Dr Shon Hiatt, Marshall School of Business USC

5 April 2022 | 12:00-13:30, Cambridge Judge Business School

Organisational adaptation in a goal-framing perspective

Professor Nicolai Foss, Copenhagen Business School

2021

Michaelmas term

19 November 2021 | 14:45-16:15, Lecture Theatre 3, Cambridge Judge Business School

Ratings, reactivity and the paradox of recognising responsibility

Dr Ben Lewis, Brigham Young University

23 November 2021 | 13:00-14:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Some organisational antecedents of evil

Professor Freek Vermeulen, London Business School

2020

Michaelmas term

10 November 2020 | 09:00-10:00, Online

Political protest and corporate philanthropic giving: a natural experiment of the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan

Professor Haibin Yang, City University of Hong Kong

19 November 2020 | 11:00-12:00, Online

Political turnover and the cross-border acquisitions of Chinese firms

Professor Jane Lu, City University of Hong Kong

Lent term

29 January 2020 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Platform competition and user-generated content: evidence from game wikis

Professor Tobias Kretschmer, LMU Munich School of Management 

2019

Michaelmas term

5 November 2019 | 12:30-16:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Regulatory impediments and the redeployability of physical assets: implications for investment decisions

Dr Timo Sohl, Pompeu Fabra University

20 November 2019 | 13:30-15:00, Room KH107, Cambridge Judge Business School

Structuring the ecosystem: antecedents of digital platforms’ organisational boundaries and technological interfaces

Professor Annabelle Gawer, University of Surrey

26 November 2019 | 12:00-13:30, Cambridge Judge Business School

Resource allocation capability and the allocation of resources in multi-business firms

Dr Catherine A. Maritan, Syracuse University

Easter term

16 April 2019 | 12:30-14:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Seeing like a philanthropist: from the business of benevolence to the benevolence of business

Professor Woody Powell, Stanford University

10 May 2019 | 12:30-15:00, Castle Teaching Room, Cambridge Judge Business School

Why should we change? How hidden temporal structures influence change recipients’ response to strategic change

Dr Quy Huy, INSEAD

14 May 2019 | 14:30-16:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Digitisation and open innovation: towards an integrative framework

Professor Gianvito Lanzolla, Cass Business School

25 September 2019 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

The effect of founder experience on labour market outcomes: a field experiment

Dr Tristan Botelho, Yale School of Management

Lent term

14 January 2019 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Overcoming the liability of gender: collaboration networks and entrepreneurial patenting by garage inventors

Dr Michelle Rogan, Kenan-Flagler Business School

22 January 2019 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Business models and business model innovation

Professor Christopher Tucci, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

5 April 2019 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Integrating distant pasts and futures sustainably in the present: toward a theoretical framework of organisational temporality

Professor Majken Schultz and Professor Tor Hernes, Copenhagen Business School

2018

Michaelmas term

27 September 2018 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Spoken like a woman: how gender influences CEO communication

Professor Gerry McNamara, Michigan State University

29 October 2019 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.02, Cambridge Judge Business School

How the network neighbourhood influences partnerships: from handshakes to formal collaboration among US fire departments

Professor Anita McGahan, University of Toronto

13 November 2018 | 13:15-15:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

The liability of high status and the advantages of brokerage in the face of environmental shocks

Professor Andrew Shipilov, INSEAD

30 November 2018 | 13:30-15:00, LT3, Cambridge Judge Business School

Construction and labour market frictions, sibling relatedness and establishment growth: the role of resource redeployability

Dr Timo Sohl, Pompeu Fabra University

Easter term

19 March 2018 | 15:30-17:00, Room tbc, Cambridge Judge Business School
in association with the Cambridge Corporate Governance Network (CCGN)

That could have been me: director deaths, mortality salience and CEO prosocial behaviour

Dr Guoli Chen, INSEAD

1 May 2018 | 11:00-12:30, Room W2.02, Cambridge Judge Business School

Big, beige and bulky: aesthetic shifts in the hearing aid industry (1945-2015)

Dr Stine Grodal, Boston University Questrom School of Business

16 May 2018 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Diversity and performance in the multinational firm: evidence from the ships of the Dutch East India Company, 1700-1796

Professor Filippo Carlo Wezel, Universita’ della Svizzera italiana (USI Lugano)

6 July 2018 | 12:00-13:00, Cambridge Judge Business School

Writing for an audience

Professor Will Mitchell, University of Toronto

Lent term

15 January 2018 | 13:00-15:00, Room W2.01, Cambridge Judge Business School

Connecting and creating: tertius iungens, individual creativity and strategic decision processes

Dr David Obstfeld, California State University

23 January 2018 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.02, Cambridge Judge Business School

Towards a theory of ecosystems

Professor Michael G. Jacobides, London Business School

5 March 2018 | 12:00-13:30, Room W2.02, Cambridge Judge Business School

Founder industry specific experience: an asset or a liability? The case of international expansion

Professor Niron Hashai, Arison School of Business

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