Associate Professor in Strategy and International Business
Bye Fellow and Director of Studies at Gonville and Caius College
PhD (European University Viadrina)
My research interests include strategising in extreme contexts, and the strategy process more broadly. Often, I conduct research in extreme contexts and challenges faced by people both working and living in challenging contexts, such as undocumented in the US, medical professionals during the pandemic and soldiers in warzones like Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen. My work has appeared in Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Strategic Organization, and Harvard Business Review.
I’m a member of the Strategy and International Business subject group at Cambridge Judge Business School, and along with my colleagues I actively contribute to both academic and business communities.
Professional experience
Madeleine Rauch is an Associate Professor of Strategy and International Business at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, and Bye-Fellow and Director of Studies at Gonville and Caius, University of Cambridge. Previously, she was at Stanford and Copenhagen Business School before joining Cambridge.
Dr Rauch’s research interests include topics associated with strategising in extreme contexts, and the strategy process more broadly. She conducts research in extreme contexts and challenges faced by people both working and living in challenging contexts, such as undocumented in the US, medical professionals during the pandemic and soldiers in war-zones like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan.
Her research has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Strategic Organization, and HBR, among others, and has been featured in The Stanford Daily, FAZ, Academy of Management Insights, the ASA blog and CBS Wire. She was named the 40 under 40 MBA Professors by Poets & Quants in 2025, and has won multiple awards in the past years (eg Best Paper Award OMT at AoM, and Best Paper Award at SMS, among others). She is also on the Editorial Review Board of Organization Science, Organization Studies, Academy of Management Perspectives and Strategic Organization. Her research has been featured on the Academy of Management’s Insights website, which collates the best academic research findings for managers and business leaders. Prior to academia, she worked as an HR Manager in the automotive industry in Germany and Mexico.
Previous appointments
Dr Rauch was at Stanford University and Copenhagen Business School prior to joining Cambridge Judge Business School.
Publications
Selected publications
- Rauch, M. (2025) “Between war and peace: how boredom shapes the enactment of idealized futures at work.” Academy of Management Journal (DOI: 10.5465/amj.2023.0618) (published online Jan 2025)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2025) “Reframing silence as purposeful: emotions in extreme contexts.” Journal of Management Studies (DOI: 10.1111/joms.13079) (published online Apr 2024)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2024) “Drone pilots: the struggles of war by remote control.” In: Patton Rogers, J. (ed.) De Gruyter handbook of drone warfare. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, pp.111-124 (DOI: 10.1515/9783110742039-009)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2022) “Waging war from remote cubicles: how workers cope with technologies that disrupt the meaning and morality of their work.” Organization Science, 33(1): 83-104 (DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1555)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2021) “From ‘publish or perish’ to societal impact: organizational repurposing towards responsible innovation through creating a medical platform.” Journal of Management Studies, 59(1): 61-91 (DOI: 10.1111/joms.12737)
- Cornelissen, J., Hartmann, M., Koch, J., Rauch, M. and Wenzel, M. (2020) “(Un)mind the gap: how organizational actors cope with an identity-strategy misalignment.” Strategic Organization, 18(1): 212-244 (DOI: 10.1177/1476127019856524)
Journal articles
- Rauch, M. (2025) “Between war and peace: how boredom shapes the enactment of idealized futures at work.” Academy of Management Journal (DOI: 10.5465/amj.2023.0618) (published online Jan 2025)
- Rauch, M. (2025) “When boredom drives turnover on your team.” Harvard Business Review, 10 Mar 2025
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2025) “Reframing silence as purposeful: emotions in extreme contexts.” Journal of Management Studies (DOI: 10.1111/joms.13079) (published online Apr 2024)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2024) “Drone pilots: the struggles of war by remote control.” In: Patton Rogers, J. (ed.) De Gruyter handbook of drone warfare. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, pp.111-124 (DOI: 10.1515/9783110742039-009)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2022) “Waging war from remote cubicles: how workers cope with technologies that disrupt the meaning and morality of their work.” Organization Science, 33(1): 83-104 (DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1555)
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2021) “From ‘publish or perish’ to societal impact: organizational repurposing towards responsible innovation through creating a medical platform.” Journal of Management Studies, 59(1): 61-91 (DOI: 10.1111/joms.12737)
- Cornelissen, J., Hartmann, M., Koch, J., Rauch, M. and Wenzel, M. (2020) “(Un)mind the gap: how organizational actors cope with an identity-strategy misalignment.” Strategic Organization, 18(1): 212-244 (DOI: 10.1177/1476127019856524)
- Rauch, M. and Stanske, S. (2020) “The power of defining what your company isn’t.” Harvard Business Review, 27 January 2020
- Stanske, A., Rauch, M. and Canato, A. (2020) “Anti-identity strategizing: the dynamic interplay of ‘who we are’ and ‘who we are not’.” Strategic Organization,18(1): 136-170 (10.1177/1476127019855753)
Book chapters
- Rauch, M. and Ansari, S. (2024) “Drone pilots: the struggles of war by remote control.” In: Patton Rogers, J. (ed.) De Gruyter handbook of drone warfare. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, pp.111-124 (DOI: 10.1515/9783110742039-009)
Awards and honours
- OMT Division Best Paper Award (for “‘What are we even doing here?’ Nurses’ experiences of moral injury during the pandemic”), Academy of Management, 2025
- Responsible Research in Business & Management Honor Roll (for “From ‘publish or perish’ to societal impact: organizational repurposing towards responsible innovation through creating a medical platform” with S. Ansari, Journal of Management Studies), which recognises academics serving the larger good through rigorous and relevant research offering credible insights for society, 2023
- Best Paper Award, Academy of Management, 2021
- Best Paper Award, Strategic Management Society, 2019
- Runner-up for Best Environmental and Social Practice Paper, Academy of Management, 2019
News and insights
Associate Professor Madeleine Rauch of Cambridge Judge Business School is named by business-school publication Poets & Quants to its 40 Under 40 list of talented young professors teaching in MBA programmes around the world.
Leadership and organisational behaviour
Can UN peacekeepers help you manage workplace boredom?
After embedding with UN blue helmet peacekeepers in South Sudan, Dr Madeleine Rauch examines how some workers adapt their thinking to align boring routines with idealised visions of the future.
Programme news
Navigating extremes with Madeleine Rauch, MBA lecturer
Madeleine Rauch, Associate Professor of Strategy and International Business, tracks her journey from Europe to Cambridge Judge Business School – via war torn places such as the Yemen and Afghanistan- as she brings her field research into human stress and strategy in extreme conditions into the MBA classroom. This article is part of our MBA Teaching Spotlight series.…
Media coverage
Academy of Management Insights | June 2025
Some UN peacekeepers find the bright side of boredom
Studying UN peacekeepers in South Sudan and other war-torn countries, Madeleine Rauch of University of Cambridge discovered that boredom often led individuals to reflect on their work in a way that led to greater job satisfaction.