ISOI Activities
Distinguished Speaker Series
Intended to be different from a traditional research paper seminar, the ISOI Distinguished Speaker Series focuses on opinion, viewpoints, and debate about our research field(s), and also to make a connection to practice. Since 2021, ISOI has invited leading academic speakers and those with experience leading organizations to participate in the Distinguished Speaker Series on the Past, Present, and Future of Strategic Organizations.
2025-2026 Speakers
Professor Sam Sitkin (Duke University): "Research on Courage and Addressing the Contradictions that Erode Institutional Trust" | February 20, 2026
Professor Lori Rosenkopf (The Wharton School): "Replication and Generalization in Strategic Management Research" | January 30, 2026
Dr. Witold Henisz (The Wharton School) | December 5, 2025
Dr. Riitta Katila (Stanford University) | November 7, 2025
Dr. Joan Enric Ricart (University of Navarra, IESE Business School) | October 3, 2025
Professor Brian Silverman (University of Toronto)| September 12, 2025
Previous Speakers
Andy Hoffman
Holcim (US), Inc. Professor of Sustainable Enterprise
University of Michigan
Rebecca Henderson
John and Natty McArthur University Professor
Harvard University
Paula Jarzabkowski
Professor of Strategic Management
University of Queensland & University of London
Jerry Davis
Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration
University of Michigan
Fiona Kun Yao
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Davis Smith
CEO and Founder, Cotopaxi
J. Eric Smith
Former President, Swiss Re Americas
Venkat Venkatakrishnan
Director of Research, Discovery Partners Institute
ISOI Research Paper Award
This award is presented annually to a published journal article or book that embodies and furthers the mission of ISOI, which is to address unmet demand by academic communities and corporations for transdisciplinary research in strategic organizational design and management.
To be eligible for the ISOI Research Award, the journal article or book must have been authored or co-authored by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty member and published within the last five years.
View Past Winners
2024: Arkadiy Sakhartov, Associate Professor of Business Administration
“Corporate Diversification and Risk: Portfolio Effects and Resource Redeployability,” published in Strategy Science. Read Paper
2023: Sonali Shah, Associate Professor of Business Administration
"Jewels in the Crown: Exploring the motivations and team building processes of employee entrepreneurs," coauthored with Rajshree Agarwal (Maryland) and Raj Echambadi (Northeastern) and published in Strategic Management Journal. Read Paper
2022: Fiona Kun Yao, Assistant Professor of Business Administration
"Do Individual Employees' Learning Goal Orientation and Civic Virtue Matter? A Micro‐Foundations Perspective on Firm Absorptive Capacity," coauthored with Song Chang (Hong Kong Baptist University) and published in Strategic Management Journal. Read Paper
2021: Gopesh Anand, Professor of Business Administration
"Sustainable process improvements: Evidence from intervention‐based research," coauthored with Aravind Chandrasekaran (Ohio State) and Luv Sharma (South Carolina) and published in Journal of Operations Management. Read Paper
2025 Research Paper Winner
Olga Khessina, Associate Professor of Business Administration
“Bottled Up or Poured Out: How Product Name Emotions Affect Appeal and Authenticity in the Market for Craft Beer,” published in Strategy Science, co-authored with J. Cameron Verhaal and Stanislav Dobrev.
Olga Khessina’s paper exemplifies ISOI’s mission of transdisciplinary research by bridging the literatures in organization theory, strategy, marketing, and social psychology to explain why product strategies effective in mass markets do not work in oppositional craft industries as well as to reveal unexpected strategies that do work.