Professor, General Management, Sustainability & Strategy
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Fellow of the Academy of Management Founder & Lab Leader, Innovation North Canada Research Chair in Business Sustainability
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Tima Bansal is a Professor of Sustainability and Strategy at the Ivey Business School. She holds honorary doctorates from the University of Hamburg, Université de Montréal, and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is also affiliated with the University of Cambridge and Monash University.
Tima has received significant accolades for her scholarship. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Business Sustainability; she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Academy of Management; she holds the Hellmuth Prize from Western University, the Distinguished Scholar Award by the Organizations and Natural Environment; and, was the first Canadian to be named a Faculty Pioneer for Academic Leadership by the Aspen Institute, a global forum for business and society headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Tima’s research investigates the interplay between business strategy and sustainability. She has published in several top research journals including theAcademy of Management Journal, theAcademy of Management Review,Organization Science, and theStrategic Management Journal. She has co-edited two books about business and the natural environment and contributes to her own column in Forbes.com. Her research has also been cited in the popular press, includingThe Globe and Mail, theNational Post, theWall Street Journal,The Guardian, andThe Independent.
She has previously served as a Deputy Editor (2016-2019) and Associate Editor (2010-2013) for the Academy of Management Journal and has served on ten other editorial boards for a range of journals. Since 1999, she has raised over $11M in government grants and $2M in corporate funding for sustainability-related research.
Abstract: Strategy scholars are increasingly attempting to tackle complex global social and environmental issues (i.e., wicked problems); yet, many strategy scholars approach these wicked problems in the same way they approach business problems—by building causal models that seek to optimize some form of organizational success. Strategy scholars seek to reduce complexity, focusing on the significant variables that explain the salient outcomes. This approach to wicked problems, ironically, divorces firms from the very social-ecological context that makes the problem ‘wicked’. In this essay, we argue that strategy research into wicked problems can benefit from systems thinking, which deviates radically from the reductionist approach to analysis taken by many strategy scholars. We review some of the basic tenets of systems thinking and describe their differences from reductionist thinking. Further, we ask strategy scholars to widen their theoretical lens by (i) investigating co-evolutionary dynamics rather than focusing primarily on static models, (ii) advancing processual insights rather than favoring causal identification, and (iii) recognizing tipping points and transformative change rather than assuming linear monotonic changes.
Abstract: Corporations are currently confronting major, interlocking crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss, inequalities, and social isolation. When under threat, executives tend to focus inward and on the short term. This is particularly unfortunate because it is in such crises that executives need to see beyond the here and now in order to ride the storms. In this paper, we argue that corporate purpose helps organizations fight such myopia and offer four mechanisms through which this works: exposing new insights, seeing issues holistically, helping to sustain focus, and bringing unity and direction.History: This paper has been accepted for the Strategy Science Special Issue on Corporate Purpose.Funding: The authors acknowledge the generous funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada [Grant 895-2015-0026] that contributed to the broader project in which these ideas were generated.
Kunisch, S.; zu Knyphausen-Aufsess, D.; Bapuji, H.; Aguinis, H.; Bansal, P.; Tsui, A. S.; Pinto, J., 2023, "Using Review Articles to Address Societal Grand Challenges", International Journal of Management Reviews, April 25(2): 240 - 250.
Abstract: All business contributes to environmental crises because of its focus on profit. We argue that international business (IB) contributes more than its fair share. IB's focus on cross-border arbitrage has led to the over-extraction of natural resources and the accumulation of waste. This is a problem, because natural resources are limited in quantity and embedded in their local environment. It is time for IB researchers to step up and substantially and meaningfully address IB’s contribution to environmental crises by embracing the principles of natural systems processes within its core assumptions and improving its theorizing of natural resources. In this paper, we take a step forward in this direction by revisiting and refining the theoretical dimensions of country-specific advantages (CSAs) and firm-specific advantages (FSAs) to recognize natural resources more explicitly. We propose three natural resource-based strategies for multinational enterprises (MNEs): reducing, replacing, and regenerating. This article offers a new theoretical perspective to understand how IB can create value and steward the natural environment, contributing to the sustainability of business, society, and the planet.
Abstract: Society faces many wicked problems today such as climate change, income inequality, and biodiversity loss. Not only has business contributed to these problems but it also plays an important role in addressing them. Problems are “wicked” because they are embedded in complex systems that are continuously evolving. As no single actor can understand and solve a wicked problem, prior research has suggested that multiple actors, such as researchers and managers, come together to cocreate solutions. The cocreation process typically relies on the existing knowledge of the actors involved in the process. Yet, the dynamic nature of wicked problems requires actors to not just rely on cocreating on past knowledge but to cocreate tools that address future emerging or evolving problems. In this paper we seek to explain how researchers and managers can cocreate forward to address wicked problems. We illustrate the concept of cocreating forward through an innovation lab located at a Canadian business school. The lab brings together researchers, managers, and practitioners from various sectors to cocreate corporate innovation processes for addressing wicked problems. By cocreating forward, we show that research, learning, and practice need not be sequential but rather simultaneous activities.
Abstract: The post-Enron era is marked with growing discourse of stakeholders, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Yet, commentators debate whether U.S. corporations have indeed moved toward a stakeholder orientation, given the difficulties in measuring such a shift. We assess this shift by examining corporate governance practices, especially the prevalence of shareholder- and stakeholder-oriented practices in chief executive officer (CEO) dismissals. Using data on large firms in 1980–2015, we found that, before the 2000s, CEOs were less heavily penalized for poor firm performance when they demonstrated a shareholder orientation by downsizing and refocusing the corporation and more heavily penalized for CSR activity. This trend, however, reversed after the early 2000s. This article provides evidence of the evolution of U.S. firms' governance practices from a shareholder toward stakeholder orientation.
Abstract: In 1843, Søren Kierkegaard said, “ It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”
Management researchers are often attracted to the business and society domain because of a desire to impact management practice to create a better world. However, they often do not have the impact that they hope, because researchers tend to rely on historical data, but managers seek insights that inform future actions. In this commentary, we describe our impact journey in three distinct moments in time. In the last one, both researchers and managers live forward.
Abstract: Time and temporality are central to strategy and strategic management. Yet, relatively little attention has been paid to what organizational members do to shape temporal phenomena that are important for strategic outcomes. In this essay, we define temporal work as any individual, collective, or organizational effort to influence, sustain or redirect the temporal assumptions and patterns that shape strategic action, and we introduce the seven articles in this special issue that explore this concept. Building on the rich insights emerging from these articles, we show how temporal work acts on temporal assumptions by shaping perceptions and interpretations, reorients patterns through temporal structures underpinning action, and influences the value associated with time. This is achieved through various combinations of temporal talk, temporal practices and temporal objects. By focusing on the role of human agency in shaping temporal phenomena, the notion of temporal work opens up exciting opportunities for research on issues that are critical for the future of organizations and society.
Abstract: In this essay, we argue that by taking a systems lens, sustainability researchers can better understand the implications of COVID-19 on business and society and prevent future pandemics. A systems lens asks management researchers to move from a firm-level perspective to one that also considers the broader socioecological context. We argue that for business to prevent future pandemics and assure future prosperity, business must recognize the limits to growth, alternative temporalities that do not pit the short against the long term, the nestedness of local phenomena in global systems, and leverage points that can reduce entrenched systems of social inequalities.
Abstract: As inductive research has moved from the fringe to the mainstream, it not only has come to look more like deductive research, but it has started to look more formulaic (i.e., standards, templates, checklists). The very thing that makes inductive research unique is its ability to challenge what is known and to do so with creativity. The question, thus, needs to be asked: why does inductive research continue to become more formulaic when many inductive editors, reviewers, and authors celebrate novelty and creativity? We believe it is because reviewers and editors find it difficult to judge ‘quality’ when creativity demands novelty, so there is no guidebook. The science-based foundation of quality is rattled when quality is in the ‘eye of the beholder’. From our So!apbox, we tackle this challenge head-on by asking: what is ‘quality inductive research’ when we loosen the science-based methodological straightjacket to deliver the novelty promised by inductive methods? We explore the attributes that reflect quality inductive research and discuss innovative editorial practices we believe can improve how inductive research is judged.
Abstract: Systematic reviews of academic research have not impacted management practice as much as many researchers had hoped. Part of the reason is that researchers and managers differ so significantly in their knowledge systems – both in what they know and how they know it. Researchers can overcome some of these challenges by including managers as knowledge partners in the research endeavor; however, doing so is rife with challenges. This paper seeks to answer: how can researchers and managers navigate the tensions related to differences in their knowledge systems to create more impactful systematic reviews? To answer this question, we embarked on a data-guided journey of the experience of Network for Business Sustainability, which had undertaken 15 systematic reviews that involved researchers and managers. We interviewed previous participants of the projects, observed different systematic review processes, and collected archival data to learn more about researcher-manager collaborations in the systematic review process. This paper offers guidance to researchers in imbricating academic with practical knowledge in the systematic review process.
Abstract: Even though sustainability tends to be a criterion in most new product innovation processes, they often undermine sustainability. New product innovation processes are designed to sell more products, which use natural resources and contribute to waste. To create products that support sustainable development, companies need to rethink their conventional approach to new product innovation and by putting sustainability more at the center of the process. In our essay, we critically reflect on this phenomenon. We begin with outlining the shortcomings of the conventional Stage-Gate new product innovation process. Those shortcomings are a) formalization of the innovation process, b) strong customer focus, and c) narrow performance metrics. We argue that the conventional Stage-Gate new product innovation process leads faithfully to the development of unsustainable products. To overcome myopia around short-term financial results and limited depth of attention, we elaborate on a set of recommendations on how companies can systematically develop new products with a sustainability orientation. Our recommendations are to a) expand the problem definition, b) learn through collaborations, and c) broaden the measurements. We developed this essay based on research insights from our work with a globally leading innovation company.
Abstract: The availability of Big Data has opened up opportunities to study supply chains. Whereas most scholars look to quantitative Big Data to build theoretical insights, in this paper we illustrate the value of qualitative Big Data. We begin by describing the nature and properties of qualitative Big Data. Then, we explain how one specific method, topic modeling, is particularly useful in theorizing supply chains. Topic modeling identifies co-occuring words in qualitative Big Data, which can reveal new constructs that are difficult to see in such volume of data. Analyzing the relationships among constructs or their descriptive content can help to
understand and explain how supply chains emerge, function and adapt over time. As topic modeling has not yet been used to theorize supply chains, we illustrate the use of this method and its relevance for future research by unpacking two papers published in organizational theory journals.
Abstract: The communities of research and practice are embedded in different knowledge systems; one that favors rigor, while the other favors relevance. Many management scholars suggest that cocreating knowledge from these two knowledge systems is difficult and rare. However, this critique is often based on an event-based account of cocreation, so that the cocreation activities occur over a distinct period of time with a clear beginning and end. These event-based accounts bring the challenges of cocreation into focus. In this research, we take a process ontology, which places the dynamics in greater focus and recognizes that cocreation is continuous. We observed two projects in which researchers and managers collaborated to generate knowledge related to business sustainability and conducted 67 interviews with 47 people who had participated in similar projects. We found that by making the process explicit, participants were better able to cocreate knowledge. We identified two devices that helped make the process explicit: (1) making temporal connections between events and (2) recognizing the incompleteness of the objects. Our study contributes to prior research on cocreation by showing that cocreation occurs not just within events, but also between events, which serves to imbricate rigor and relevance over time.
Abstract: Researchers have long recognized the organizational and societal costs of short organizational time horizons; however, prior work tends to confound cognitive and behavioral explanations, thereby masking the importance of cognitive biases in shaping time horizons. By situating our work in prospect theory and organizational search, not only do we recognize the effect of external evaluations on organizational time horizons, we also recognize that positive and negative evaluations can affect organizational time horizons asymmetrically. Specifically, we argue that negative evaluations will shorten organizational time horizons more than positive evaluations will lengthen them. In our research context of financial analysts, this means that “sell” recommendations will shorten time horizons more than “buy” recommendations will lengthen them. Our main thesis can help to explain rising short-termism among some publicly-traded companies. We operationalize organizational time horizons by the language managers use during 3,136 quarterly earnings conference calls. We test our main hypothesis and other timing-related moderating effects on 98 extractives firms from 2006 to 2013.
