By Mackenzie White | Ivey Research Office | July 11, 2025
Navigating the Unpredictable: Hasse’s Pioneering Research on Rare and Impactful Events
In a time when global business is increasingly defined by uncertainty, complexity, and disruption, Assistant Professor of International Business Dr. Vanessa Hasse is breaking new ground in understanding how the world (and the organizations within it) can better prepare for and respond to rare but transformative events. Her research agenda focuses on the strategic and educational implications of events that occur infrequently but leave a lasting impact on our societies – such as disruptive technologies, economic upheavals, and natural disasters. Through her work, Hasse seeks to challenge conventional thinking and redefine how we navigate uncertainty in a world where the uncommon is more connected than we realize.
A Shift from Subsidiaries to Systems
Hasse’s academic journey began with research related to foreign subsidiary management. This work, including her PhD thesis, explores how multinational firms manage foreign operations, especially in light of underperformance, emphasizing especially the roles that cultural and temporal dimensions play in that regard. This research stream, which is ongoing, aligns with traditional international business frameworks, offering detailed insights into firm behaviour at the subsidiary level.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 came a pivotal moment for Hasse in that the pandemic coincided with discussions she was having with colleague and mentor Dr. Paul Beamish about rare events and other outlier phenomena. These conversations culminated in a 2022 publication in Global Strategy Journal, marking the beginning of a new research stream for Hasse: the study of rare and impactful events (RIEs).
While the topic emerged from an academic discussion, it was the global experience of the pandemic that truly catalyzed her interest. It revealed how deeply interconnected the world is, and how unprepared systems and organizations can be for events that are difficult to predict yet are massively consequential. For Hasse, the pandemic wasn’t just a global health crisis; it was a case study in how businesses and societies must be ready to adapt to the increasingly frequent occurrence of rare events.
Rethinking International Business Through the Lens of Rare Events
What distinguishes Hasse’s work is thereby not her focus on any particular rare event, but rather the broader exploration of infrequent, and boundary-spanning disruptions. Her approach also highlights how the field of international business can contribute to addressing such phenomena, given its focus on cross-border dynamics and systemic complexity.
She notes that rare events, especially those with negative ramifications, often reveal patterns in how societies respond to disruption. These events test organizational resilience, challenge conventional business models, and often expose hidden vulnerabilities in global systems. Yet, as her recent work in Business & Society suggests, these phenomena are often underrepresented in academic publications.
This gap inspired Hasse to advocate for a more robust and structured academic approach to RIEs. She aims not only to better understand what drives these events but also to expand the tools researchers use to study them. Standard quantitative research methods - which rely on historical data and hypothesis testing, for instance, often fall short in analyzing rare occurrences with limited precedent. Hasse, thus advocates for supplementing these with alternative approaches like “prospective theorizing”, a method of constructing and evaluating plausible future scenarios in the absence of pre-existing data, as well as other ways of anticipating or interpreting rare events and studying unknowns.
Translating Research into Education: The RARE Initiative
Hasse’s passion for rare events doesn’t stop at theory. As an educator, she has transformed her passion for research into a powerful teaching approach. Her classroom strategies, for instance, are designed to make complex, abstract ideas tangible and memorable. Using optical illusions, hands-on exercises, and cognitive demonstrations, she encourages students to confront their assumptions about predictability and control in transformative ways.
These teaching methods are thereby part of a broader project she has launched, called The RARE Initiative (Raising Awareness about Rare Events): a growing repository of research and open-access teaching materials focused on RIEs. From conceptual models to interactive exercises, the platform aims to equip researchers and educators with tools to understand and respond to unpredictable global phenomena, all while fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The classroom response has been overwhelmingly positive, winning her teaching excellence awards in five consecutive years since 2021. Students are engaged by the content and challenged to think differently about risk, resilience, and systems at large. Through this work, Hasse has positioned herself at the intersection of rigorous scholarship and transformative pedagogy.
Facing Methodological and Institutional Hurdles
Pursuing a relatively underexplored topic comes with its own set of challenges. A primary issue is methodological: rare events are, by definition, difficult to quantify and study using deductive theorizing and conventional empirical methods. In the absence of large datasets or repeatable case studies, researchers must work within frameworks that are ambiguous and often speculative, with important implications for academic rigor.
There are other challenges as well. Academic publishing often rewards predictability and generalizability based on larger samples and established theories, which are criteria that rare events often defy. As a result, work on ‘“average” phenomena’ still far outweighs that on RIEs in traditional journals. Still, Hasse sees growing momentum across journals, conferences, and special issue calls, suggesting increased recognition of the topic.
Her research has also started to garner interest beyond academia. While her current focus is largely academic, Hasse recognizes the immense potential for real-world applications and plans to expand outreach to practitioners and policy institutions, particularly those focused on disaster preparedness, technological foresight, and public health.
Building a Cross-Disciplinary Future
Hasse’s work is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on fields as diverse as risk management, computer science, and epidemiology. This diversity not only informs her research and teaching but also drives her collaborations, as she continues to foster a co-creative network of thinkers interested in complex global challenges.
At Ivey, she finds a receptive and stimulating environment. “There’s a lot of interest in big picture thinking here,” she notes. “It’s an exciting place to pursue ideas that cross disciplinary boundaries and engage with real-world issues.”
Part of what makes her work so compelling is its adaptability. The RARE Initiative, for instance, is poised for expansion: from a repository to a dynamic platform that includes newsletters, blog posts, datasets, interviews, and public commentary. Hasse envisions it as a hub where scholars, educators, and practitioners alike can share resources and insights, helping to build a broader community around RIE scholarship.
Looking Ahead
As she looks to the future, Hasse is eager to scale up both her research and her public engagement. Publishing her ongoing research, expanding the RARE Initiative, applying for new grants, developing practitioner-focused outputs, and exploring further interdisciplinary collaborations are all opportunities to be explored.
She’s particularly interested in engaging more directly with organizations that manage crises and disruptions, such as governmental agencies, NGOs, and multinational firms. By connecting academic theory with practical need, Hasse hopes to ensure that her work not only advances scholarly understanding, but also contributes to more resilient institutions and informed policy.
A Legacy of Connection and Curiosity
When asked to reflect on the larger message behind her body of work, Hasse speaks with humility and thoughtfulness. At its core, she sees her research as a testament to human interconnectivity in both its potential and its vulnerability. Because systems are deeply interconnected, RIEs often trigger cascading effects across multiple domains. The implications that arise from that result in profound responsibilities for researchers, educators, and decision-makers at large.
She also acknowledges the many people who have shaped her thinking. From academic mentors including Beamish to co-authors such as Dr. Martha Maznevski, as well as the students who continuously challenge and inspire her. “Every interaction offers something to learn,” she says. “Curiosity is what drives me.”
As part of her research on rare and global disruptive events, Hasse co-supervises a group of exceptional PhD students whose work advances understanding of outlier contexts and complex global challenges. Fuhad Ogunsanya and Abiodun Awosusi, both about to enter their fourth year in the PhD program, focus on unique circumstances, particularly in relation to the subsidiary outliers and the African healthcare sector. Their research highlights how organizations navigate uncertainty in environments often overlooked by mainstream studies. An incoming PhD student, Chenyu (Laister) Jia, has also expressed a strong research interest in global disruptive events, further expanding the scope of this important work. Click to explore their profiles and learn more about their contributions in the Ivey PhD Program.
As rare and impactful events become an increasingly central part of our collective experience through climate shifts, technological revolutions, or global health crises, Hasse’s work offers a vital lens for understanding them. More than that, it provides a roadmap for how institutions, educators, and leaders can prepare for the unknown.
In an era defined by unpredictability, Hasse is not only studying rare events: she’s helping the world to better prepare for them.