Purpose of the Seminar Series
In 2026, we launched a monthly online seminar series on societal governance to support the development of research ideas and papers. Our central goal is to equip our field with the conceptual and methodological foundation to study societal governance in the face of polycrisis from an international and comparative perspective, and to do that by engaging (1) the variety of perspectives in our organization studies field, (2) perspectives from adjacent disciplines such as public management, public policy, political science, and comparative social sciences, and (3) perspectives from the major regions of the world.
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Seminar Series Organizers
- Zlatko Bodrožić, University of Liverpool
- Paul S. Adler, University of Southern California
- Alfred Tat-Kei Ho, City University of Hong Kong
- Nicole Ning Liu, City University of Hong Kong
Seminar Format
Seminars are held on the first Friday of each month and last one hour. They take place at 13:00 UK / 08:00 US Eastern / 20:00 Hong Kong (21:00 Hong Kong in winter). Guest speakers and chairing rotate across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Schedule
Seminar Series #1 Comparative Organization Theory and Societal Governance ▶
Speaker: Jerry Davis
Affiliation: University of Michigan
Date & Time:
May 8th, 2026, 8:00am-9:00am, ET
May 8th, 2026, 1:00pm-2:00pm, UK
May 8th, 2026, 8:00pm-9:00pm, China
Abstract
Organizations vary widely around the world. Even firms in the same industry, creating essentially similar products or services, can look very different in their ownership, their size, their central aims and power structures, where they place their boundaries, and how they balance their commitments to different stakeholders. For example, half of the world's carbon emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel companies -- with 17 of the 20 biggest owned by governments. Any approach to societal governance must build in an understanding of the connections between public policy and the shape of business in different countries, as must any efforts at large-scale reform. I propose 'institutional terroir' as a metaphor and a set of directives to think about how national institutions shape firms.
Background Readings
Seminar Series #2 The Advanced European States in the Polycrisis: External Challenges of Autocracy and Technology; Internal Challenges of Polarisation, Populism and Governance ▶
Speaker: David Soskice
Date & Time:
June 5th, 2026, 8:00am-9:00am, ET
June 5th, 2026, 1:00pm-2:00pm, UK
June 5th, 2026, 8:00pm-9:00pm, China
Abstract
The intense phase of the digital technological revolution built up through the 2010s and which we are very much still in, dominated by the US and now by China, and echoed in the advanced economies of Europe, has deeply polarised all these very differently organised societies; apart from China (?), political entrepreneurs have leveraged polarisation into radical right parties in the US and most of advanced Europe. In advanced Europe this has weakened national governments in terms of their capacity to make credible long-term agreements with other governments and/or between and within political parties. In turn the EU only functions with great difficulty, and can seldom push the radical policies needed to meet (as well as rapidly respond to) the external challenges of autocracy and leading-edge technology. States are further polarised between the high value-added and innovation-oriented (Superstar metro city) Clusters in which most important activities take place, and the ‘Places that Don’t Matter’; but the governance of Clusters generally plays no part in national politics. In addition contemporary corporate governance systems operate very differently across Clusters, even between Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, very sharply between the UK and France; even more so the role of unions, key in the Nordics and Germanic Clusters, barely seriously in France and the UK; and in both areas the US. So where to go from here? We look seriously at Draghi’s 2-speed Europe, at his proposal for borrowing an annual amount of €1tn to finance radical construction of innovation systems, and we argue the high-powered incentive structures which it makes possible in reshaping the complex governance structures of the advanced European systems, while retaining the many core elements which cannot be changed.
Short Bio
Taught econometrics and macroeconomics at Oxford 1967 to 1990, with many visiting spells teaching in the Berkeley Economics department. Research Director, Political Economy dept, WZB, 1990 to 2001. Research Prof Duke Pol Sci dept and Nuffield College, Oxford 2001 to 2010 (split appointment). 2001 to 2021, LSE School Professor for Political Science and Economics. Visiting professor Harvard (Govt), Yale (Pol Sci), Cornell (IR), St Anna Pisa (Econ). Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; President of European Political Science Association (2011-3). Chair, Oxf Univ Labour Club 1963; Adviser to Michael Meacher, Labour Shadow Minister of Employment; member of Blair Policy Unit 1998-9, responsibilities for HE.
Recent publications
- Macroeconomics: Institutions, Instability and Inequality, with Wendy Carlin (Oxford University Press, 2024)
- “The American Knowledge Economy,” in Jacob Hacker, Alexander Hertel, Paul Pierson and Kathleen Thelen (eds), American Political Economy (Oxford University Press, 2022)
- Tracing the Relationship between Inequality, Crime and Punishment: Space, Time and Politics, Nicola Lacey, David Soskice, Leo Cheliotis, Sappho Xenakis (eds), Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 130 (Oxford University Press, 2021)
- Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century, with Torben Iversen (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Seminar Series #3 From International Commitment to Localization Strategy for Sustainable Development in China ▶
Speaker: Xufeng Zhu
Affiliation: Tsinghua University
Date & Time:
July 3rd, 2026, 8:00am-9:00am, ET
July 3rd, 2026, 1:00pm-2:00pm, UK
July 3rd, 2026, 8:00pm-9:00pm, China
Abstract
In this seminar, Zhu Xufeng will discuss China's institutional pathways and governance practices in implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), elaborating on how China translates the global development agenda into national strategies and local action plans, and drives the effective translation of international commitments into institutional design, policy innovation, and governance practices.
Short Bio
Xufeng ZHU is Professor and Dean at the School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM), Tsinghua University, Executive Director of Tsinghua Institute for Sustainable Development Goals (TUSDG), Director of Tsinghua Science & Technology Development and Governance Center (TUSTDG), and Editor-in-Chief of China Public Administration Review. He was nominated by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and appointed by the Economic and Social Council as a member of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP). He serves as President of the Asian Association for Public Administration (AAPA), Vice President of the China Association of Administrative Management, Vice President and General Secretary of the China Public Management Association.
Seminar Series #4 Governing in the Plural: Comparative Capitalisms, Stakeholder Authority, and the Search for Viable Alternatives ▶
Speaker: Ruth V. Aguilera
Affiliation: Northeastern University
Date & Time:
September 4th, 2026, 8:00am-9:00am, ET
September 4th, 2026, 1:00pm-2:00pm, UK
September 4th, 2026, 8:00pm-9:00pm, China
Presentation Slides
View Ruth V. Aguilera Presentation SlidesAbstract
The polycrisis has not produced a single governance failure so much as it has exposed the limits of the categories we use to study governance at all. In this talk I argue that finding alternatives requires three moves, each of which unsettles a familiar assumption. First, comparative capitalisms. The liberal/coordinated dichotomy that organized a generation of scholarship was never built to explain a world of geopolitical fragmentation, techno-nationalism, and state-led and hybrid capitalisms. The institutional map is being redrawn and with it the question shifts from which model performs best to how institutional complementarities are being deliberately reassembled by policy. Second, stakeholder governance. If alternatives are to be more than rhetorical, we need to distinguish who actually holds participatory rights from what organizations are genuinely bound to. Stakeholders can be visible without having voice, consulted without recourse, represented without control, or named as beneficiaries without any authority over the decisions that affect them. Credibility rests not on declarations of stakeholder orientation but on arrangements that are costly to abandon. Third, configurational thinking. Governance outcomes are equifinal, asymmetric, and conjunctural: the same institutional condition can push in opposite directions depending on what it combines with, which is why variable-centered research keeps returning equivocal results. Power is relational and constellational, not additive. Taken together, these moves suggest that alternatives to our present governance arrangements are plural by construction. The productive question is not which system wins, but which combinations of institutions, rights, and commitments are viable, and for whom.
Short Bio
Ruth V. Aguilera has an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Barcelona and a Master’s and PhD in Sociology from Harvard University. She is the Distinguished Darla and Frederick Brodsky Trustee Professor in Global Business at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston and a Visiting Professor in the Strategy Department at ESADE Business School. Ruth’s research, teaching, and advising interests lie at the intersection of international corporate governance, global strategy, and corporate social responsibility/sustainability. She is the Deputy Editor at the Journal of International Business Studies, and was previously an Associate Editor at Academy of Management Review, Corporate Governance: An International Review, and Organization Science. She has a forthcoming book about boards of directors. Ruth is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business, the International Corporate Governance Society, and the Strategic Management Society.
Background Readings
- Aguilera, R. V., and Ruiz-Castillo, M. 2025. “Toward an Updated Corporate Governance Framework: Fundamentals, Disruptions, and Future Research.” Business Research Quarterly, 28(2): 336–348.
- Mutlu, C., Duran, P., Aguilera, R. V., and Siems, M. Forthcoming. “Varieties of Capitalism and International Business Policy: A Systematic Review of Policy Domains and Emerging Research Paths.” Journal of International Business Policy.
- Witt, M. A., Fainshmidt, S., and Aguilera, R. V. 2022. “Our Board, Our Rules: Nonconformity to Global Corporate Governance Norms.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 67(1): 131–166.
- Bacq, S., and Aguilera, R. V. 2022. “Stakeholder Governance for Responsible Innovation: A Theory of Value Creation, Appropriation, and Distribution.” Journal of Management Studies, 59(1): 29–60.
Seminar Series #5 ▶
Speaker: Sigrid Quack
Affiliation: University Duisburg-Essen
Date & Time:
Abstract
Seminar Series #6 ▶
Speaker:Sukanya Roy (UCL, Michigan), Nicole Ning Liu (CityUHK), Stefanie Habersang
Date & Time:
Abstract
Seminar Series #7 Robust Governance and Strategy Management-at-Scale ▶
Speaker:
Affiliation: University of Minnesota
Date & Time: