20692: Navigating Impact: Strategy and Organization in the Face of Grand Challenges

Friday, July 25, 2025

15:30 - 17:30 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: MR6

Session Type: PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Practice,Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/bRawYj

Moderator(s)

AW

Amanda Nicole Williams

IMD Business School, Switzerland

Organizer(s)

LS

Lorenzo Skade

European Uni Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

Moderator(s)

BH

Bill Harley

U. of Melbourne, Australia

Host(s)

MW

Marleen Wierenga

Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
SC

Suwen Chen

-, Australia
SG

Sylvia Grewatsch

Brock U., Canada
FW

Frithjof E. Wegener

-, Germany
EK

Elisabeth Krull

-, United Kingdom
RH

Ralph Hamann

University of Cape Town, South Africa
NS

Natalie Slawinski

U. of Victoria, Canada
DZ

Danielle Zandee

Nyenrode Business University, Netherlands
DC

David Coghlan

U. of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland

This PDW builds on insights presented in a recent Strategic Organization Special Issue (Williams et al., in press), which explores the growing relevance of impact-driven research in strategy and organization theory to help address the complex societal challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, geopolitics, and socioeconomics. Through seven articles, the Special Issue provides valuable lessons on the iterative and co-creative processes involved in generating impactful research, as well as the challenges and enablers that shape these efforts. This PDW will bring together the distinguished authors of these papers with participants across different AOM DIGs to reflect collectively on where impactful research on grand challenges at the intersection of strategy and organization can go next. The workshop is divided into two parts: Part 1 will feature a short presentation by Prof. Amanda Williams to showcase the current state of impact-driven research and imagine its future. Prof. Williams will sketch a process model of what impact-driven generative research may look like in the future. Participants of the session will be encourage to relate their own experiences and struggles to this model to engage the audience and provide a segue into Part 2. In Part 2, 48 pre-registered scholars (early-, mid-career, and senior) will join roundtables with leading scholars in discussing specific future research agendas, moving across two of the six topic areas identified by these leading scholars. By engaging with these reflections and findings, this PDW will offer a platform for discussing practical approaches and strategies that can help scholars of strategy and organization theory navigate and expand the impact of their research in meaningful and responsible ways. The interactive format will enable participants to reflect on the broader context of these issues and on their own research.

We can only provide a limited number of spots. Please register for the event and the roundtable discussions here: https://tinyurl.com/ImpactPDW. You will be allocated to 2 round tables according to the topics/authors in the PDW. Please identify up to 3 preferred topics so that we can try to meet your preferences. In case of any questions, please email skade@europa-uni.de.