Laura Illia

Laura Illia obtained her PhD in Communication at the Università della Svizzera Italiana (CH). She was then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she also lectured from 2006-08. From 2008 to 2019 Laura Illia has been a professor at IE University (IE HST and IE Business School) in Madrid where she directed the Master’s program in Corporate and Marketing Communication.

In her research, Prof. Illia focuses on how discourses and narratives contribute to our understanding of business. Specifically, she looks into questions of legitimacy, reputation and corporate social responsibility. By applying new digital methods such as machine learning to big dataset she analyzes the legitimation of organizations on social media and the use of new media by companies in the dialogue with their stakeholders. Her works are published in journals like MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, British Journal of Management, Journal of Management Inquiry, Business and Society, Journal of Business Research and others. In her academic career she has won numerous grants such as the post-doc fellowship from Swiss National Science Foundation (CH), research grant from IABC (US), regional grant from JCYL (ES), private grant from UniCredit and Universities Foundation (IT), individual grant from BBVA Foundation (ES).

Education

• PhD USI Università della Svizzera italiana (2002 — 2006)
• Executive MSc USI Università della Svizzera italiana (2001 — 2003)
• Bachelor, MSc USI Università della Svizzera italiana (1996 — 2001)
• PhD USI Università della Svizzera italiana (2001 — 2006)
• The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Companies

• Professeur-e ordinaire (Full professor) Université de Fribourg - Universität Freiburg (2019)
• Head Research CCI Cotting Consulting AG (2008 — 2019)
• Associate Professor (tenured) IE University (2015 — 2019)
• Academic Director Executive Master in Corporate and Marketing Communication IE University (2012 — 2018)
• Academic Director Master in Corporate and Marketing Communication IE University (2010 — 2018)
• Assistant Professor IE University (2008 — 2015)
• Guest Lecturer London School of Economics (2007 — 2011)
• Visiting Post Doc Cambridge Judge Business School (2007 — 2008)
• Visiting Post Doc The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (2006 — 2007)