Oana Branzei

Oana Branzei is Donald F. Hunter Professor of International Business and Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at the Ivey Business School and Faculty Scholar at Western University in Canada. She is also the founding Director of the Sustainability Certificate program, the founder, convener and host of PhD Sustainability Academy, an annual event of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, and the co-founder of the recently inaugurated virtual-based and accessible Spring Institute. Ivey champion for the United Nation’s Principles for Responsible Education for a decade, Oana has recently pioneered the ESG platform for Ivey Publishing, is developing SDG-concept notes and EDI-focused collections. Oana heads her global Resilience lab, originally formed with funding from her Early Researcher Award, and currently featuring collaborations with rapid-response research teams tackling grand challenges on five continents.

Professor Branzei is also a Western Faculty Scholar, sits on the Western University Research Board and the Advisory Board of the Africa Institute, and serves on Western’s Interdisciplinary Development Initiatives adjudication committee. Oana chaired the Social Sciences Panel for the Early Researcher Awards for Ontario’s Ministry of Innovation (2018-2021) and SSHRC Insight Grants (2015). She served as adjudicator for the 2020 Ontario COVID-19 Rapid Research Fund.

Oana held a 2012-2014 visiting appointment with the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship and the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. She was the inaugural Larry & Eris Field Family Visiting Scholar at the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College, City University of New York in 2019. Dr. Branzei also holds a 2020 Visiting Professorship with the Centre for Research in Sustainability (CRIS) at Royal Holloway, the University of London. Oana maintains additional affiliations and has supervised students at the Stellenbosch University, the University of Liverpool, and the University of Waterloo.

Since joining Ivey in 2007, Oana has taught in the HBA, MBA, MSc, EMBA and PhD programs. She designed and delivered multiple curricular and extracurricular innovations, including indigenous co-led programming, Hult Prize competitions, and signature events such as the Social Innovation Forum, Ivey Impact Day, and worldchangers. Before joining Ivey, Oana started her academic career at the Schulich School of Business, York University where she served as Deputy Director of the Erivan K. Haub Program in Business and Sustainability (2005-2007) and taught the sustainability curriculum for all Kellogg affiliates and global executives enrolled in the world-first Sustainable Enterprise Academy (SEA). During her PhD at Sauder School of Business, Oana was an early research associate in the FEPA (Forest Economics and Policy Analysis) think-tank, where she joined several of Canada’s initial research initiatives in fisheries, food, and forestry, studying the collapse, collaboration, and conservation of endangered natural commons.

Oana’s research interests, at the intersection of strategy and sustainability, focus on novel forms and functions of organizing in response to environmental, social, and governance grand challenges. Professor Branzei leads major research initiatives on inclusive organizing (prosocial, circular, place-based, and regenerative). She has convened communities of inquiry that actively promote positive social change through social innovation, social enterprise, sustainable communities, and cross-sector partnerships, such as the Sustainability, Entrepreneurship & Ethics annual conference and the Cross-Sector Social Interactions (CSSI) conference and their dedicated doctoral and faculty development consortia.

Oana pursues problem driven research and builds inclusive programs and platforms that engage critically and constructively with grand challenges. Her 115 works (32 peer-review journal articles, 14 book chapters, 21 proceedings, 34 case studies, and 7 technical reports) have been published in several top research journals including the Academy of Management Discoveries, Business & Society, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of World Business, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. She has co-edited one book that introduced cross-sector collaborations (now SDG#17). Her research contributions have also been featured in the popular press, including Ashoka, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Forbes, Harvard Deusto, MIT Sloan, and The Globe and Mail.

Dr. Oana Branzei guest-edited special issues of the Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Ethics (2), and Organizations and Environment. Oana currently serves her second term as a field editor for the Journal of Business Venturing, sits on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of International Business Studies, and has completed full terms on the Editorial Review Boards of the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management, and Journal of Trust Research.

Since completing her doctorate in 2005, Oana has raised CAN$3.4 million in external funding by collaborating with, and impacting, more than 1000 organizations worldwide. Oana is a founding board member of Academia B and the Global Minds Collective.

Teaching

• PhD Grand Challenges
• EMBA Sustainability
• HBA & MSc Social Enterprise

Education

• PhD, Business Administration - University of British Columbia
• MBA, International Business - University of Nebraska
• HBA, Foreign Trade - Al. I. Cuza University

Recent Refereed Articles

• Branzei, O.; Fathallah, R., (Forthcoming), "The End of Resilience? Managing Vulnerability Through Temporal Resourcing and Resisting", Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice: 104225872110538 - 104225872110538.
• Garst, G.; Blok, V.; Branzei, O.; Jansen, L.; Omta, O. S. W. F., 2021, "Toward a value-sensitive absorptive capacity framework: Navigating intervalue and intravalue conflicts to answer the societal call for health", Business and Society, July 60(6): 1349 - 1386.
• Poldner, K.; Branzei, O.; Steyaert, C., 2019, "Fashioning Ethical Subjectivity: The Embodied Ethics of Entrepreneurial Self-formation, Organization", Organization, December 26(2): 151 - 174.
• Parker, S. C.; Gamble, E.; Moroz, P. W.; Branzei, O., 2019, "The Impact of B Lab Certification on Firm Growth", Academy of Management Discoveries, March 5(1): 55 - 77.
• Fathallah, R.; Branzei, O.; Schaan, J-L., 2018, "No place like home? How EMNCs from hyper turbulent contexts internationalize by sequentially arbitraging rents, values, and scales abroad", Journal of World Business, November 53(5): 620 - 631.

Experience

• Statistics Canada Facilitated Access Researcher, the Science, Technology and Innovation Division, Survey of Innovation
• Research Fellow, University of British Columbia
• W. Maurice Young Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research Centre
• Business Consultant, Nebraska Business Development Center
• Labor Market Researcher, HM Department of Employment, London

Research/Course Development

• PhD Sustainability Academy
• Sustainability Certificate
• Corporations & Society
• Social Innovation
• Social Enterprise