Tom Lawrence

Tom's areas of expertise include strategic management, organisational change, social innovation, institutional theory, and social change.

He is a leader in developing research strategy and organisation theory that integrates cultural understandings of organisations, industries and fields with a concern for the role of individuals and organisations in creating change. This work has appeared in the leading organisation and strategy journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, and the Journal of Management. He is also a co-editor of the Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, Second Edition, Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations, and the Sage Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism, Second Edition.

Before joining Saïd Business School, Tom was the W. J. VanDusen Professor of Management at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University. Prior to that, Tom held permanent or visiting positions at the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Cambridge University, McGill University, St. Andrews University, and Chulalongkorn University. He received his PhD in organisational analysis and BComm in finance from the University of Alberta.

Expertise:

• Strategic management
• Institutional theory
• Social innovation
• Power and politics in organisations
• Language and culture in organisations

Research

Tom’s research focuses on how organisations and individuals effect major change in highly contested domains. Examples of these domains include healthcare, the natural environment, addiction and homelessness.

His work examines how change and innovation results from the interplay of politics, language and social networks. In particular, Tom’s research shows the importance of social institutions - widely held beliefs and values - in both facilitating and constraining social innovation and change.