How institutions sustain cooperation across difference

My work examines how institutions sustain cooperation across difference.

 

As a scholar-practitioner, I study how organizations navigate disagreement, inequality, and competing identities while maintaining shared purpose. Drawing on organizational sociology, civic studies, and leadership research, my work examines how institutional design, relational infrastructure, and leadership practice shape belonging and collective problem-solving in pluralistic environments.

 

I design and teach courses on organizational design, inclusive leadership, systems thinking, and global change leadership. My teaching integrates academic research with professional experience in the social sector and higher education. I emphasize applied learning, encouraging students to analyze real organizational dilemmas and to develop the relational and strategic capacities required to lead across difference.

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My research explores how institutions structure and respond to disagreement. I examine how tensions related to identity, power, and mission emerge within organizations, and how leadership decisions, governance structures, and organizational culture influence whether those tensions become destructive conflicts or productive sources of learning and adaptation.

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This perspective informed my work curating and contributing to a five-article Stanford Social Innovation Review series on organizational disagreement. The series examines how institutions build the capacity to engage conflict productively through governance, systems design, cultural awareness, and leadership development. Collectively, the series argues that disagreement is not simply a problem to manage but a civic and organizational capacity that institutions must deliberately cultivate.

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A second line of research examines how organizations and professional fields respond to periods of technological and economic disruption. I study how leaders interpret shifts that reshape professional identity, the organization of work, and the long-term sustainability of fields, particularly in mission-driven and creative contexts.

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Across these projects, my scholarship focuses on a broader question: how institutions build the relational foundations necessary to sustain cooperation in complex and diverse societies. I am particularly interested in how networks of trust, accountability, and shared norms enable communities to engage difference without fragmentation.

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My research and teaching are deeply informed by practice. I have worked extensively with nonprofits, universities, and cultural organizations seeking to build more equitable and participatory structures. This experience informs my commitment to bridging scholarship and practice, engaging students and practitioners as co-creators of knowledge, and supporting leaders navigating complex institutional challenges.

 

Ultimately, my work explores how leadership, organizational design, and relational practice can strengthen institutions that operate in pluralistic societies.