SMPP Research
Research in the Department of Strategic Management & Public Policy
What happens when powerful companies work to change the rules of the game in their industry? How can organizations manage hybrid work and AI effectively, or address complex challenges like climate change and systemic inequality? Faculty in the Department of Strategic Management & Public Policy tackle these questions through research that sits at the intersection of business excellence and societal impact.
Their work examines not only how organizations compete, but how they can compete strategically while contributing to the public good. From ethics in the digital economy to sustainable development and corporate responsibility, faculty bring a multifaceted lens to pressing challenges. This scholarship informs state and government policy, aligns with GW Business’s commitment to ethical practices, and reflects the university’s broader mission of public service and positive societal impact.
Research Centers and Institutes
The work of the department is tethered to the Institute for Corporate Responsibility at the School of Business. At the university level, faculty members are involved with the Trustworthy AI Initiative at GW, the Alliance for a Sustainable Future, and the GW Global Food Institute.
Research Highlights
Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing business landscape, faculty research focuses on the questions that matter most to today’s leaders: how to lead ethically in the age of artificial intelligence; how to build diverse and equitable organizations despite persistent systemic biases; and how to tackle challenges—like climate change—that no single organization can solve alone. Drawing on expertise across strategy, ethics, and public policy, these scholars examine bring a multifaceted lens to a range of issues.
Explore how their innovative work is shaping solutions to some of the most complex challenges facing organizations and communities today:
Vikram Bhargava's research centers around the distinctive ethics and policy issues that technology gives rise to in organizational contexts. He is interested in topics including technology addiction, mass social media outrage, hiring algorithms and the future of work, autonomous vehicles, and other topics related to AI policy and ethics. He is a section editor at the Journal of Business Ethics, and an International Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Centre for Corporate Reputation.
Jorge E. Rivera's research focuses on studying how external environment factors are associated with business sustainability management strategies. Over the last few years, he has been examining 1) How nature’s adversity conditions affect corporate adaptation and mitigation to climate change, and 2) how natural disasters and industrial accidents affect foreign investment location by multinational corporations (findings and conceptual models published in Business Adaptation to Climate Change by Cambridge University Press, 2022). Another stream of his research focuses on evaluating how participation in green certification programs affects business competitiveness and environmental performance.
He is the author of three books, and his research has appeared in Strategic Management Journal, Conservation Biology, and Policy Sciences. He is the founding co-editor of the Cambridge University Press book series on Organizations and the Natural Environment.
Professor of Strategic Management & Public Policy
Associate Professor of Strategic Management & Public Policy
Vontrese (Voni) Pamphile is a scholar of organizational theory, focusing on business-society tensions and paradoxes. She has studied how organizations and the professionals within them navigate conflicting demands, such as social impact and financial goal. She also studies the impacts of firm engagement with societal issues on employees and the firm itself, including whether stakeholders view firms as authentic. Her work as been published in Organization Science and the Academy of Management Journal; she brings her research to the practitioner community through the Harvard Business Review and other media outlets. Poets & Quants in 2025 named her one of the Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professors for her contributions to research and teaching. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation.
Networking dynamics are a research concentration of Jorge Walter, whose work appears in Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Management, Strategic Management Journal and other top-tier journals. His research interests include strategy formulation and implementation processes, knowledge/technology transfer, social networks, and social capital. He has examined the professional benefits of reconnecting dormant relationships and the many ways social networks can enhance organizational performance and knowledge sharing. Dr. Walter has served as associate editor of the Journal of Management and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Management Studies.
Vice Dean for Faculty and Research; Professor of Strategic Management and Public Policy
Chair, Department of Strategic Management & Public Policy; The Lindner-Gambal Professor of Business Ethics
The research of Department Chair Joel Gehman sits at the intersection of organization theory, strategy, and sustainability, focusing on how organizations manage grand challenges. His work explores B Corporations and their effort to remake capitalism into a profit-making enterprise that also is committed to rigorous social and environmental goals, ESG performance, social license to operate, and innovation in sustainability practices. He has explored some of these issues in in unconventional shale gas development, the natural or biodynamic wine industry, and social entrepreneurship.
The early careers of professional managers and labor market inequality are among Jennifer Merluzzi’s research interests. She has also gained attention for her examination of the obstacles that young, single women with high potential face in advancing to leadership roles, especially in male-dominated fields; her analysis of how social networks influence difficult work relationships; and her studies on how masculine identities in professions—such as law enforcement—affect performance, promotion, and the use of force. Her work appears in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Discoveries, and Social Science Research, as well as Fast Company and Harvard Business Review. Jennifer also serves as a Senior Editor at Organization Science.
Associate Professor of Strategic Management & Public Policy
Avram S. Tucker Endowed Professor of Strategy & Leadership
The intersection of sociology and strategic management is the purview of James Wade, who looks at the effects of race and gender on career mobility—including studies on NFL and NCAA coaching hires. He also is an expert on CEO status—the power, influence, and positional authority that CEOs wield in relation to their boards, executive teams, and employees.
The research of Everlyne (Eve) Misati the firm-stakeholder relationship as it broadly pertains to firms’ growth, social evaluations, and non-market activities. Her work is motivated by the recognition that firms’ decisions and actions not only affect but are also increasingly influenced by key actors. Specifically, she takes both macro and microfoundations perspectives to examine the precursors and outcomes of the strategies, processes, and performance relating to the (1) expansion e.g. via internationalization, (2) legitimacy, and (3) social responsibility of both small entrepreneurial firms and large multinationals. Her work has been published in outlets including the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, Group & Organization Management, and the Journal of Business Ethics.
Assistant Professor of Strategic Management & Public Policy