Research Interests
My research explores how organizations act as institutional architects, shaping the environments in which they operate to drive social change. At the center of this work is an interest in how organizations and the actors within them navigate complex institutional environments, coordinate across boundaries, and reshape established ways of doing business.
Much of this research focuses on fragmented settings marked by competing rules, interests, and demands. In these contexts, organizations must build the relationships and structures needed for action and direct their resources and influence toward social change. The sport industry serves as my primary empirical context.
Three questions guide my work.
- How do organizations build the institutional conditions needed for action in fragmented environments?
- How do organizations navigate competing interests and bring together diverse actors, resources, and institutions to sustain collective action?
- How and under what conditions can organizations mobilize their resources and influence to drive meaningful social change?
Together, these questions trace an arc from construction through coordination to transformation, examining how organizations reshape the systems around them.
As examples of my work, please see my 2018 paper on institutional disruption and my 2020 paper, published in Organization, which discusses the institution of sport as a site for social change. My 2021 paper in the Sport Management Education Journal (SMEJ) discusses how unpaid internships lead to racial inequality in the sport industry. This manuscript won the SMEJ Best Paper Award in 2021.
To date, I have authored or co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles. These papers are published in the following journals: Organization, Journal of Management Inquiry, Sport Management Review, Journal of Sport Management, African Journal of Business and Economic Research, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, International Journal of Sport Management, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, and International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, among others. I am also the Editor-in-Chief of Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal.