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PEER-REVIEWED SCHOLARSHIP

Impactful Research with Rigor

Professor Eric Zhao’s scholarship bridges the gap between high-level management theory and critical executive practice. His peer-reviewed research provides the academic rigor that informs every strategic advisory engagement, ensuring a data-driven approach to complex organizational challenges.

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Most Cited Articles

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academy of management annals | 2017
Organizational Responses to Adversity

Research on crisis management and resilience has sought to explain how individuals and organizations anticipate and respond to adversity, yet—surprisingly—there has been little integration across these two literatures. In this paper, we review the literatures on crisis management and resilience and discuss opportunities to both integrate and advance these streams of research.

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strategic Management journal | 2017
Optimal Distinctiveness

This article aims to provide managers with a more comprehensive and contemporary view of how firms can become optimally distinct—being different enough from peer firms to be competitive, but similar enough to peers to be recognizable. We aim to equip managers with an understanding of firms as complex, multidimensional entities, and encourage them to identify and orchestrate various types of strategic resources to reconcile conformity versus differentiation tensions, address the multiplicity of stakeholder expectations, and aptly modify their positioning strategies in order to succeed in dynamic environments.

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Academy of management review | 2019
Mission Drift

The growing number of studies referencing the concept of mission drift implies that such drift is an undesirable strategic outcome related to inconsistent organizational action, yet beyond such references, little is known about how mission drift occurs, how it impacts organizations, and how organizations should respond. In this study we offer a theory of mission drift that unpacks its origin, clarifies its variety, and specifies how organizations might respond to external perceptions of mission drift.

Research Themes

01

Optimal Distinctiveness

02

AI & Firm Strategy

03

Institutions & Entrepreneurship

04

Resources & Resourcefulness

Publication List 

2027
Foreignness and optimal distinctiveness of new ventures in international markets

Research in the Sociology of Organizations

In Preparation

2026

Energy access is the new source of AI advantage

Harvard Business Review

Under Review

2026

Managing the shift from an attention economy to an AI-mediated trust economy

California Management Review

Forthcoming

2026
Right on cue? Category-switching in online marketplaces

Strategic Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.70018

2026

The swaying power of business: Inconsistent social actions and governance in corporate foundations

Journal of Management

https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063261442445

Publication List (continued)

2025
Social class origin and entrepreneurship: An integrative review and research agenda

Journal of Business Venturing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106503

2025
The double-edged sword of exemplar similarity

Organization Science

https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16855

2025
The art of optimal distinctiveness: Balancing novelty and familiarity

California Management Review

https://cmr.berkeley.edu/2025/03/the-art-of-optimal-distinctiveness-balancing-novelty-and-familiarity/

2025
User language and cultural product innovation: insights from the global mobile gaming industry

Journal of International Business Studies

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41267-024-00752-0

2025
Entrepreneurial resourcefulness: Theoretical origins, integrative review, and research agenda

Journal of Management Studies

https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13181

Publication List (continued)

2023
International expansion and home-country resource acquisition: A signaling perspective of emerging-market firms’ internationalization

Journal of International Business Studies

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41267-023-00624-z

2023
Going beyond optimal distinctiveness: Strategic positioning for gaining an audience composition premium

Strategic Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3460

2022
Categories and narratives as sources of distinctiveness: Cultural entrepreneurship within and across categories

Strategic Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3391

2022
Rags to riches? Entrepreneurs' social classes, resourceful time allocation, and venture performance

Journal of Business Venturing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2022.106248

2022
Multilevel optimal distinctiveness: Examining the impact of within- and between-organization distinctiveness of product design on market performance

Strategic Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3377

Publication List (continued)

2022
Optimal distinctiveness: On being the same and different

Organization Theory

https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877221079340

2021
Women hold up half the sky? Informal institutions, entrepreneurial decisions, and gender gap in venture performance

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258720980705

2021
Breaking boundaries to creatively generate value: The role of resourcefulness in entrepreneurship

Journal of Business Venturing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106141

2020
Beyond hybridity: Accounting for the values complexity of all organizations in the study of mission and mission drift

Academy of Management Review

https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0209

2020
Strategic entrepreneurship's dynamic tensions: Converging (diverging) effects of experience and networks on market entry timing and entrant performance

Journal of Business Venturing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2019.04.001

Publication List (continued)

2019
Anchors aweigh: The sources, variety, and challenges of mission drift

Academy of Management Review

https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2017.0254

2019
A framework for exploring the degree of hybridity in entrepreneurship

Academy of Management Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2018.0013

2018
Optimal distinctiveness in the console video game industry: An exemplar-based model of proto-category evolution

Organization Science

https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1194

2018
Taking trade-offs seriously: Examining the contextually contingent relationship between social outreach intensity and financial sustainability in global microfinance

Organization Science

https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1188

2017
Optimal distinctiveness: Broadening the interface between institutional theory and strategic management

Strategic Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2589

Publication List (continued)

2017
Organizational response to adversity: Fusing crisis management and resilience research streams

Academy of Management Annals

https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2015.0134

2016
An institutional logics approach to social entrepreneurship: Market logic, religious diversity, and resource acquisition by microfinance organizations

Journal of Business Venturing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2016.09.001

2016
Not all inequality is equal: Deconstructing the societal logic of patriarchy to understand microfinance lending to women

Academic Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2015.0476

2016
Funding financial inclusion: Institutional logics and the contextual contingency of funding for microfinance organizations

Academy of Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2015.0715

2013
Overcoming the illegitimacy discount: Cultural entrepreneurship in the US feature film industry

Organization Studies

https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840613485844

Collaborative Research & Lectures

Professor Zhao welcomes inquiries for research collaborations, visiting faculty and student opportunities, and guest lecturing engagements. He is also interested in partnering with industry and government agencies to bridge scholarship and practice.

Inquire Now
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