XVII Medici Summer School in Management Studies

The S&O Institute of HEC Paris is pleased to announce the organization of the 17th edition of the Medici Summer School in Management Studies, for doctoral students and young researchers, which will be held at HEC Paris campus, June 22 - 27, 2025.

The school is organized and sponsored by Bologna Business School (University of Bologna), HEC Paris (Sustainability & Organizations Institute), and MIT Sloan School of Management (Economic Sociology PhD Program).

MISSION

The Summer School is designed to promote doctoral education and research in organization theory and related fields (economic sociology, management studies, strategy) and contribute to the development of enlightened practice in the management of business organizations. The Medici Summer School advocates a special focus on cross-fertilizing research across North American and European traditions. The Summer School is a unique educational program for qualified doctoral students interacting with thought leaders in the management field who have shared their knowledge and wisdom on frontier research topics.

The Medici Summer School is hosted yearly, on a rotating basis, by the three founding institutions. It combines lectures and research seminars by prominent international scholars with active engagement by participating students. Every day of the one-week program is scheduled to end with the presentation of students’ research related to the topic of the Summer School and with a panel of senior faculty providing feedback. The Summer School has also a tradition of hosting keynote speeches from leading practitioners as well as organizing short field trips to local places of intellectual interest, including companies, research labs, NGOs, museums, etc.

The Medici School combines lectures and research seminars by prominent international scholars with active engagement by participating students. Every day of the one-week program is scheduled to end with the presentation of students’ research related to the topic of the Summer School and with a panel of senior faculty providing feedback. There is no fee to participate. Selected candidates will be fully covered in their accommodation expenses provided that they stay the full week. However, transportation is not covered by the organizers.

The Summer School will begin on Sunday June 22nd with a get together evening cocktail organized at the HEC Paris Château and will conclude in the afternoon of Friday June 27th.

THEME: THE DYNAMICS OF CORPORATE PURPOSE: CONSENT, DISSENT, AND BEYOND

In an era of increasing polarization and heightened expectations, organizations are under greater pressure to define and act upon a clear and compelling corporate purpose. While corporate purpose has traditionally been framed as a unifying force, helping organizations align with societal values and stakeholder expectations, it is increasingly apparent that purpose can also generate dissent. Divergent perspectives within organizations, among stakeholders, and across broader societal contexts challenge organizations to navigate tensions that arise from pursuing a purpose and/or profit and/or societal good.

Corporate purpose also shares a space with other frameworks and theories. Stakeholder theory, for example, already engages with the different interests of stakeholders, while CSR scholars understand the social impact of business activities. As a community we could benefit from a better understanding about the ways that corporate purpose might offer complementary solutions to those found in stakeholder theory, or on issues of CSR; and where it might produce different predictions. Conceptually, these different approaches are also often confused by scholars. There is therefore a need for clarification, conceptually and theoretically.

Corporate purpose is no longer just an aspirational statement; it is a strategic and operational imperative. Employees demand alignment between organizational purpose and their personal values. Investors evaluate purpose-driven strategies for their alignment with long-term financial and societal goals. Consumers scrutinize the authenticity of corporate purpose claims, while governments and NGOs advocate for systemic changes to address global challenges like inequality and climate change. Yet, navigating dissent requires more than crafting a purpose statement—it demands grappling with contestation, contradictions, and competing values that often resist easy resolution.

The 2025 Medici Summer School seeks to explore how organizations can navigate the inherent tensions and opportunities associated with corporate purpose in a world marked by dissent. This theme offers a timely lens for examining the intersection of strategy, organization theory, and stakeholder engagement. We aim to bring together leading researchers to discuss theoretical insights, methodological approaches, and empirical research that sheds light on how dissent shapes corporate purpose and vice versa.

Some of the topics and questions that will be discussed include (but are not limited to):
 

• Purpose and New Stakeholder Theory: How do organizations address competing demands and values from different stakeholder groups (e.g., employees, customers, investors, regulators, and society more broadly)?  How does corporate purpose complement or substitute what stakeholder theory brings to the understand of firm strategy, behavior, and performance?
   
• Purpose and CSR:  Are CSR and corporate purpose the same?  What can each literature learn from the other?
   
• Purpose and Conflicts: How do organizations reconcile tensions between profit and purpose? How do they manage contradictions when purpose-driven initiatives create conflicts with financial goals? How do firms decide between different orientations?
   
• Purposeful-driven leadership: What leadership approaches are most effective in resolving dissent around corporate purpose? What are the features of purpose-driven leadership? How can dissent be harnessed as a source of innovation?
   
• Purpose and Strategy: How does corporate purpose influence strategic decision-making? How do organizations prioritize conflicting goals when navigating dissent? How are traditional strategic decisions such as market selection, resource allocation, growth influenced or affected by a corporate purpose?
   
• Institutional and Cultural Dynamics: How do institutional and cultural contexts shape the articulation and reception of corporate purpose? How do organizations adapt their purpose to align with or challenge dominant norms?
   
• Methodological Challenges: What methodological trends are worrying and why? How could we encourage a greater diversity of methods in advancing topics such as corporate purpose in its manifestation across different analytical levels?
   
• Theoretical development: How can we develop more robust theoretical frameworks that integrate purpose? How will they differ from (new) stakeholder theory, or CSR? How does purpose-driven dissent differ from CSR-related activism?
   
• Future of Corporate Purpose: How do competing theoretical paradigms and scholarly dissent shape the conceptual evolution of organizational purpose, and what are the implications for theory development? How does the conversation between Academica and practitioner influence the construction and implementation of corporate purpose?

Overall objectives:
 

The goal of the 2025 Medici Summer School is to equip students with theoretical and methodological tools to untangle the complexities of corporate purpose in the face of dissent. By engaging with interdisciplinary perspectives, participants will explore how dissent can serve as both a challenge and an opportunity for redefining organizational strategies and practices. Through intensive discussion and collaborative exploration, the 2025 Medici Summer School aims to inspire new research agendas and provide insights into the future of purpose-driven organizations.

By bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, this edition will foster a rich exchange of ideas and approaches, so that attendees leave with a deeper understanding of how corporate purpose can navigate, accommodate, and leverage dissent for meaningful impact.

PROGRAM AND FACULTY

The host faculty members include representatives from the three co-sponsoring institutions and those who have been organizing the Summer School over the years. Host faculty at this year’s summer school include Ezra Zuckerman Sivan, Nathan Wilmers, and Emilio J. Castilla (MIT); Simone Ferriani (Bologna & Bayes); and Rodolphe Durand (HEC Paris).

In addition to the host faculty, the Summer School will bring together guest faculty who are leading strategy, organizations, sociology, and social psychology scholars. As in prior years, these guests each have an exciting research agenda that touches on the chosen theme. And they are also chosen to be diverse on multiple dimensions, including empirical application, specific research question, and research methodology. This helps to spark exciting cross-fertilization of ideas that is one of the hallmarks of the Medici experience. Another aspect of that experience is a consistent focus on the research process. Participants gain less from learning about “fully baked” research than from sharing ideas

about the “baking process” itself. The five days of the School are tentatively organized as follows, from macro- to more micro- levels of analysis:

Day 1, Monday, June 23rd - Lead Faculty: Todd Zenger, David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah

Day 2, Tuesday, June 24th - Lead Faculty: Erin Metz McDonnell, The Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame

Day 3, Wednesday, June 25th - Lead Faculty: Rodolphe Durand, Sustainability & Organizations Institute, HEC Paris

Day 4, Thursday, June 26th - Lead Faculty: Rodrigo Canales, Questrom School of Business, Boston University

Day 5, Friday, June 27th - Lead Faculty: Anna Jasinenko, University of St Gallen
 

Each faculty member will be in residence at the Summer School for several days, allowing ample time for one-to-one sessions, knowledge sharing, and networking opportunities.

A typical day will feature a guest faculty member presenting their research, an integrative session led by a host faculty member that explores links among the guest faculty research, and a workshop in which the host and guest faculty work with students to flesh out their own ideas, both theoretically and empirically.

Overall, students will advance in their own research via:
 

• Exposure to the cutting edge of research in this area
   
• Open discussion of key challenges experienced by the faculty in their own research
   
• Direct feedback on how to tackle complex questions of both theory and empirics

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

The Summer School will admit 20-25 student participants. Applications are welcome from current Ph.D. students in Management, Strategy, Organization Theory, Economic Sociology, and related disciplines from universities worldwide. Students for the Summer School will be selected in accordance with the quality of their doctoral curricula, research interests, and application materials. Applications from students who have completed at least two years of doctoral training will be considered, with preference given to those who have satisfied their course requirements and qualifying exams but have not yet embarked on their dissertation research. Applications from post-docs will also be considered.

There is no application or participation fee. Student participants will be responsible for covering their own travel expenses to and from HEC Paris, but the Summer School will cover accommodation and board expenses during the week of sessions provided that students attend the entire week.

Applications should include:
 

1. A simple statement declaring that the applicant is interested in being considered for admission to the Summer School together with the applicant’s contact information: email address, telephone, and mailing address. All of this should be in the body of an email sent to the address below.
    
2. Curriculum vitae listing educational background, Ph.D. program, scholarly achievements, nationality, etc.
    
3. A motivation letter (no longer than 1 page) indicating the applicant’s current research activities and their specific interest in the proposed topic for the 2025 Summer School.
    
4. A brief recommendation letter from one faculty member of their dissertation committee.
    
5. Applicants are also encouraged (but not required) to submit an extended abstract or discussion note that they could present during the Summer School. The Selection Committee will evaluate the relevance of this paper to the 2025 School theme.
    

All application materials should be sent by March 21st, 2025 exclusively via email to the following address: sno-applications@hec.fr. Please write: Application Medici Summer School in the subject of the email.

For any specific inquiry or clarification, please also contact Iiris Sacchet: sacchet@hec.fr.
 

Admitted candidates will be notified by April 11th, 2025.

View more about Medici Summer School previous editions