- Date
- Wednesday, August 26, 2026
- Format
- Panel Session
- Location
- Saïd Business School, Oxford
- Part of
- Reputation Symposium 2026
About the Panel
For decades, organisational research unfolded against the backdrop of an ever-globalising world — and it was in that intellectual climate that conversations about ESG, stakeholder capitalism, and corporate purpose took root. That cosmopolitan vision now faces growing resistance. Nationalist movements have reasserted the primacy of the nation, and issues once framed as global — pandemics, climate change, poverty, inequality — are increasingly recast in national terms.
Featuring scholars from the Nation and Nationalism Research Network, this panel showcased emerging work on organizational nationalism: how, why, and with what consequences organisations adopt and propagate nationalist discourses through their strategies, identities, and stakeholder relationships. Nationalism can constrain firms through shifting regulations, geopolitical tension, and public scrutiny — but it also serves as a strategic resource, invoked to frame purpose and signal allegiance, and as a moralised internal vocabulary of commitment and sacrifice.
Organisations may be among the most consequential agents through which nationalism takes root, spreads, and reshapes society.
Programme
Yusaku Takeda
Assistant Professor of Business Administration, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Opening and framing
Co-author, with Lori Qingyuan Yue, of the concept of organizational nationalism. His research examines how firms adapt to shifting social norms and sociopolitical climates, and how nationalism shapes corporate strategy and values in organizations.
Lori Qingyuan Yue
Charles E. Exley Professor of Management, Columbia University
Measuring Organisational Nationalism at Scale: Two New Datasets of Public Firms in the United States and China, 2000–2025
Two original databases measuring corporate rhetorical nationalism among publicly listed US and Chinese firms. Using large language models and BERT, the study measures how firms express national pride, anti-foreign sentiment, and alignment with nationalist agendas — revealing shared trends and institutional differences across the two contexts.
Eero Vaara
Professor in Organisations and Impact, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
A Discursive Perspective on Nationalism in and around Contemporary Organisations
An integrative review identifying six approaches to nationalism across three levels: identity work at the micro level; intraorganisational practices and interorganisational strategies at the meso level; economic structures and political-media discourses at the macro level. Argues for discursive and narrative analysis in advancing the field.
Laura Illia
Professor of Communication, Business and Social Responsibility, University of Fribourg
Moderating Silence: Hate, Bystanders, and the Legitimacy of Nationalist Positioning
On bystander silence — evaluators who witness online hostility yet refrain from speaking, which can make a delegitimising narrative appear more widely shared than it is. A deliberative experiment comparing human and AI moderation identifies three dynamics and six discursive mechanisms through which bystanders are muted or enabled.
Rodolphe Durand
Joly Family Professor of Purposeful Leadership, HEC Paris
Closing discussion
Founder of the Society and Organizations Institute at HEC Paris. His research addresses the normative and cognitive dimensions of firm performance, and the consequences for firms of defining their purpose amid major environmental and social challenges.
What’s Next
-
Organizational Nationalism in a Deglobalizing World: Toward a Unified Theoretical Framework
Workshop · Philadelphia · August 2026
-
Nationalism in Organizations, Markets and Society
Call for Papers · Columbia Business School, New York · May 24, 2027
Part of the Reputation Symposium 2026, the flagship annual event of the
Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation
,
Saïd Business School. The 2026 edition ran from 25 to 27 August across the Oxford Union, Merton College, and the Thatcher Business Education Centre.