Professor Michael Mol

Professor Michael Mol

The Department of Strategy and International Business
Chair in Strategic and International Management

Contact details

Email
m.j.mol@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Birmingham Business School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor Michael J. Mol is a Chair in Strategic and International Management at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK.

He obtained his PhD in Strategic and International Management from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he also got an MSc degree with double majors in strategy and logistics. Michael further holds a CEMS Master Degree. Previously Michael worked at Warwick Business School, London Business School and Henley Business School in the UK. Michael is a Dutch national and has worked, studied or been an official visiting scholar at eleven universities in six countries, including the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also currently a full-time Professor of Strategic and International Management in the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Strategic and International Management, Rotterdam 

Biography

Michael's research focuses on the strategic management of larger firms, with particular interests in innovation (especially the creation of new management practices) , sourcing strategy (especially offshoring and outsourcing), strategy in Africa, and corporate social irresponsibility.

He tackles these issues from a variety of theoretical and methodical angles. His numerous publications have appeared in among others Academy of Management Review, California Management Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, Organization Studies, Research Policy, Strategic Organization, and Strategic Management Journal.He has (co-)authored four books including ‘Outsourcing: Design, Process and Performance’ (Cambridge University Press) and Giant Steps in Management: Innovations that Change the Way we Work (FT Prentice Hall).

Michael has won several awards for his research including the prestigious best article award from Academy of Management Review. He has also received a variety of national and international research grants. Michael serves on the editorial boards of eight academic journals, including California Management Review, Global Strategy Journal, and Journal of International Business Studies. He has been the recipient of grants from various (inter)national institutions. He appears regularly in a variety of global media outlets and has acted as a consultant to firms and national and supranational institutions. He has a broad range of experience teaching at all levels and in program management. He has also been a head of department in Warwick and Copenhagen.

  • View Michael's Google Scholar profile

Teaching

Michael shares responsibility for the Executive MBA course in Strategic Management.

Research

  • The strategies of large and multinational corporations
  • Outsourcing and offshoring 
  • Innovation
  • Strategic management in Africa
  • Corporate social irresponsibility

Other activities

 

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Mol, MJ & Lee, SH 2024, 'What produces corporate social irresponsibility in offshore outsourcing? The effects of interorganizational relationship governance and institutional distance', Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 577-592. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-023-00664-5

Larsen, MM, Mkalama, B & Mol, MJ 2023, 'Outsourcing in Africa: How do the interactions between providers, multinationals, and the state lead to the evolution of the BPO industry?', Journal of International Business Policy, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 432-452. https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-023-00166-z

Mol, M, Rabbiosi, L & Santangelo, G 2023, 'Should I stay or should i go? How Danish MNEs in Russia respond to a geopolitical shift', AIB Insights. https://doi.org/10.46697/001c.68337

Lee, SH, Mellahi, K, Mol, MJ & Pereira, V 2020, 'No-Size-Fits-All: Collaborative Governance as an Alternative for Addressing Labour Issues in Global Supply Chains', Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 162, no. 2, pp. 291-305. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04198-5

Wieland, A, Bals, L, Mol, MJ & Handfield, RB 2020, 'Overcoming blind spots in global sourcing research: Exploiting the cross-sections between supply chain management and international business', Journal of International Management, vol. 26, no. 1, 100709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intman.2019.100709

Frynas, JG, Mol, MJ & Mellahi, K 2018, 'Management innovation made in China: Haier’s Rendanheyi', California Management Review, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 71-93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008125618790244

Mol, MJ 2018, 'Reflections on “the sources of management innovation” Mol & Birkinshaw, 2009', Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science: Bridging Asia and the World, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 278-281. https://doi.org/10.1080/21639159.2018.1449662

Mol, M & Brandl, K 2017, 'Bridging what we know: The effect of cognitive distance on knowledge-intensive business services produced offshore', International Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2017.11.003

Monteiro, F, Mol, M & Birkinshaw, J 2017, 'Ready to be open? Explaining the firm level barriers to benefiting from openness to external knowledge', Long Range Planning, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 282-295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2015.12.008

Brandl, K, Mol, M & Petersen, B 2017, 'The reconfiguration of service production systems in response to offshoring: A practice theory perspective', International Journal of Operations and Production Management, vol. 37, no. 9, pp. 1246-1264. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-07-2015-0430

Chapter

Mol, M, Foss, NJ & Birkinshaw, J 2019, The System of management ideas: Origins, microfoundations, and dynamics. in A Sturdy, S Heusinkveld, T T. Reay & D Strang (eds), Oxford Handbook of Management Ideas. Oxford University Press, pp. 25-41.

Mol, M, Brewster, C, Wood, G & Brookes, M 2014, Does the country matter?: A cross-national comparison of HRM outsourcing decisions. in G Wood, C Brewster & M Brookes (eds), Human Resource Management and the Institutional Perspective. . Routledge.

Comment/debate

Mellahi, K & Mol, M 2015, 'Africa is just like every other place, in that it is unlike any other place', Africa Journal of Management, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 201-209. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322373.2015.1026761

Editorial

Mol, M, Stadler, C & Arino, A 2016, 'Africa: The new frontier for global strategy scholars', Global Strategy Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1146

Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary

Brandl, K & Mol, M 2023, Knowledge Services Offshoring. in F Gallouj, C Gallouj, M-C Monnoyer, L Rubalcaba & M Scheuer (eds), Elgar Encyclopedia of Services. Elgar Encyclopedias in the Social Sciences, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenham, pp. 488-488. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781802202595.Knowledge.Services.Offshoring

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