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Faculty: SKEMA’s Yu Li shortlisted for the Academy of Management Best Dissertation Award
Yu Li, Assistant Professor of Strategy and International Business at SKEMA Business School and a member of the Knowledge, Technology and Organization (KTO) research centre, is one of five finalists for the 2026 Best Dissertation Award presented by the International Management Division of the Academy of Management.
Corporate activism at the heart of her dissertation
Completed in 2025 at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business, her dissertation is entitled Walking a Tightrope: Challenges for Corporate Sociopolitical Activism Amidst Stakeholder Divides. It examines the challenges multinational companies face when taking positions on sociopolitical issues that divide their stakeholders.
In an interview with SKEMA published in May 2026 , Yu Li described the focus of her work: “My research examines how firms make strategic decisions in environments where business, politics and society are becoming increasingly intertwined.”
An award from a leading scholarly association
Founded in 1936, the Academy of Management is the world’s oldest and largest scholarly association dedicated to management. It has close to 22,000 members across more than 110 countries, including researchers, faculty members, doctoral students and practitioners. Its Annual Meeting is the world’s largest gathering of management and organisation scholars.
The other finalists are Aparajita Agarwal (INSEAD), Yejee Lee (Auburn University), Laurenz Tinhof (WU Vienna) and Xin Wang (HKUST Guangzhou).
