Professor Paula Jarzabkowski
Professor in Strategy
School of Business
Researcher biography
Areas of expertise:
- The insurance protection gap on multiple perils including terrorism, climate change and major weather events such as bushfires, hurricanes and floods.
- Financial protection and resilience to disaster in both advanced and developing economies
- Insurance markets as underpinning the economy, including mortgages, credit and lending
Professor Paula Jarzabkowski is a global expert in the public-private mechanisms proliferating around the world to address the insurance protection gap. The insurance protection gap is the economic loss from catastrophic events that is not insured. In advanced economies, the burden of paying for recovery from disasters then falls upon the government and taxpayers. In low-income countries, disaster recovery sets back economic gains by decades affecting the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable people.
The insurance protection gap is rapidly increasing due to climate change, yet climate-driven risk is not insurable because it is systemic, meaning frequent, correlated, and severe. Global insurance markets rely on highly-diversified risks, in which premiums on many different risks pay for the losses on a few risks in any country at any one time. Climate change, be that through more severe and frequent Caribbean hurricanes, Australian bushfires, and European floods, compounds global losses, generating a systemic effect of spiralling premiums, withdrawal of insurance, and unprotected assets that create the insurance protection gap.
Currently, Paula is researching the changing nature of terrorism risk and how we can remain financially resilient to risks such as civil unrest, cyber attack, explosive threats, or lone attacker events; how we can reconfigure the insurance market around sharing the risk of climate change, with a particular Australian focus on flood and cyclone risk; and how innovations in disaster risk financing, such as disaster liquidity insurance, can be used to support climate adaptation and response.
Paula is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management and a Fellow of the British Academy. Paula is a member of the Expert Advisory Group, Pool Reinsurance Company UK; a Board Member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) High Level Advisory Board for the Financial Management of Catastrophic Risks; and has been Co-Chair of the Expert Advisory Group of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office, Centre for Global Disaster Protection.
Publications
Books
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Spee, Paul (2015). Making a market for acts of God: the practice of risk trading in the global reinsurance industry. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Jarzabkowski, Paula (2005). Strategy as practice: An activity-based approach. SAGE Publications Inc.. doi: 10.4135/9781446215777
Book Chapters
Seidl, David, Lê, Jane and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2021). The generative potential of Luhmann’s theorizing for paradox research: decision paradox and deparadoxization. Interdisciplinary dialogues on organizational paradox: investigating social structures and human expression, part B:. (pp. 49-64) Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing Limited. doi: 10.1108/S0733-558X2021000073b004
Feldman, Martha S., D’adderio, Luciana, Dittrich, Katharina and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2019). Introduction: Routine dynamics in action. Routine Dynamics in Action: Replication and Transformation. (pp. 1-10) Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing. doi: 10.1108/S0733-558X20190000061001
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Chalkias, Konstantinos (2018). Making markets for uninsured risk: Protection gap entities (PGEs) as risk-processing organizations in society. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management. (pp. 477-480) edited by Robert P. Gephart, Jr., C. Chet Miller and Karin Svedberg Helgesson. New York, NY, United States: Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.4324/9781315458175
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Lê, Jane K. (2018). Studying paradox as process and practice. Dualities, dialectics, and paradoxes in organizational life. (pp. 175-194) edited by Moshe Farjoun, Wendy Smith, Ann Langley and Haridimos Tsoukas. New York, NY, United States: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198827436.003.0009
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Le, Jane and Spee, Paul (2017). Taking a strong process approach to analyzing qualitative process data. The SAGE Handbook of Process Organization Studies. (pp. 237-253) edited by Ann Langley and Haridimos Tsoukas. London, United Kingdom: SAGE.
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Lewis, Marianne and Smith, Wendy (2017). Practices for leveraging the paradoxes of engaged scholarship. Academic-Practitioner Relationships: Developments, Complexities and Opportunities. (pp. 126-141) edited by Jean M. Bartunek and Jane McKenzie. London, United Kingdom: Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.4324/9781315657530
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Spee, Paul (2016). The role of artifacts in establishing connectivity within professional routines: a question of entanglement. Organizational routines: how they are created, maintained and changed. (pp. 117-139) edited by Jennifer Howard-Grenville, Glaus Rerup, Ann Langley and Haridimos Tsoukas. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Wolf, Carola (2015). An activity theory approach to strategy as practice. Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice. (pp. 165-183) edited by Damon Golsorkhi, Linda Rouleau, David Seidl and Eero Vaara. Cambridge, England, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139681032.010
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Smets Michael and Spee, Paul (2012). Leveraging relationships to get ready for change. Ready for change? : transition through turbulence to reformation and transformation. (pp. 165-184) edited by Cora Lynn Heimer Rathbone. Basomgstple: Palgrave MacMillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137008404
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Matthiesen, Jane and Van De Ven, Andrew H. (2009). Doing which work? A practice approach to institutional pluralism. Institutional work: actors and agency in institutional studies of organizations. (pp. 284-316) edited by Thomas B. Lawrence, Roy Suddaby and Bernard Leca. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511596605.011
Jarzabkowski, Paula (2008). Strategy-as-practice. The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization. (pp. 364-378) SAGE Publications Inc.. doi: 10.4135/9781849200394.n63
Journal Articles
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Dowell, Glen WS and Berchicci, Luca (2021). Strategy and organization scholarship through a radical sustainability lens: A call for 5.0. Strategic Organization, 19 (3), 449-455. doi: 10.1177/14761270211033093
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Kavas, Mustafa and Krull, Elisabeth (2021). It’s Practice. But is it Strategy? Reinvigorating strategy-as-practice by rethinking consequentiality. Organization Theory, 2 (3) 263178772110296, 1-13. doi: 10.1177/26317877211029665
Keller, Joshua, Carmine, Simone, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Lewis, Marianne W., Pradies, Camille, Sharma, Garima, Smith, Wendy K. and Vince, Russ (2021). Our collective tensions: paradox research community’s response to COVID-19. Journal of Management Inquiry, 30 (2), 168-176. doi: 10.1177/1056492620986859
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Langley, Ann and Nigam, Amit (2021). Navigating the tensions of quality in qualitative research. Strategic Organization, 19 (1), 70-80. doi: 10.1177/1476127020985094
Splitter, Violetta, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Seidl, David (2021). Middle Managers’ Struggle Over Their Subject Position in Open Strategy Processes. Journal of Management Studies. doi: 10.1111/joms.12776
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca, Kilminster, Wendy and Spee, Paul (2021). An integrative approach to investigating longstanding organisational phenomena; opportunities for practice theorists and historians. Business History. doi: 10.1080/00076791.2021.1906227
Weiser, Ann-Kristin, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Laamanen, Tomi (2020). Completing the adaptive turn: An integrative view of strategy implementation. Academy of Management Annals, 14 (2), 969-1031. doi: 10.5465/annals.2018.0137
Bednarek, Rebecca, Chalkias, Konstantinos and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2019). Managing risk as a duality of harm and benefit: a study of organizational risk objects in the global insurance industry. British Journal of Management, 32 (1) 1467-8551.12389, 235-254. doi: 10.1111/1467-8551.12389
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Lê, Jane Kirsten and Balogun, Julia (2019). The social practice of co-evolving strategy and structure to realize mandated radical change. Academy of Management Journal, 62 (3), 850-882. doi: 10.5465/amj.2016.0689
Hengst, Iris-Ariane, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Hoegl, Martin and Muethel, Miriam (2019). Toward a process theory of making sustainability strategies legitimate in action. Academy of Management Journal, 63 (1) amj.2016.0960, 246-271. doi: 10.5465/amj.2016.0960
Anesa, Mattia, Chalkias, Konstantinos, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Spee, Andreas Paul (2019). Practicing capitals across fields: extending Bourdieu to study inter-field dynamics. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 65B, 129-142. doi: 10.1108/s0733-558x2019000065b010
Kavas, Mustafa, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Nigam, Amit (2019). Islamic Family Business: The Constitutive Role of Religion in Business. Journal of Business Ethics, 163 (4), 689-700. doi: 10.1007/s10551-019-04384-5
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca, Chalkias, Konstantinos and Cacciatori, Eugenia (2018). Exploring inter-organizational paradoxes: methodological lessons from a study of a grand challenge. Strategic Organization, 17 (1), 120-132. doi: 10.1177/1476127018805345
LeBaron, Curtis, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Pratt, Michael G. and Fetzer, Greg (2018). An introduction to video methods in organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 21 (2), 239-260. doi: 10.1177/1094428117745649
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Bednarek, Rebecca (2018). Toward a social practice theory of relational competing. Strategic Management Journal, 39 (3), 794-829. doi: 10.1002/smj.2724
Jarzabkowski, Paula A. and Le, Jane K. (2017). We have to do this and that? You must be joking: constructing and responding to paradox through humor. Organization Studies, 38 (3-4), 433-462. doi: 10.1177/0170840616640846
Spee, Paul and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2017). Agreeing on what? Creating joint accounts of strategic change. Organization Science, 28 (1), 152-176. doi: 10.1287/orsc.2016.1105
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Kaplan, Sarah, Seidl, David and Whittington, Richard (2016). If you aren't talking about practices, don't call it a practice-based view: Rejoinder to Bromiley and Rau in Strategic Organization. Strategic Organization, 14 (3), 270-274. doi: 10.1177/1476127016655998
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Kaplan, Sarah, Seidl, David and Whittington, Richard (2016). On the risk of studying practices in isolation: Linking what, who, and how in strategy research. Strategic Organization, 14 (3), 248-259. doi: 10.1177/1476127015604125
Bednarek, Rebecca, Burke, Gary, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Smets, Michael (2016). Dynamic client portfolios as sources of ambidexterity: Exploration and exploitation within and across client relationships. Long Range Planning, 49 (3), 324-341. doi: 10.1016/j.lrp.2015.12.003
Spee, Paul, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Smets, Michael (2016). The influence of routine interdependence and skillful accomplishment on the coordination of standardizing and customizing. Organization Science, 27 (3), 759-781. doi: 10.1287/orsc.2016.1050
Le, Jane K. and Jarzabkowski, Paula A. (2015). The role of task and process conflict in strategizing. British Journal of Management, 26 (3), 439-462. doi: 10.1111/1467-8551.12076
Smets, Michael, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Burke, Gary T. and Spee, Paul (2015). Reinsurance Trading in Lloyd's of London: balancing conflicting-yet-complementary logics in practice. Academy of Management Journal, 58 (3), 932-970. doi: 10.5465/amj.2012.0638
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Kaplan, Sarah (2015). Strategy tools-in-use: a framework for understanding "technologies of rationality" in practice. Strategic Management Journal, 36 (4), 537-558. doi: 10.1002/smj.2270
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Burke, Gary and Spee, Paul (2015). Constructing spaces for strategic work: a multimodal perspective. British Journal of Management, 26 (Supplement S1), S26-S47. doi: 10.1111/1467-8551.12082
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Cabantous, Laure (2015). Conducting global team-based ethnography: Methodological challenges and practical methods. Human Relations, 68 (1), 3-33. doi: 10.1177/0018726714535449
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Le, Jane K. (2014). Producing persuasive findings: Demystifying ethnographic textwork in strategy and organization research. Strategic Organization, 12 (4), 274-287. doi: 10.1177/1476127014554575
Balogun, Julia, Jacobs, Claus, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Mantere, Saku and Vaara, Eero (2014). Placing strategy discourse in context: Sociomateriality, sensemaking, and power. Journal of Management Studies, 51 (2), 175-201. doi: 10.1111/joms.12059
Smets, Michael, Burke, Gary, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Spee, Paul (2014). Charting new territory for organizational ethnography: insights from a team-based video ethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 3 (1), 10-26. doi: 10.1108/JOE-12-2012-0056
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Pinch, Trevor (2013). Sociomateriality is 'the New Black': Accomplishing repurposing, reinscripting and repairing in context. Management (France), 16 (5), 579-592. doi: 10.3917/mana.165.0579
Smets, Michael and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2013). Reconstructing institutional complexity in practice: A relational model of institutional work and complexity. Human Relations, 66 (10), 1279-1309. doi: 10.1177/0018726712471407
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Le, Jane K. and Van de Ven, Andrew H. (2013). Responding to competing strategic demands: How organizing, belonging, and performing paradoxes coevolve. Strategic Organization, 11 (3), 245-280. doi: 10.1177/1476127013481016
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Spee, Andreas Paul and Smets, Michael (2013). Material artifacts: practices for doing strategy with 'stuff'. European Management Journal, 31 (1), 41-54. doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2012.09.001
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Smets, Michael, Bednarek, Rebecca, Burke, Gary and Spee, Paul (2013). Institutional ambidexterity: leveraging institutional complexity in practice. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 39 B, 37-61. doi: 10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039AB015
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Giulietti, Monica, Oliveira, Bruno and Amoo, Nii (2013). "We don't need no education" - Or do we? Management education and alumni adoption of strategy tools. Journal of Management Inquiry, 22 (1), 4-24. doi: 10.1177/1056492612460588
Jarzabkowski, Paula A., Le, Jane K. and Feldman, Martha S. (2012). Toward a theory of coordinating: creating coordinating mechanisms in practice. Organization Science, 23 (4), 907-927. doi: 10.1287/orsc.1110.0693
Sillince, John, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Shaw, Duncan (2012). Shaping strategic action through the rhetorical construction and exploitation of ambiguity. Organization Science, 23 (3), 630-650. doi: 10.1287/orsc.1110.0670
Spee, A. Paul and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2011). Strategic planning as communicative process. Organization Studies, 32 (9), 1217-1245. doi: 10.1177/0170840611411387
Balogun, Julia, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Vaara, Eero (2011). Selling, resistance and reconciliation: A critical discursive approach to subsidiary role evolution in MNEs. Journal of International Business Studies, 42 (6), 765-786. doi: 10.1057/jibs.2011.13
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Kaplan, Sarah (2010). Taking "strategy-as-practice" across the Atlantic. Advances in Strategic Management, 27, 51-71. doi: 10.1108/S0742-3322(2010)0000027006
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Mohrman, Susan Albers and Scherer, Andreas Georg (2010). Organization studies as applied science: the generation and use of academic knowledge about organizations introduction to the special issue. Organization Studies, 31 (9-10), 1189-1207. doi: 10.1177/0170840610374394
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Sillince, John AA and Shaw, Duncan (2010). Strategic ambiguity as a rhetorical resource for enabling multiple interests. Human Relations, 63 (2), 219-248. doi: 10.1177/0018726709337040
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Balogun, Julia (2009). The practice and process of delivering integration through strategic planning. Journal of Management Studies, 46 (8), 1255-1288. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00853.x
Spee, Andreas Paul and Jarzabkowski, Paula (2009). Strategy tools as boundary objects. Strategic Organization, 7 (2), 223-232. doi: 10.1177/1476127009102674
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Spee, Andreas Paul (2009). Strategy-as-practice: a review and future directions for the field. International Journal of Management Reviews, 11 (1), 69-95. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2008.00250.x
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Whittington, Richard (2008). Directions for a troubled discipline: strategy research, teaching, and practice-introduction to the dialog. Journal of Management Inquiry, 17 (4), 266-268. doi: 10.1177/1056492608318148
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Whittington, Richard (2008). A strategy-as-practice approach to strategy research and education. Journal of Management Inquiry, 17 (4), 282-286. doi: 10.1177/1056492608318150
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Whittington, Richard (2008). Hard to disagree, mostly. Strategic Organization, 6 (1), 101-106. doi: 10.1177/1476127007087155
Jarzabkowski, Paula (2008). Shaping strategy as a structuration process. Academy of Management Journal, 51 (4), 621-650. doi: 10.5465/amr.2008.33664922
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Seidl, David (2008). The role of meetings in the social practice of strategy. Organization Studies, 29 (11), 1391-1426. doi: 10.1177/0170840608096388
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Sillince, John (2007). A rhetoric-in-context approach to building commitment to multiple strategic goals. Organization Studies, 28 (11), 1639-1665. doi: 10.1177/0170840607075266
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Balogun, Julia and Seidl, David (2007). Strategizing: the challenges of a practice perspective. Human Relations, 60 (1), 5-27. doi: 10.1177/0018726707075703
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Fenton, Evelyn (2006). Strategizing and organizing in pluralistic contexts. Long Range Planning, 39 (6), 631-648. doi: 10.1016/j.lrp.2006.11.002
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Wilson, David C. (2006). Actionable Strategy Knowledge:. A Practice Perspective. European Management Journal, 24 (5), 348-367. doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2006.05.009
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Searle, Rosalind H. (2004). Harnessing diversity and collective action in the Top Management Team. Long Range Planning, 37 (5), 399-419. doi: 10.1016/j.lrp.2004.07.006
Jarzabkowski, Paula (2004). Strategy as practice: recursiveness, adaptation, and practices-in-use. Organization Studies, 25 (4), 529-560. doi: 10.1177/0170840604040675
Whittington, Richard, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Mayer, Michael, Mounoud, Eléonore, Nahapiet, Janine and Rouleau, Linda (2003). Taking strategy seriously: responsibility and reform for an important social practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 12 (4), 396-409. doi: 10.1177/1056492603258968
Jarzabkowski, P (2003). Strategic practices: an activity theory perspective on continuity and change. Journal of Management Studies, 40 (1), 23-55. doi: 10.1111/1467-6486.t01-1-00003
Jarzabkowski, Paula (2002). Centralised or decentralised? Strategic implications of resource allocation models. Higher Education Quarterly, 56 (1), 5-32. doi: 10.1111/1468-2273.00200
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Wilson, David C. (2002). Top teams and strategy in UK university. Journal of Management Studies, 39 (3), 355-381. doi: 10.1111/1467-6486.00296
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Bone, Zelma (1998). A 'how-to' guide and checklist for peer appraisal of teaching. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 35 (2), 177-182. doi: 10.1080/1355800980350212
Conference Papers
Kavas, Mustafa, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Nigam, Amit (2017). Islamic family business: The constitutive role of religion on business. 77th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2017, Atlanta, United States, 4-8 August 2017. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/ambpp.2017.267
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Cabantous, Laure (2017). Timing practices and material markers in coordinating collective market patterns. 77th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2017, Atlanta, GA, United States, 4- 8 August, 2017. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2017.126
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Bednarek, Rebecca (2015). Towards a social-practice theory of competition. 75th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2015, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 7-11 August, 2015. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2015.102
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Wolf, Carola (2014). The role of practical coping in strategy making. 74th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2014, Philadelphia, PA, United States, 1-4 August, 2014. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2014.259
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Bednarek, Rebecca and Cabantous, Laure (2013). Markets as meta-interpretive systems. 73rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2013, Orlando, FL, United States, 10-12 August, 2013. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2013.174
Smets, Michael, Jarzabkowski, Paula, Burke, Gary T. and Spee, Paul (2012). Reinsurance trading in Lloyd's of London: Balancing conflicting-yet-complementary logics in practice. 72nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2012, Boston, MA, 7-10 August 2012. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2012.246
Spee, Andreas Paul, Jarzabkowski, Paula and Smets, Michael (2012). Material artifacts: Practices for doing strategy with 'Stuff'. Academy of Management 2012 Annual Meeting, AOM 2012, Boston, MA United States, 3-7 August 2012. Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States: Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/AMBPP.2012.250
Jarzabkowski, Paula and Kaplan, Sarah (2008). Using strategy tools in practice: An exploration of "technologies of rationality" in use. Academy of Management. doi: 10.5465/ambpp.2008.33724572
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Mohrman, Susan, Scherer, Andreas Georg, Nowotny, Helga, Rynes, Sara L. and Whitley, Richard (2006). Organization studies as applied science: The generation and use of academic knowledge about organizations. doi: 10.1177/0170840606070945
Research Report
Jarzabkowski, Paula, Smets, Michael and Spee, Paul (2010). Trading risk: The value of relationships, models and face-to-face interaction in the global reinsurance market. Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom: Aston Business School.