Yusaku Takeda
I am an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the Gies College of Business — the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In the broadest sense, my works revolve around conceptions of collective self and society, their manifestations in social actions and environments, and social processes and capacities for collective self-reflection and change. At its core, my interests lie in the possibilities and limitations of the abilities of human collectives—organizations—to endogenously transform themselves and the extent to which such possibilities and limitations are shaped by people's beliefs and values, as well as their strengths and clarity thereof.
In particular, I am increasingly interested in this theme in relation to normative beliefs and values that provide various conceptions of social and political ideals. Our relationships with such social and political ideals are quite complex. One may instrumentally use them as strategic means and moral justifications to pursue other goals and desires. However, the same social and political ideals may provide alternative conceptions about societies that guide people to act for profound social change and transformations. These manifestations in various forms, in turn, disseminate to other social actors in various ways, resulting in social dynamics irreducible to any social actor’s interests.
My work lies at the intersection of these issues, rooted in prior research in organization theory, sociology, and strategic management research. Out of necessity, the bodies of research I draw from and speak to are quite diverse. My intellectual lineage is rooted in research on organizational adaptation, change, and evolution concerning intersections between organizations and various societal-level transformations. Yet, my research contexts, theorized mechanisms, and specific social forces in question often intersect with research in other disciplines, such as economic and political sociology and political science. It is in this sense that I am a transdisciplinary scholar.
I consider myself a scholar of history because almost all of my research is concerned with long-term historical processes, patterns, and events that happened in the past or the influences of various forces rooted in one’s past experiences and memories. Like historians (with some exceptions in economic history), much of my research aims to develop or extend new insights based on such historical investigations. This does not mean that I do not use quantitative tools. I value keeping inquiries driven by questions rather than methodologies, and whenever appropriate, I use various statistical and computational techniques, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, and collaborate with scholars with skillsets that I do not have to. This is all to understand phenomena of interest and to tell stories I want to understand.
My research has been recognized as the winner of the Best Student Paper Award and the runner-up for the Best International Paper Award from the Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division of the Academy of Management (2020). I was also named the finalist for Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices from the AOM OMT Division (2022), Best Conference Paper Prize, and Best Conference Ph.D. Paper Prize by Strategic Management Society (2020). I also received the Funai Overseas Scholarship from the Funai Foundation for Information Technology—its first recipient in management and organizational studies.
I earned my Ph.D. in Business Administration from Harvard University and a B.A. in Social Studies from Wesleyan University. I have also worked as a research assistant at Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Tokyo.
I also teach, practice, and compete in Judo and hold a Sandan (third-degree black belt).
I am from Hokkaido, Japan.
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