Michael Yaziji

Professor of Strategy and Leadership

Michael Yaziji is Professor of Strategy and Leadership. With two PhDs, his expertise spans strategy, leadership, and sustainability.

In the area of strategy, his current focus is on artificial intelligence, on which he lectures regularly. He leads the IMD faculty interest group on the topic and initiatives across multiple institutions (IMD, EPFL, and UNIL).  ​

In the area of leadership, his latest research includes the world’s largest survey tying together psychological drivers, psychological safety, and organizational performance. The study explores how human biases and self-deception can impact decision-making as well as how these factors can be mitigated. He is currently studying and writing on the psychological drivers that underlie behavior and how leaders can use them for greater and more lasting impact. ​

In the area of sustainability, he is recognized as a world-leading expert on non-market strategy and NGO-corporate relations.  His earlier survey on NGO campaigns against corporations is the world’s largest and most comprehensive on the topic and was the backbone for his award-winning book, NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration, which won praise from Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former Unilever Chairman and CEO Antony Burgmans, Shell Chairman Mark Moody-Stuart, and PepsiCo Vice-Chairman Michael D White.

The dance of the ‘non-market’ of politics, NGOs, and the media – where business intersects society – is fundamentally different from the market, where business leaders are more familiar with the steps. Strategy, ethics, political science, and psychology intersect in a complex push and pull of ideologies and interests, conflict, and collaboration. Tomorrow’s leaders need to be better choreographers.

Yaziji’s broad industry experience includes being a board member, trustee, adviser, and executive teacher for Fortune 500 B2B and B2C companies (e.g., Microsoft, Shell, PepsiCo, Ericsson, PwC, Lufthansa, Sumitomo, Bosch, Vestas, NTT, Munich Re, Hydro, Grundfos, Maersk, Bunge Alimentos, Holcim) and for organizations such as the Red Cross, the University of California, and the World Economic Forum. ​

He has been published in academic and managerial journals such as Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review and was one of the earlier management school professors to give a TED Talk. In his 2012 presentation Rethinking the structure of corporations, he argued that existing corporate structures were no longer optimally suited to the needs of society – or the corporations themselves.​

An American and Swiss national, Yaziji has spent most of his life as an expat, having lived in Italy, France, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and the United States.

Selected publications
Article
Looking for opportunity in the midst of crisis
CultureStrategyOrganizational Behavior
Most crises create longer-term opportunities as well as threats because they produce rapid, sustained shifts in organizations’ external and internal environments.
22 May 2020
Developing unique business models: Going beyond services/solutions
Article
Developing unique business models: Going beyond services/solutions
StrategyOrganizational DesignChange Management
“If I hear the call to ‘innovate’ one more time...” “Innovate! Innovate! Innovate!” It’s become a numbing mantra. Your company strives to innovate and differentiate, but do you have a sneaking susp...
28 May 2013
Article
The role of ideological radicalism and resource homogeneity in social movement organization campaigns against corporations
Sustainability
There is growing interest in the interactions among different sectors of civil society and the distinct organizational forms—both formal and informal—that occupy and transcend them. At the same tim...
1 June 2013
Article
Corporate-NGO collaboration: Co-creating new business models for developing markets
Global Business
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) face a range of challenges when entering developing countries, including the need to adapt their business models to local markets' cultural, economic, institutional...
31 May 2010
Book
NGOs and corporations: Conflict and collaboration
SustainabilityGlobal BusinessLeadership
We live in a period marked by the ascendency of corporations. At the same time, the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - such as Amnesty International, CARE, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Save th...
26 March 2009
Article
Time to rethink capitalism?
Economics
The article refers to the logic of capitalism that supports shareholder value maximization and focuses on the laborist governance structure where labor becomes the stakeholder and is the risk-taker...
1 November 2008
Article
Turning Gadflies into allies
CompetitivenessGlobal Business
Multinational companies are the driving force behind globalization, but they are also the source of many of its most painful consequences, including currency crises, cross-border pollution, and ove...
1 February 2004
Article
Toward a theory of social risk: Antecedents of normative delegitimation
StrategyLeadership
This paper introduces the concept of normative delegitimation - the process by which an organization's normative legitimacy is diminished through challenges by outside organizations. I frame the ph...
1 February 2005
Academic publications
Case Study
[email protected]: Agile leadership at Rabobank
LeadershipAgilityOrganizational Behavior
Rabobank had become one of the agile frontrunners in Europe’s banking industry. As the company entered the next phase of its transformation, known as [email protected], it needed to take stock, not on...
24 June 2022
Article
The role of ideological radicalism and resource homogeneity in social movement organization campaigns against corporations
Sustainability
There is growing interest in the interactions among different sectors of civil society and the distinct organizational forms—both formal and informal—that occupy and transcend them. At the same tim...
1 June 2013
Article
Toward a theory of social risk: Antecedents of normative delegitimation
StrategyLeadership
This paper introduces the concept of normative delegitimation - the process by which an organization's normative legitimacy is diminished through challenges by outside organizations. I frame the ph...
1 February 2005
Insight for Executives
Everyone loves a win-win story but it’s time to get real
Article
Everyone loves a win-win story but it’s time to get real
SustainabilityEthics
Welcome to the Iconoclast, the first in a series of columns intended to challenge the status quo. Not always giving answers, not always right, but smartly challenging our own assumptions, actions, ...
12 May 2022
Report
Introducing an Air Ticket Tax in Switzerland: Estimated effects on demand
Industry AnalysisSustainability
New assessments of the real climate impact of Swiss aviation by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences show that it is 50% higher than in earlier estimates. As a consequence, air travel is now recog...
3 June 2021
Article
Looking for opportunity in the midst of crisis
CultureStrategyOrganizational Behavior
Most crises create longer-term opportunities as well as threats because they produce rapid, sustained shifts in organizations’ external and internal environments.
22 May 2020
Article
How economies can survive a period of ‘suspended animation’ to deal with coronavirus
Economics
As coronavirus spreads across the world, politicians are confusing the current economic situation with a recession. The current decline in production and employment is not due to declining demand o...
6 April 2020
Developing unique business models: Going beyond services/solutions
Article
Developing unique business models: Going beyond services/solutions
Change Management Organizational Design Strategy
“If I hear the call to ‘innovate’ one more time...” “Innovate! Innovate! Innovate!” It’s become a numbing mantra. Your company strives to innovate and differentiate, but do you have a sneaking susp...
21 May 2013
Article
How to deal with collateral damage of capitalism
Economics
Two truths underpin the dilemma of capitalism: while it remains the greatest source of wealth creation ever developed, its collateral damage is increasingly alarming and unsustainable.¦ No other ec...
7 March 2013
Going forward with tomorrow’s sustainability approach
Article
Going forward with tomorrow’s sustainability approach
Sustainability
The notion of sustainability-as-less –fewer people, resources and production together with less consumption and pollution – is actually not enough.¦On one hand, we absolutely need to do all of thes...
10 June 2011
Article
Training your executives in sociology, diplomacy or political science?
CoachingTop Team
Take a quick mental tally of the training of the C-office executives in your organisation, or at the country-head level. How many of them have technical or business training? Now how many of them h...
23 February 2011
Article
Os ares da alteração climática
Change Management
Amudança climática é, possivelmente a maior ameaça que a humanidade teve de enfrentar. As consequências já estão sendo sentidas nos negócios, e, por conseguinte, aumentará o seu impacto social, pol...
17 January 2010
Article
Climat: Sortir vainqueur contre vents et marées
RegulationSustainability
Le changement climatique est sans doute la pire menace laquelle l'humanité ait jamais confronte. Ses conséquences¦se font déjà ressentir sur l'économie, et ses impacts sociaux, politiques et éonomi...
25 November 2009
Article
Kapital ist austauschbar, Menschen nicht
General Management
Wirtschaftsordnung: wenn Kapitalismus bedeuted, dass die Kapitaleigner den grössten Teil der Wertschöpfung abzweigen, ist seine Zeit unwiderruflich abgelaufen. Wissen und Arbeit sorgen heute für me...
1 December 2008
Article
Shaping the regulatory environment: Why those who don't do politics get done
Change ManagementRegulationEconomicsSustainability
Knowing what regulatory changes are coming is often crucial in making strategic decisions. How does one know what the regulatory future holds?¦While the chance of anticipating each and every detail...
12 November 2008
Article
Time to rethink capitalism?
Economics
The article refers to the logic of capitalism that supports shareholder value maximization and focuses on the laborist governance structure where labor becomes the stakeholder and is the risk-taker...
1 November 2008
Article
Glaxo: Ce qu'il en coûte de mépriser les ONG
Global Business
Lorsqu'une multinationale devient la cible des ONG, il est souvent trop tard pour réagir. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) en a fait l'amère expérience dans l'affaire du sida en Afrique du Sud.
1 August 2006
Article
Profiting from building global standards
Technology ManagementStrategyCustomer Centricity
Conflicting technical standards are ubiquitous: CDs and DVDs, telephony systems, computer operating systems, electronic file formats. As the rate of technological innovation continues to accelerate...
25 October 2005
Article
Profiting from building global standards
Customer CentricityStrategyTechnology Management
Conflicting technical standards are ubiquitous: CDs and DVDs, telephony systems, computer operating systems, electronic file formats. As the rate of technological innovation continues to accelerate...
7 October 2005
Article
Setting standards is a precarious business
Technology ManagementStrategyCustomer Centricity
Conflicting technical standards are ubiquitous: CDs and DVDs, telephony systems, computer operating systems, electronic file formats. As the rate of technological innovation continues to accelerate...
24 June 2005
Article
Turning Gadflies into allies
CompetitivenessGlobal Business
Multinational companies are the driving force behind globalization, but they are also the source of many of its most painful consequences, including currency crises, cross-border pollution, and ove...
1 February 2004