Harsh Kumar Jha is an Associate Professor in the OBHRM group at IIM Udaipur. He has previously held academic positions at Cardiff University, UK and Newcastle University, UK. His research interests predominantly lie in the areas of organizational theory, organizational cognition and interface of business and society. Specifically, these interests can be divided into two broad overlapping streams of research: first, exploring how actors respond to environmental pressures and engage in legitimacy construction, and second, a set of developing interests in social inclusion, entrepreneurship and extreme contexts. Empirically, his research explores a variety of settings, such as professional occupations (law, health care and education), media scandals and extreme contexts (human-animal conflict and subsistence entrepreneurship). Methodologically, he has expertise in both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and is particularly interested in mixed methods research, especially integrating inductive qualitative analysis with machine learning tools (e.g. topic modeling), network analysis tools (e.g. correspondence analysis) and QCA.

Prof Jha’s research has been presented at various international conferences, including AOM and EGOS. Further, his work has been awarded Best International Paper Award (runner up) at AOM 2021; was one of the three finalists for That’s Interesting! Award at EGOS 2022; and was nominated for Carolyn B. Dexter Award at AOM 2020. He is also a member of the editorial board at the Journal of Management Studies and the Journal of Professions and Organizations.

Prior to joining academia, he received a PhD in Management from University of California – Irvine, USA, an MSc in Management Research from University of Oxford, PGDM from SCMHRD, Pune, and BA(Hons) in Sociology from Hindu College, Delhi University. He also worked for more than six years in social care, consumer goods and telecom industries in the UK and India.

Research Specialisation: Discourse Analysis, Social Movements, Professional Occupations, Entrepreneurship, Corporations and Society, Intersectionality, Class.