6 August 2026
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St Hugh’s Fellow elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences
Congratulations to Professor Eric Zhao, St Hugh’s Tutor in Management and Professor of Strategy and Associate Dean for Research at Saïd Business School, who has been elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Professor Zhao examines how firms create and capture value amid technological and institutional change, and how organisations adapt in the age of AI. His recent work focuses on AI-driven transformation, human-machine collaboration, organisational resilience and shifting sources of competitive advantage. A second strand examines how societal institutions such as social class, gender, race and religion shape entrepreneurship and firm performance.
His book Optimal Distinctiveness (Cambridge University Press, 2022) is widely regarded as a definitive treatment of the field. He received the Academy of Management Emerging Scholar Award in Entrepreneurship in 2019 and the Strategic Management Society Emerging Scholar Award in 2022, making him the first scholar recognised by top career awards in both strategy and entrepreneurship, and has also won the Academy of Management Research Impact on Practice Award. He holds editorial board positions at journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and serves as a senior advisor to boards across Europe, Asia and the US.
Professor Zhao has taught strategy, organisation theory, entrepreneurship and AI-related courses on undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, executive education and doctoral programmes, and has mentored more than 30 doctoral students and early career researchers.
Professor Zhao said, ‘I am deeply honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. At a time when AI is transforming organisations and society, social science is essential to understanding not only what technology can do, but how it should be governed and used. I see this Fellowship as both recognition and responsibility: to help turn rigorous research into wiser, more accountable action.’
