My research develops conceptual frameworks for understanding how socio-technical systems reshape power, authority, and judgment in organizations and society. Drawing from critical management studies, socio-technical systems theory, postcolonial scholarship, and contemplative traditions, this work advances justice-oriented approaches to organizational design, innovation, and governance.
Across these streams, I examine how technologies, institutions, and managerial practices co-constitute ethical responsibility and distributive outcomes under conditions of complexity, scale, and inequality. Rather than treating technology, leadership, or ethics as discrete domains, my scholarship examines how they co-constitute one another—particularly in contexts marked by algorithmic mediation, ecological crisis, and structural inequality.
Algorithmic Management & Epistemic Drift
This stream examines how algorithmic systems redistribute authority, reorganize accountability, and alter the conditions under which managerial judgment is exercised. Rather than treating automation as a technical efficiency problem, this work approaches algorithmic management as a governance challenge with epistemic and ethical consequences.
Theoretical contribution:
This work develops concepts to explain epistemic drift in algorithmic organizations, showing how decision authority migrates from human actors to socio-technical assemblages, often without corresponding shifts in accountability or ethical oversight.
Representative publications:
- Algorithmic Management: Theory, Practice, and Critical Perspectives (Routledge, forthcoming)
- Scillitoe, J., Zell, D., Poonamallee, L., & Turner, K. (2025). AI as Co-Creator: Fostering Social Equity Towards Social Sustainability in Entrepreneurial Development for Women and Minority Entrepreneurs. Sustainability, 17(21), 9613.
- Poonamallee, L. “Algorithmic Management and the Reconfiguration of Managerial Authority.” Under Review.
Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship & Commons
This research stream focuses on socio-technical entrepreneurship, hybrid ventures, and the governance of innovation as a shared societal resource. I study how mission-driven technology organizations navigate tensions between protection and diffusion, capital and care, and scalability and justice.
Theoretical contribution:
By conceptualizing innovation as a socio-technical commons rather than a proprietary asset, this work reframes entrepreneurship as a collective governance challenge—highlighting the institutional conditions under which technological innovation can serve public goods rather than reproduce inequality.
Representative publications:
- Socio‑tech Innovation: Harnessing Technology for Social Good (edited, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
- Joy, S., Poonamallee, L., & Scillitoe, J. (2021). What to be (or not to be): Understanding legal structure choices of social enterprises from a resource dependence perspective. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.
- Handbook of Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship Research (forthcoming, Edward Elgar)
Management & Social Justice
This stream reframes management theory and practice as sites of structural power rather than neutral techniques of coordination or performance optimization. My work foregrounds how managerial choices shape inclusion, exclusion, and distributive outcomes across organizational and societal contexts.
Theoretical contribution:
This research advances justice-centered management theory by integrating insights from critical management studies, postcolonial scholarship, and organizational ethics—challenging individualistic and depoliticized accounts of leadership and responsibility.
Representative publications:
- Managing for Social Justice: Harnessing Management Theory and Practice for Collective Good (edited, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
- Technology, Design, and Social Justice (edited, Springer, forthcoming)
- Poonamallee, L. (2021). Management and social justice? An oxymoron or inevitability. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 86(1), 3–5.
Contemplative Ontology & Ethics
Drawing on Advaita Vedanta and contemplative traditions, this stream develops ontological and epistemological foundations for ethical organizing in conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and ecological crisis. I approach contemplation not as personal wellness practice, but as a rigorous mode of inquiry that informs judgment, responsibility, and relational awareness.
Theoretical contribution:
This work positions contemplative inquiry as a methodological resource for cultivating epistemic humility, ethical discernment, and socio-ecological embeddedness—particularly within AI-mediated and high-stakes decision environments.
Representative publications (from CV):
- Expansive Leadership: Cultivating Mindfulness to Lead Self and Others in a Changing World (Routledge, 2021).
- Poonamallee, L. (2025). Countering Climate Fear with Mindfulness: A Framework for Sustainable Behavioral Change. Sustainability, 17(14), 6472.
Together, these streams are unified by a central concern: how organizations and technologies can be designed and governed in ways that preserve ethical judgment, distribute power responsibly, and support collective flourishing in an increasingly algorithmic world. Much of this work is developed through the Management & Social Justice Lab and its associated research and teaching initiatives.