Professor Harry Barkema’s focus over the past 20 years has been to understand, teach, and help improve how organizations — ranging from micro-enterprises to social enterprises, multinational companies, NGOs, public organisations, and incubators — can innovate their practices, processes, systems, and frameworks to foster, beyond economic goals, the human flourishing of their key stakeholders, particularly of employees and of marginalised groups in society, in Africa and South Asia.

Harry has just completed a five-year research programme — funded by an Advanced European Research Council-grant — on purpose-driven organisations, meaningful work, and social impact for marginalised groups in South Asia and Africa, with the findings now published in the leading management and entrepreneurship journals (AMJ, SMJ, Org Science, JBV, ETP). Over the past seven years, he has also founded, directed, and taught core courses in, the Department of Management’s new Master’s in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SIE), one of the first full-time programmes of its kind globally, with a strong focus on emerging economies. The programme integrates rigorous training in evidenced-based concepts, theories, and frameworks with action-based learning, where students design innovative social business models following intensive fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa as consultants for local companies and NGOs. Previously, Harry founded and taught SIE elective courses at the Department of Management and internationally (e.g., LSE-Cape Town program), executive courses in SIE, and a course on Open Innovation, all using action-learning too.

Professor Barkema is currently focusing — with the Social Innovation Lab for Human Flourishing — on generating, innovating, experimenting with, and further improving knowledge and skills that drive positive organisational change for key stakeholders in Africa and South Asia, then share the knowledge and skills globally to support systemic change towards human flourishing. Together with global team and ecosystem partners — including thought and impact leaders at universities, companies, NGOs, and public organisations across Europe, North America, West, East and Southern Africa, and South Asia. To this end, Harry splits his time equally between the global North and South (e.g., as an honorary professor at Cape Town University).

Previously, Harry was a professor of Corporate Strategy at Tilburg University (Netherlands). He was on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Management and the first European associate editor of the leading general Management journal, the Academy of Management Journal. Over the past 15 years, he has given on-site training programmes to help teams of employees design bottom-up, innovative, social business models at dozens of companies and NGOs across West, East, and Southern Africa, South Asia, and South America. Prior to that, Harry trained and facilitated 100+ teams of employees at companies in a broad range of industries in Europe and North America to design innovative business models, again using action-based learning. 

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Organisational Behaviour Faculty Research Group

Expertise Details: 

Purpose-driven companies; crafting meaningful work; methodologies for designing innovative social business models and shared value creation; measurement of purpose and meaningful work for entrepreneurs and employees; social impact measurement for marginalised groups (cf. Amartya Sen); monitoring, evaluation, and learning; entrepreneurship; human flourishing of women entrepreneurs, and of entrepreneurs and learners in informal settlements in South Asia and Africa.