Role
Toke Bjerregaard is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Management, Nottingham Business School (NTU), and in the Centre for Responsible and Sustainable Business. His research explores the work of strategising and organising in complex contexts, with a current focus on sustainability and grand societal challenges.
Career overview
Toke’s research has revolved around the work of strategising, organising, and managing in complex contexts. The research has addressed the strategies and practices of organisations in navigating a range of complex settings. The research is often grounded in practice-based studies. He has also had a keen interest in research conversations at the intersections of institutional theory and practice-based management studies. His current research extends this agenda to strategising and organising around interconnected social and ecological challenges, with particular attention to collaboration across organisations and sectors.
He holds a PhD in management studies from Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, Denmark, where he also worked as associate professor. He also holds a research degree (magisterkonferens) in social anthropology and ethnography from Aarhus University.
Teaching: Toke has designed, led and delivered undergraduate and postgraduate modules, alongside modules on the Graduate Diploma in Business Administration programme for working professionals. He has also delivered lectures at doctoral level. His teaching spans global management, strategy-as-practice, organisational change, team management and qualitative research methods. Within global management, he has taught topics such as strategies and structures of MNCs, human resource management, global talent management, corporate social responsibility and culture.
Supervision: Toke welcomes supervision enquiries at undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels in strategy, organisation and leadership, and international business and management, including sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
He is currently Director of Studies for two PhD students and co-supervisor for two further doctoral researchers. He has supervised three PhD students to completion; papers from their dissertations have received multiple Academy of Management awards. He has also supervised more than 80 undergraduate and master’s dissertations to completion.
Research areas
Toke’s research explores how strategy processes and practices shape responses to grand societal challenges, including multinational corporations’ engagement with these challenges and collaboration across organisational and sectoral boundaries. These studies are examples of ‘grand challenge’ research within the field of strategy and organisation studies that deals with challenges faced by local and global communities and firms’ involvement in tackling them.
Toke’s research interests include:
- Strategy processes and practices, including strategy-as-practice.
- Organising and strategising under (institutional) complexity.
- Grand societal challenges and sustainability.
- Cross-sector collaboration around often interconnected social and ecological challenges.
- International business and management.
He is developing research on strategising and organising for nature recovery, including through Biodiversity Net Gain; climate strategising in peripheralised and post-industrial places; and the role of commercial diplomats in shaping cross-border sustainability opportunities and partnerships
Recent grants and awards: PI, Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS), Developing the Management Studies Community award (2025). Awards: BAM 2025 Best Developmental Paper Award (SAP); EMJ Best Reviewer Award 2023 (recognised again 2025 for sustained reviewer excellence). His research has received funding support from the Danish Council for Strategic Research (2-year postdoc), the Danish Council for Independent Research (Culture and Communication), the Aarhus University Research Foundation (AUFF AP starting grant, approx £135,000), and Solarfonden.
Current projects: Toke is Director of Studies for “Pride in Place, Voice in Practice: A Collaborative Study for Inclusive Regeneration in Nottinghamshire”, a Research England-funded Co(l)laboratory PhD project (2026–). The project examines how community participation and everyday practices shape place-based regeneration, pride in place and social and ecological outcomes in Kimberley, Nottinghamshire. It involves collaboration with the University of Nottingham and community and civic partners.
Selected funded projects: CSO strategising in MNCs; Strategising for grand challenges in MNCs, funded by Danish sources (prior PI)
Publications: His published research examines the strategies and practices mobilised by organisations and their actors across a range of complex contexts, often characterised by institutional complexity, including university–industry collaboration, multinational corporations and responses to grand societal challenges. Work appears in journals such as Organization Studies, British Journal of Management, Strategic Organization, Technovation, European Management Journal and Economic and Industrial Democracy.
External activity
Editorial Board member, European Management Journal (2015–2024).
The convenor of SAMS-funded international workshop “Researching the Processes and Practices of Tackling Responsible Management and Sustainability Challenges”, NTU London, 7–8 September 2026.
Co-organiser, “The Practice Turn in Management Studies: Taking Stock and Moving Forward”, Academy of Management Showcase Symposium; one of three finalists for the Emerald Best International Symposium Award.
Referee activity: Reviewing for journals such as Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, British Journal of Management, Human Relations, Academy of Management Review, Research Policy, European Management Journal, Strategic Organization.
Consultancy/policy contributions for industry and government; collaborations with public, private and hybrid organisations.
Stays abroad: Visiting Scholar/Residential Fellowship at Stanford University; Lund University.