Jiao Luo
Associate Professor, Andrew Van de Ven Faculty Fellowship
Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
Co-Chair, ESG Leadership Certificate
University of Minnesota
Email: luoj "at" umn "dot" edu
Others: @Carlson @SSRN @GoogleScholar @LinkedIn
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
321 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis MN 55455
Office: Rm 3-416
Education
Research
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A Platform Rating System and Vulnerable Workers: Evidence from Field Experiments in Singapore
with V. C. Burbano, W. W. Koo, 2026, Organization Science, forthcoming
abstract
Rating systems are a common governance tool on two-sided platforms. Research suggests that, via indirect network effects, rating systems benefit participants on both the rating side and the rated side. However, participants on the rated side may not always recognize the benefits of the rating system and may respond negatively to its introduction. The rating side may anticipate the rated side's negative reactions and react negatively as well, especially when the rated side holds more power over the rating side. To empirically examine participants' reactions to a proposed platform rating system in the context of a substantial cross-side power differential, we conducted two field experiments in collaboration with a Singapore-based labor platform that connects foreign domestic workers with employers (families). We found that employers, on average, were indifferent to the proposed rating system, even when the benefits to them were highlighted, with the highest-income employers exhibiting negative responses. We also found that workers reacted negatively, with those informed of the proposed rating system completely disengaging from the platform. Post-hoc interviews and analyses support our interpretation that power differential underlies workers' negative responses to the rating system. This study contributes to the literature on platform rating systems by demonstrating that, in the presence of a substantial cross-side power imbalance, rating systems may not always be perceived positively, even by participants on the rating side, whom the system aims to empower. It also constitutes one of the first efforts in management research to study domestic workers, a highly vulnerable population of workers.
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with H. Jeong, A. Kaul, 2025, Strategic Management Journal, 46(5), 1217-1250
abstract
We examine the comparative governance of for-profit provision of public services, distinguishing between two types of for-profit providers: investor-owned firms (IOFs) and cooperatives. We argue that because cooperatives are owned and operated by those who benefit directly from the positive externalities generated by public services they are well suited to serving poor or high cost communities that may be underserved by IOFs, and that this will be especially true when they serve less diverse communities or needs. We test and find support for these predictions in the context of internet service provision in the United States. Our study thus offers a discriminating alignment perspective on the provision of public services, while also shedding light on the role of cooperatives in addressing societal grand challenges.
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Giving a Little to Many or a Lot to a Few? The Returns to Variety in Corporate Philanthropy
with H. Seo, A. Kaul, 2021, Strategic Management Journal, 42(9), 1734-1764
Distinguished Paper Award, 2018 Academy of Management STR Division, Chicago, IL
Outstanding Paper Award, 2018 Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Conference
Best Conference Paper Award, Nominee, 2018 Strategic Management Society Conference
Best Paper Proceedings, 2018 Academy of Management STR Division, Chicago, IL
abstract
We examine the returns to specialization versus variety in corporate philanthropy. Acknowledging the theoretical rationale for both a specialist and a generalist approach to philanthropy, we took a question-driven, abductive approach and found a robust positive association between philanthropic variety and firm profitability for donations by large US public corporations from 2003 to 2011. This association held for variety across causes but not within causes, for non-local giving and for giving by diversified firms, and was weaker for firms whose donations faced greater scrutiny. These findings are consistent with a moral hazard explanation whereby firms take advantage of the relatively inelastic support for philanthropy within a cause area by strategically spreading their donations across a wide range of supporter interests, thus maximizing profits.
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with D. Chen, J. Chen, 2021, Administrative Science Quarterly, 66(1), 133-176
abstract
We explore transposition–bringing ideas from one context to a distant other context–as a mechanism for institutional change, and we study the conditions under which institutional actors successfully undertake it. Prior work on transposition has emphasized the paradox of embedded agency: actors embedded in a context may struggle to effect change because they lack exposure to fresh ideas. We complement this work by arguing that transposition is also subject to a paradox of peripheral influence: actors not embedded in a context, who may be a source of fresh ideas, can struggle to effect change because of their peripheral or outsider status. We suggest that these dual paradoxes can be overcome by actors who simultaneously have exposure to alternative institutional environments and are sufficiently embedded in the focal field to gain trust and buy-in from other decision makers. Such actors can both see the potential of new ideas and navigate their implementation successfully. We identify returnees from abroad, who have studied or worked elsewhere and then emigrated back to their home country, as one such type of actor. Using data on publicly listed Chinese companies from 2000 to 2012, we show that the presence on firms' boards of directors of returnees with relevant exposure abroad significantly raises firms' participation in corporate social responsibility, specifically in the form of making corporate donations. Supporting our theorizing about the two paradoxes, the effect of returnees is stronger when they or their board allies have greater exposure to foreign experience and greater embeddedness in the local context. The effect is also stronger when field conditions, such as insufficient economic development, present greater need for change.
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Categorical Competition in the Wake of Crisis: Banks Vs. Credit Unions
with A. Chatterji, R. Seamans, 2021, Organization Science, 32(3), 568-586
abstract
We connect two distinct streams of research on categories to study the role of within-category typicality in the context of legitimacy shocks. We argue that, following a legitimacy shock, member organizations of the tainted, focal category suffer equally, irrespective of their typicality. However, only the typical members of the newly favored, oppositional category benefit. Therefore, the effects of legitimacy shocks are asymmetrically influenced by typicality. We argue this pattern is the result of a two-stage process of categorization by audiences, whereby audiences prioritize distinctions between organizations in a newly favored category, and spend limited efforts considering distinctions in the tainted, focal category. We examine our theory in the context of the U.S. financial services industry, where four different kinds of organizations engage in competition: traditional commercial banks, community banks, single-bond credit unions, and multi-bond credit unions. Consistent with our theory, we show that both traditional commercial banks and community banks suffer in terms of deposit market share following the legitimacy shock of the 2007 financial crisis, but the relative gains to credit unions are strongest for single-bond credit unions.
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Private Action in Public Interest: The Comparative Governance of Social Issues
with A. Kaul, 2019, Strategic Management Journal, 40(4), 476-502
abstract
We develop a theoretical framework to define the comparatively efficient organizational form for dealing with a social issue, based on the market frictions associated with it. Specifically, we argue that for-profits have an advantage in undertaking innovation and coordinating production economies, nonprofits in playing a fiduciary role given ex post information asymmetry, self-governing collectives in dealing with bounded externalities through private ordering, and state bureaucracies in governing general externalities. We build on these arguments to develop a mapping between combinations of these market frictions and the comparatively efficient arrangements to govern them, including a variety of hybrid arrangements such as private-public partnerships, social enterprises, corporate social responsibility, and so on. Our framework thus contributes to research in strategy, organizations, and public policy.
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Winning us with Trifles: Adverse Selection in the Use of Philanthropy as Insurance
with A. Kaul, H. Seo, 2018, Strategic Management Journal, 39(10), 2591-2617
abstract
We study the use of corporate philanthropy as a form of reputation insurance, developing a formal model of such insurance to examine how the terms of insurance in equilibrium change under different assumptions about the firm and its stakeholders. We then test the predictions from this model in the U.S. petroleum industry and find that philanthropic donations offer insurance-like benefits, but are also positively associated with subsequent oil spills –firms that give more, spill more –with this association being stronger for spills that are under firms' control and in states with low civic capacity. These results are consistent with an adverse selection/moral hazard equilibrium and suggest that the use of philanthropy as reputation insurance may benefit firms at the cost of society.
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with A. Kaul, 2018, Strategic Management Journal, 39(6), 1650-1677
Honorable Mention, SMS Best Conference Paper Prize, 2015
Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management BPS Division, Vancouver, Canada, 2015
abstract
We develop a formal model of CSR, with both a for-profit and a non-profit organization providing social goods to needy recipients and competing for resources from consumers. We show that CSR results in financial benefit if it is either related to the firm's core business, or non-overlapping with non-profit efforts, but only leads to social benefit if both conditions apply, with these relationships being moderated by the firm's core business capabilities. Our article thus makes a case for CSR based on the comparative efficiency of for-profits in providing social goods relative to non-profits, while also highlighting the potential divergence between the financial and social impact of CSR. In addition, it offers new insights into the heterogeneity of CSR, and the role of non-profits and hybrids.
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Corporate Social Responsibility as an Employee Governance Tool: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment
with C. Flammer, 2017, Strategic Management Journal, 38(2), 163-183
abstract
This study examines whether companies employ corporate social responsibility (CSR) to improve employee engagement and mitigate adverse behavior at the workplace (e.g., shirking, absenteeism). We exploit plausibly exogenous changes in state unemployment insurance (UI) benefits from 1991 to 2013. Higher UI benefits reduce the cost of being unemployed and hence increase employees' incentives to engage in adverse behavior. We find that higher UI benefits are associated with higher engagement in employee-related CSR. This finding suggests that companies use CSR as a strategic management tool –specifically, an employee governance tool –to increase employee engagement and counter the possibility of adverse behavior. We further examine plausible mechanisms underlying this relationship.
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The Failure of Private Regulation: Elite Control and Market Crises in the Manhattan Banking Industry
with L. Q. Yue, P. Ingram, 2013, Administrative Science Quarterly, 58(1), 37-68
Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management OMT Division, Chicago, Illinois, 2009
abstract
In this paper, we develop an account of the failure of private market-governance institutions to maintain market order by highlighting how control of their distributional function by powerful elites limits their regulatory capacity. We examine the New York Clearing House Association (NYCHA), a private market-governance institution among commercial banks in Manhattan that operated from 1853 to 1913. We find that the NYCHA, founded to achieve coordinating benefits among banks and to limit the effect of financial panics, evolved at the turn of the twentieth century into a device for large, elite market players to promote their own interests to the disadvantage of rival groups that were not members. Elites prevented the rest of the market from having equal opportunities to participate in emergency loan programs during bank panics. The elites' control not only worsened the condition of the rest of the market by allowing non-member banks to fail; it also diminished the influence of the NYCHA and escalated market crises as bank failures spread to member banks. As a result, crises developed to an extent that exceeded the control of the NYCHA and ended up hurting even elites' own interests. This paper suggests that institutional stability rests on a deliberate balance of interests between different market sectors and that, without such a balance, the distributional function of market-governance institutions plants the seeds of institutional destruction.
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Missing Agent Problems and The Limits to Stakeholder Management
with K. Odziemkowska, A. Kaul, 2024, Academy of Management, STR Division Best Paper Proceedings, Chicago, Illinois
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Giving a Little to Many or a Lot to a Few? The Benefits of Variety in Corporate Philanthropy
with H. Seo, A. Kaul, 2018, Academy of Management, STR Division Best Paper Proceedings, Chicago, Illinois
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Coming Back and Giving Back: Returnee Directors and Corporate Donations
with D. Chen, J. Chen, 2016, Academy of Management, OMT Division Best Paper Proceedings, Anaheim, California
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with A. Kaul, 2015, Academy of Management, BPS Division Best Paper Proceedings, Vancouver, Canada
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with L. Q. Yue, P. Ingram, 2009, Academy of Management, OMT Division Best Paper Proceedings, Chicago, Illinois
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Are Native Plants Green? Assessing Environmental Performances of Locally-owned Facilities
with N. Lee
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Managing Social Impact: An Integrated Approach and Research Agenda
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Missing Agent Problems and The Limits to Stakeholder Management
with K. Odziemkowska, A. Kaul
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with P. Ingram
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Corporate Reputation and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events
with S. Meier, F. Oberholzer-Gee
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Air Trade: Normative Pressures and Firm Participation in Contested Markets
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with K. Kuwabara, O. Sheldon, 2010, in S. R. Thye and E. Lawler (eds.), Advances in Group Processes, 27, 239-268
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with P. Ingram, J. P. Eshun, 2010, in W. D. Sine and R. D. Robert (eds.), Research in the Sociology of Work, 21, 127-155
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with O. Baumann, G. F. Davis, S. Kunisch, and B. Wu, 2023, in Journal of Organization Design, vol. 12 [introduction]
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Sustainability, Stakeholder Governance, and Corporate Social Responsibility
with S. Dorobantu, R. V. Aguilera, and F. Milliken, 2018, in Advances in Strategic Management, vol. 38 [front matter]
Bio
Jiao (pronounced "jyow") Luo is an Associate Professor and Andrew Van de Ven Faculty Fellow at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Her research bridges non-market strategy and organization theory, with a particular focus on how firms engage with stakeholders, communities, and institutions beyond the realm of market transactions. She is especially interested in understanding how non-market actions—such as corporate donations, sustainability initiatives, and participation in collective governance—affect not only firms' performance but also broader societal outcomes.
Her work examines a wide range of non-market activities. On one front, she investigates corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, such as philanthropic giving and carbon-emission reduction programs, asking how these actions can create or redistribute value across different stakeholder groups. On another front, she studies collective governance arrangements—including credit unions and broadband cooperatives—and explores how they compete and coexist with for-profit organizations. This research challenges the conventional firm-centric approach to non-market strategy, advancing the view that the societal effects of these activities deserve as much attention as their implications for firm performance.
Jiao's scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and the Strategic Management Journal. She served as an Associate Editor at the Strategic Management Journal and sits on the editorial board of Organization Science. Jiao's work has been recognized by a number of awards, including Strategic Management Society (SMS) Best Conference Paper Prize (Honorable Mention), Academy of Management Meeting STR Distinguished Paper Award (Winner), Academy of Management Meeting OMT Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices Award (Finalist), Alliance of Research in Corporate Sustainability Outstanding Paper Award (Winner).
At the University of Minnesota, Jiao teaches courses on business strategy, sustainability, and non-market strategy to undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, and doctoral students, and co-chairs the University's ESG Leadership Certificate Program. Jiao earned her Bachelor's degree in Economics from Renmin University of China and a joint Master's degree in Public and Economic Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and Columbia University.
Peer Reviewed Journals
Referred Proceedings
Selected Work Under Review/In Progress
Invited Publications
Edited Book / Special Issue
Courses
MBA6100 Strategies for Sustainability (MBA)
CHMBA 5813 Ethics & Leadership (Executive MBA)
MGMT3004 Strategic Management (Undergraduate)
MGMT 8404 Nonmarket Strategy (PhD)
MGMT3010 Introduction to Entrepreneurship (Undergraduate)
2016 Founders Day Teaching Award, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
Seminars
Boston College (Management and Organization); Copenhagen Business School (Strategy and Innovation); Cornell University (AEP/SBE seminar); Duke University (Fuqua: Strategy); Georgetown University (McDonough: Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy); George Washington University (Strategic Management & Public Policy); HEC (Strategy and Business Policy); INSEAD (Strategy); Insper (Strategy); London Business School (Strategy and Entrepreneurship); Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Department of Management and Marketing); National University of Singapore (Business School: Strategy & Policy); Nanyang Technological University (Business School: Strategy, Management & Organisation); Northwestern University (Kellogg: Social Movement/Enterprise Workshop); Peking University (Guanghua: Strategic Management); Purdue University (Krannert: Strategic Management); Rice University (Jones: Strategy); Rotterdam School of Management (Strategy); Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Antai: Organization Management); Singapore Management University (Lee Kong Chian: Strategy and Organisation); Southern Methodist University (Cox: Management, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship); Temple University (Fox: GBM); University of California, Berkeley (Haas: Management & Organizational Studies); University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Gies: Business Administration); University of Michigan (Ross: Management & Organizations); University of Michigan (Ross: Strategy); University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler: Strategy & Entrepreneurship); University of Pennsylvania (Wharton: Management); University of Texas Austin (McCombs: Management); University of Western Ontario (Ivey: General Management); University of Wisconsin-Madison (School of Business: Management & Human Resources); Washington University in St. Louis (Olin Business School: Strategy and Entrepreneurship)
Awards
2025 Teaching Award
Carlson School of Business, University of Minnesota
2023 Service Award
Carlson School of Business, University of Minnesota
2022 Research Award
Carlson School of Business, University of Minnesota
2021 That's Interesting Award, Finalist
Academy of International Business Conference
2019 Responsible Research in Business & Management Award, Finalist
Community for Responsible Research in Business and Management & International Association for Chinese Management Research
2018-2019 Best Reviewer Award
Strategic Management Journal
2017-2018 Best Reviewer Award
Strategic Management Journal
2018 Distinguished Paper Award
Academy of Management STR Division
2018 Outstanding Paper Award
Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Conference
2016 Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices Award, Finalist
Academy of Management Conference, OMT Division
2016 Founders Day Teaching Award
Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
2015 SMS Best Conference Paper Prize, Honorable Mention
Strategic Management Conference
2010 TADC Best Paper Award, Strategy Track
London School of Business Transatlantic Doctoral Conference
2009 Donald C. Hambrick Award for Excellence in the Ph.D. Program
Columbia Business School
Selected Professional Services
Associate Editor, Strategic Management Journal, July 2020 - December 2024
Editorial Review Board, Organization Science, July 2020 -
Editorial Review Board, Administrative Science Quarterly, January 2020 - December 2023
Editorial Review Board, Academy of Management Review, March 2018 - December 2023
Executive Committee, Academy of Management, Strategic Management (STR) Division, 2019 - 2021
Associate Program Chair, Strategic Management Society, Stakeholder Strategy IG, 2021
Representative-at-large, Strategic Management Society, Competitive Strategy IG, 2018 - 2020
Representative-at-large, Strategic Management Society, Stakeholder Strategy Strategy IG, 2018 - 2020
Research Committee Member, Academy of Management, Organization and Management Theory (OMT) Division, 2017 - 2019
Research Committee Member, Academy of Management, Strategic Management (STR, formerly BPS) Division, 2016 - 2018
Ad-hoc Reviewer, Academy of Management Discovery; Academy of Management Journal; American Sociological Review; California Management Review; Information Systems Research; Journal of Business Ethics; Journal of Economics & Management Strategy; Journal of Management Studies; Management Science; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes; Organization & Environment; Strategic Organization; Sustainability; Academy of Management Annual Conference; Academy of International Business Conference; Strategic Management Society Annual Conference; Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Conference; INFORMS Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition; SMS Annual Conference PHD Paper Prize