I am an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship & Organizations at Emlyon Business School in France. My research examines how legitimacy is built, contested, and transformed in entrepreneurship and organizations. I study how audiences form legitimacy judgments under conditions of uncertainty and contestation, and how those judgments shape entrepreneurial outcomes, opportunity, and inequality. My work is particularly known for developing a framework of five legitimacy states that explains the grey area between legitimacy and illegitimacy.
Research agenda:
Legitimacy states and dynamics: I show how legitimacy shifts across qualitatively distinct states rather than operating as a simple legitimacy-illegitimacy binary.
Microfoundations of legitimacy judgments: I examine how propriety beliefs are formed through validity cues, categorical fit, and evaluator values.
Legitimacy in contested environments: I study how audiences evaluate organizations, entrepreneurs, and industries when legitimacy is fragile, controversial, or marked by inequality.
Before joining emlyon, I was an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, where I also served as Deputy Director of the MBA. Earlier, I was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, where I collaborated with Sharon A. Alvarez.
I earned my PhD in Management from IE Business School, in Madrid Spain, graduating with highest distinction and specializing in Entrepreneurship and Organization Theory. My dissertation on legitimacy perceptions was developed under the guidance of leading scholars in entrepreneurship and organization theory, including Julio O. De Castro, Sharon A. Alvarez, Marco Giarratana, and Dean A. Shepherd.
Drawing on legitimacy theory, justice, social psychology, and linguistics, I use experiments, surveys, interviews, and text analysis to investigate evaluative processes in entrepreneurship and organizations.
My research has been published in Journal of Management Studies (FT 50), Journal of Management Inquiry, European Management Review, and Industrial Economics. It has also appeared in leading conference proceedings, including Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research and the Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings. I regularly present at major international conferences such as the Academy of Management, the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, EGOS, and EURAM, and my work has also been shared with influential think tanks like The Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.
I was honored to be awarded the French State Award for Academic Excellence, a Best Paper Award at the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, and best paper nominations at the Academy of Management Conference.
For research collaborations, speaking engagements, consultancy, or media inquiries, please get in touch.
