David Falk successfully defended his dissertation
On June 10th, David Falk completed his doctoral studies at SSE and DMO by defending his dissertation “Mission in Motion: Mitigating Mission Drift in Nonprofit Organizations under Institutional Complexity”.
Pictured from left: Susanna Alexius, Martin Carlsson-Wall, Karl Wennberg, David Falk, Johan Hvenmark, Mats Jutterström, Daniel Semper and Michael Meyer.
David Falk has investigated the phenomenon of mission drift in non-profit organizations. Rather than approaching mission drift as something bound to certain activities and resources, it is conceptualized as a perception based phenomenon. It is about how representatives of an organization interpret its mission.
The study not only highlights the characteristics and challenges of mission drift, but shows how it can be mitigated in practice. Doing so is not about balancing resources or activities primarily, but about coexisting parallell institutional logics, that need to be bridged, integrated, and sometimes separated. Mission drift thus appears not as a fixed trajectory, but as a dynamic and contested process, shaped by both organizational arrangements and perceptions and how these change over time.
Acting as opponent during the defence was Professor Michael Meyer, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria. Our sincere thanks are extended to him!
Falk has already been hired for a new job following his doctoral studies. On behalf of the Department of Management and Organization, we congratulate him on this and on achieving the title of Doctor of philosopy in Business administration!
