Kalkin Hall
55 Colchester Ave
Burlington, VT 05405
United States
BIO
Warren Nilsson is an Associate Professor of Social Innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and a Visiting lecturer at the University of Vermont Grossman School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in Management (Strategy and Organization) from McGill University, an MBA from the University of Baltimore, and a BA (College Scholar) from Cornell University.
Warren’s research focuses on organizational development for social innovation. He is particularly interested in the relationship between positive organizing and institutional transformation. Why are some organizations so good at reimagining previously intractable patterns of behavior, belief, and relationship? How can other organizations develop this capacity? Warren’s writing on the concept of “positive institutional work” has appeared in leading academic and practitioner journals, including the Academy of Management Review and the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and he is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan. Warren continues to have a passion for connecting his academic research to practitioner-driven social initiatives and hasworked with and studied social purpose organizations in North America, South American, Europe,Africa, and South Asia. His current research investigates the interplay between love, high-quality connections and social innovation, drawing on interviews and organizational ethnographies from 10 countries. And he is also exploring the pedagogy of social fields by prototyping collective wellbeing courses with organizations in the U.S. and the Middle East.
At the University of Cape Town, Warren has served as the Director of the MPhil in Inclusive Innovation Program and the Co-Director of the Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellowship Program on Social Innovation, the latter in partnership with the Stockholm Resilience Center, the University of Victoria, and the University of Waterloo. He is also the Co-Director of the Institute for Collective Wellbeing in Wisconsin and the Co-Founder of Organization Unbound, a decade-long international community of inquiry and experimentation exploring how social purpose organizations can more closely align their internal practices and cultures with their external social change goals.
Prior to entering academia, Warren spent 10 years in the community development sector in Baltimore, Maryland. His academic journey then took him to Canada and South Africa. After 20 years living abroad, he recently returned home to the United States, where he grew up in a large adoptive family of 20 siblings and hundreds of foster siblings. He currently lives in Burlington, Vermont with his partner Tana Paddock.
Bio
Warren Nilsson is an Associate Professor of Social Innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and a Visiting lecturer at the University of Vermont Grossman School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in Management (Strategy and Organization) from McGill University, an MBA from the University of Baltimore, and a BA (College Scholar) from Cornell University.
Warren’s research focuses on organizational development for social innovation. He is particularly interested in the relationship between positive organizing and institutional transformation. Why are some organizations so good at reimagining previously intractable patterns of behavior, belief, and relationship? How can other organizations develop this capacity? Warren’s writing on the concept of “positive institutional work” has appeared in leading academic and practitioner journals, including the Academy of Management Review and the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and he is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan. Warren continues to have a passion for connecting his academic research to practitioner-driven social initiatives and hasworked with and studied social purpose organizations in North America, South American, Europe,Africa, and South Asia. His current research investigates the interplay between love, high-quality connections and social innovation, drawing on interviews and organizational ethnographies from 10 countries. And he is also exploring the pedagogy of social fields by prototyping collective wellbeing courses with organizations in the U.S. and the Middle East.
At the University of Cape Town, Warren has served as the Director of the MPhil in Inclusive Innovation Program and the Co-Director of the Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellowship Program on Social Innovation, the latter in partnership with the Stockholm Resilience Center, the University of Victoria, and the University of Waterloo. He is also the Co-Director of the Institute for Collective Wellbeing in Wisconsin and the Co-Founder of Organization Unbound, a decade-long international community of inquiry and experimentation exploring how social purpose organizations can more closely align their internal practices and cultures with their external social change goals.
Prior to entering academia, Warren spent 10 years in the community development sector in Baltimore, Maryland. His academic journey then took him to Canada and South Africa. After 20 years living abroad, he recently returned home to the United States, where he grew up in a large adoptive family of 20 siblings and hundreds of foster siblings. He currently lives in Burlington, Vermont with his partner Tana Paddock.