Birthe Soppe

Birthe Soppe is Associate Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Birthe’s research addresses, broadly speaking, the interface between business and society. Specific research areas include organization theory, institutional theory, and sustainability. Birthe examines organizational and institutional dynamics out of which moral markets emerge and evolve, novel forms of interorganizational collaboration during sustainability transitions, and how organizations cope with extraordinary societal challenges, including climate change. One of her current research projects focuses on how firms in fossil fuel industries respond to the grand challenge of climate change, including associated evaluation processes.

Birthe holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Regensburg. Prior to joining the University of Innsbruck, she has been a SCANCOR postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, and faculty member at the University of Oslo. Currently, she is Vice Director and Principal Investigator of the research centre INTRANSIT, hosted by the University of Oslo, with a focus on sustainability transformation, digitalization, and innovation policy. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, including Organization Studies, Research Policy, Strategic Organization, Industry & Innovation, and Journal of Small Business Management. Birthe Soppe serves as ad-hoc reviewer for several international journals and conferences and is regularly convenor or organizer of academic conferences and workshops. Birthe currently serves on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Management Reviews (IJMR) and Organization & Environment.

Academic Awards

• 2024: Winner of the Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices by the OMT Division of the 2024 Academy of Management Meeting
• 2024: Winner of the Best Conference Paper, GRONEN 2024
• 2019: Best Paper Proceedings of the 2019 Academy of Management Meeting, ONE Division
• 2015: Highly Commended Paper Award, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Emerald Publishing

Articles in refereed journals and proceedings

• Schupfer, H. & Soppe, B. (2024). Greening from within: the role of organizational purpose shift in building internal legitimacy for fossil fuel incumbents’ green innovation. Industry & Innovation, 1-24.
• Schupfer, H. & Soppe, B. (2024). Incumbents Under Pressure: Frame Inversion as Legitimacy Balancing Act During Issue Salience. Academy of Management Best Paper.
• Schupfer, H. & Soppe, B. (2023). Time will tell: Category reinvention as incumbent stigma management strategy in contested industries. Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings.
• Haşim, K., & Soppe, B. (2022). When entrepreneurs become custodians: Categories’ place-based identity and collective coping response in extreme contexts. Strategic Organization, 21(1), 186-216.
• Andersen, A.D, Steen, M., Mäkitie, T., Hanson, J., Thune, T. M., & Soppe, B. (2020). The role of inter-sectoral dynamics in sustainability transitions: A comment on the transitions research agenda. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Vol. 34, 348-351.
• Good, M., Knockaert, M., & Soppe, B. (2020). A typology of technology transfer ecosystems: How structure affects interactions at the science-market divide. Journal of Technology Transfer, 45, 1405-1431.
• Soppe, B. & Pershina, R. (2019). Melting icebergs vs. spectacularization: Storytelling of conflicting institutional demands in wildlife documentaries. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 65B, 85-106.
• Pershina, R., Soppe, B., & Thune, T.M. (2019). Bridging analog and digital expertise: Cross-domain collaboration and boundary-spanning tools in the creation of digital innovation. Research Policy, Vol. 48(9).
• Doblinger, C., Soppe, B., & Huber, S. (2019). Converging Logics: Coopetitive ties and innovation in the early clean transportation industry. Academy of Management Annual Meeting Best Paper Proceedings.
• Good, M., Knockaert, M., Soppe, B., & Wright, M. (2019). The technology transfer ecosystem in academia. An organizational design perspective. Technovation, Vol. 82-83, 35-50.
• Patala, S., Jalkala, A., Korpivaara, I., Kuitunen, A., & Soppe, B. (2019). Legitimacy under institutional change: How incumbents appropriate clean rhetoric for dirty technologies. Organization Studies, Vol. 40(3), 395-419.
• Pershina, R., Soppe, B., & Good, M. (2018). Friend or Foe? The adoption of Big Data in the creative industries. Academy of Management Global Proceedings, Vol. Surrey, No. 2018.
• Pershina, R. & Soppe, B. (2017). Let the games begin: Institutional complexity and the design of new products. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 54A, 219-254.
• Croidieu, G., Soppe, B., & Powell, W.W. (2017). Cru, Glue, and Status: How wine labels helped ennoble Bordeaux. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 54B, 37-69.
• Pietraszkiewicz, A., Soppe, B., & Formanowicz, M. (2017). Go pro bono: Prosocial language as a success factor in crowdfunding. Social Psychology, Vol. 48(5), 265-278.
• Lechner, C., Soppe, B., & Dowling, M. (2016). Vertical coopetition and the sales growth of young and small firms. Journal of Small Business Management, Vol. 54(1), 67-84.
• Soppe, B., Lechner, C., & Dowling, M. (2014). Vertical coopetiton in entrepreneurial firms: Theory and practice. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 21(4), 548-564.
• Doblinger, C. & Soppe, B. (2013). Change-actors in the U.S. electric energy system: The role of environmental groups in utility adoption and diffusion of wind power. Energy Policy, Vol. 61, 274–284.

Books and book chapters (selection)

• Pershina, R. & Soppe, B. (2020). Alone or in concert? Creative entrepreneurs and the role of multiple institutional logics in crowdfunding pitches. In: Strandgaard Pederson et al. (Eds), Technology and Creativity: Production, Mediation and Evaluation in the Digital Age, Palgrave, pp. 147-179. 
• Lechner, C., Soppe, B., & Heggli, K. (2019). Collaborating with larger partners: Benefits and risks for entrepreneurial firms. In: Reuer et al. (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Collaboration and Entrepreneurship, Oxford University Press, pp. 461-488.
• Arnold, N. & Soppe, B. (2017). From contention to mainstream: Valuing and institutionalizing moral products. In: Krücken et al. (Eds.), New Themes in Institutional Analysis: Topics and Issues from European Research, Edward Elgar, pp. 104-134.
• Powell, W.W. & Soppe, B. (2015). Boundaries and New Organization Forms. In: Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier, 2nd edition, Vol. 2., pp. 768–772.
• Burr, W., Stephan, M., Soppe, B., & Weisheit, S. (2007). Patentmanagement: Strategischer Einsatz und ökonomische Bewertung von technologischen Schutzrechten. Schäffer-Poeschel: Stuttgart, ISBN 3791025279, pp. 303.

Research interests

• Organizations (incumbents, entrepreneurs, forms of collective action) during sustainability transitions
• Organizational responses to climate change
• The emergence and evolution of moral markets
• Organizing in extreme contexts
• Interorganizational dynamics and relationships

Recent conference presentations (titles shortened due to peer review)

• Schupfer, H. & Soppe, B. (2024). Incumbents Balancing Act During Issue Salience. GRONEN [BS2] Research Conference, France.
• Kranzlmüller, D., & Soppe, B. (2024). Claiming spaces, creating free places: Female entrepreneurship in the oppressive environment of Afghanistan. 40th EGOS Colloquium, Italy.
• Schupfer, H. & Soppe, B. (2023). Time will tell: Category reinvention as incumbent stigma management strategy in contested industries. Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Boston, USA.
• Schiller-Merkens, S., Balsiger, P., & Soppe, B. (2023). Prefiguring alternative futures in times of crises: Moral market actors' real utopias during the COVID-19 pandemic. 39th EGOS Colloquium, Italy.
• Zoppelletto, A., Soppe, B., & Santini, E. (2023). Incumbents during sustainability transition: Balancing stability and change through incumbent-startup collaborations. 39th EGOS Colloquium, Italy.
• Haşim, K. & Soppe, B. (2022). The influence of emotions on entrepreneurial practices in disrupted contexts: Lived experiences of local entrepreneurs in Northern Cyprus. 38th EGOS Colloquium, Austria.
• Schupfer, H. & Soppe, B. (2022). In the limelight: Category reinvention as incumbent stigma prevention strategy during the growing climate crisis. 6th Alberta Institutions Conference, Alberta, Canada.
• Soppe, B. & Bohn, S. (2022). Accelerating vs. buffering markets for sustainability: A discursive comparative study of the market for electrical cars in Norway and Germany. GRONEN Research Conference, Amsterdam.

Research projects and third party funding

EUREGIO Program for Integrity and Best Practices in Management Research
The program, jointly organized by the University of Trento, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, and the University of Innsbruck, consists of three interconnected workshops designed to provide PhD students and early career scholars with essential training in research integrity and ethical publishing practices.

• Role: Co-organizer
• Duration: 2025
• Funding: EUREGIO Mobility Fund

INTRANSIT - Innovation Policy for Industrial Transformation, Sustainability and Digitalization

INSTRANSIT is a Research Centre for the study of innovation policy for industrial transformation, sustainability and digitalization. Research within the centre aims at understanding how industrial transformation towards a more sustainable and smarter economy can be fostered.

• Role: Centre Vice-Director and PI
• Duration: 2019-2026
• Funding: Norwegian Research Council

Futuring Sustainable Nordic Business Models (Futuring Nordics)

Interdisciplinary research project at the University of Oslo. The aim is to investigate the great challenges of globalization, digitalization, and sustainable development in the context of Nordic businesses.

• Duration: 2019-2022
• Funding: UiO: Nordic, University of Oslo

Current teaching portfolio

• Module "Introduction to Organizational Design" in the master-program Organization Studies
• Module "Organizational Learning" in the master-program Organization Studies
• Seminar "Research Colloquium for Master Thesis" in the master-program Organization Studies
• Module "Organizing for Sustainability", Wahlmodul in the master-program Organization Studies (with Kerstin Neumann)
• PhD-course "Qualitative Research Methods"

Previous courses

• Module "Digital Activism and Ethics" in the master-program Organization Studies (with Richard Weiskopf)
• Module "Betriebswirtschaftliches Denken und Management" in the bachelor-program Management and Economics (with Jürgen Huber)
• Seminar "Einführung in die Betriebswirtschaft" in the bachelor-program Management and Economics
• Module "Methods of Organizational Research" in the master-program Organization Studies

Organization of academic conferences and workshops (selection)

EUREGIO Program for Integrity and Best Practices in Management Research, 2025

The program, jointly organized by the University of Trento, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, and the University of Innsbruck, consists of three interconnected workshops designed to provide PhD students and early career scholars with essential training in research integrity and ethical publishing practices.

• Role: Co-organizer
• Duration: 2025
• Funding: EUREGIO Mobility Fund

Workshop on sustainable markets and innovation, 2024

• Role: Co-organizer, with C. Doblinger and S. Vedula (both TUM)

EGOS 2022 subtheme Markets for sustainability: Evolving challenges, imperfections, and trade-offs

• Role: Co-convenor, with P. Georgallis (University of Amsterdam) and S. Hiatt (University of Southern California)

EGOS 2020 subtheme Sustainability transitions: Bridging systems and organizational perspectives to tackle grand challenges

• Role: Co-convenor, with J. Markard (ETH Zurich) and T. M. Thune (University of Oslo)